American Pastoral
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Constant Reader
message 101:
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Mary Anne
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rated it 4 stars
Nov 17, 2008 06:29PM
Dick, your comments in #96 resonate with me. The erstwhile Mr. Z even notes that he has become something of a recluse like another famous author (Salinger?). Why did he even go to the reunion in the first place? And he didn't expect to run into Jerry. But he get's the low down on Swede's infamous daughter in Jerry's quick rant. And he also realizes that Jerry grew up so angry because everyone else, inluding Zuckerman idolized big brother.
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Dawn not just as a former beauty queen, but also her odd choice of working with the steers..
Al,
To me that was only because she wanted to get as far as possible from the hated stereotypical beauty queen persona she felt so trapped into.
Al,
To me that was only because she wanted to get as far as possible from the hated stereotypical beauty queen persona she felt so trapped into.
Pontalba:your quote from the book in #118 was right on, as is your point in #120. I just wanted to make sure Dawn was included in the "factors" influencing Merry.
Merry was nuttier than a fruitcake. Nuttiness has no reason.
Regarding the scene at the end of the novel of Merry walking home past all the flowers. There’s something Draculean about that. The equivalent of a vampire in a white nightgown bathed in moonlight coming to suck the blood out of you. The gothic vision of a flower child topping off the Summer of Love by dropping a stink bomb on her family. It didn’t strike me that way when I read it—I was wrapped up in the sadness of it—but it has a horror film quality. Also reminiscent of the Dawn of the Dead movies: a flesh-eating zombie escapes from Newark into the peaceful countryside. The scene also plays on the latent fear among the residents of this area that hoards of criminals from Newark will come out to loot their houses (always with racial overtones). Everyone wants to keep Newark at bay. It’s also interesting to me that two other people had widely divergent reactions to the Merry-go-home scene. Robt
Merry was nuttier than a fruitcake. Nuttiness has no reason.
I'm struck by the juxtaposition of "nutty" and "flower child" in Ruth's and Robert's successive posts. Perhaps that is close to the divide in how we here view Merry, and what her "causes" were.
I'm struck by the juxtaposition of "nutty" and "flower child" in Ruth's and Robert's successive posts. Perhaps that is close to the divide in how we here view Merry, and what her "causes" were.
Hi Steve,
No. It's worse than that, Sam. When I looked at the words I certainly remembered reading them. I just can't keep a million facts all in my head anymore. Sorry for hassling you.
And p402 Vintage for Thanksgiving as the American Pastoral.
But I have to add that it is castration that would make him a eunuch, not prostatectomy which I'm sure you know is very different in its physiology and its effects on the male. I don't think men who had prostate surgery would like being called eunuchs.
No. It's worse than that, Sam. When I looked at the words I certainly remembered reading them. I just can't keep a million facts all in my head anymore. Sorry for hassling you.
And p402 Vintage for Thanksgiving as the American Pastoral.
But I have to add that it is castration that would make him a eunuch, not prostatectomy which I'm sure you know is very different in its physiology and its effects on the male. I don't think men who had prostate surgery would like being called eunuchs.
Merry's "sensitivity" went further back even than two. Remember late in the book, we come to a scene of Merry as a crying infant--always crying. For three solid months. So there seemed to be something organic in her system that made her so overly sensitive to stimuli that she would rage at the world in the only way she knew. I think this scene serves the double purpose of getting us to know Merry's background, and of showing what her parents had to go through from the beginning. That early crying could have set Seymour up as the father who was always trying to soften the way for Merry, and for his eventual total sadness that none of his care and love had any noticeable affect. Isn't that, in a nutshell, what happens in most families? (Although, one would hope, these kinds of extremes are very rare.)
I think one is getting to see that Roth's scenes are very carefully crafted to tie into and further his overall story in very specific ways and that no scene or character can be ignored. Their non-linear presentation subliminally suggests an overall picture of disorder but I am more and more beginning to suspect that the story is very "tight." And that working at it hard enough will eventually produce a clear message from a coherent narrative.
Hahahaha. You're probably right, Russ. But it's Dick's fault. He used the word "eunuch" first.
Hahahah indeed, Steve! Told ya I can't keep a fact straight in my head. :)
Hahahah indeed, Steve! Told ya I can't keep a fact straight in my head. :)
What Sherry brought out in her post #127 is something I either missed somehow or completely forgot about. Not sure. :) But it is a wonderful detail and really if all of our posts on the subject were correlated wouldn't it make a case for nature over nurture, or the exact opposite? If Merry started out as a fussy baby, and something was wrong organically with her, could a different brand of nurturing have helped her? Did the nurturing she received hinder her development in any way?
I don't think we can know, we don't have enough true details to know anything besides her tragic end.
Her surroundings had to have some effect on her outcome, however if she had not been born with the unknown problem would it have had such a devastating effect? Probably not.
I don't think we can know, we don't have enough true details to know anything besides her tragic end.
Her surroundings had to have some effect on her outcome, however if she had not been born with the unknown problem would it have had such a devastating effect? Probably not.
In my defense I'd note that in addition to the technical medical definition, eunuch also carries the meaning of "lacking in virility or power". I'm no Zuckerman scholar, but if he doesn't associate sexual function with 'virility or power', I'll eat my tattered copy of Stedman's Medical Dictionary. But point taken on the distinction.And, speaking of quotes from the book, last night I was searching for a line where (if memory serves), Zuckerman says something like, "Of course, after my cancer and surgery I am nothing but a novelist now." I was interested in re-reading that portion to get a better handle on Zuckerman's view of himself as isolated and as a detached observer both professionally and as a direct result of his post-surgical loss of functionality which I've had some vague notion might have some signficance.
I never found that quote but did find this one that took the wind out of my sails about my own analytical prowess -- how smart do you have to be to come up with a view of the novel that the author gives you in black and white?
"So then...I am out there on the floor with Joy and I am thinking of the Swede and of what happened to his country in a mere twenty-five years, between the triumphant days at wartime Weequahic High and the explosion of his daughter's bomb in 1968, of that mysterious, troubling, extraordinary historical transition. I am thinking of the sixties and of the disorder occasioned by the Vietnam War, of how certain families lost their kids and certain families didn't and how the Seymour Levovs were of those that did -- families full of tolerance and kindly, well-intentioned liberal goodwill, and theirs were the kids who went on a rampage, or went to jail, or disappeared underground, or fled to Sweden or Canada. I imagined that it was founded on some failure of his own responsibility. There is where it must begin. It doesn't matter if he was the cause of anything. He makes himself responsible anyway. He has been doing that all his life making himself unnaturally responsible, keeping under control not just himself but whatever else threatens to be uncontrollable, giving his all to keep his world together. Yes, the cause of the disaster has for him to be a transgression, a single transgression, even if it is only he who identifies it as a transgression. The disaster that befalls him begins in a failure of his responsibility, as he imagines it.
But what could that have been?
Dispelling the aura of the dinner at Vincent's, when I'd rushed to conclude the most thoughtless conclusion -- that simple was that simple -- I lifted onto my stage the boy we were all going to follow into America, our point man into the next immersion, at home here the way the Wasps were at home here, an American not by sheer striving, not by being a Jew who invents a famous vaccine or a Jew on the Supreme Court, not by being the most brilliant or the most eminent or the best. Instead -- by virtue of his isomorphism to the Wasp world -- he does it the ordinary way, the natural way, the regular American-guy way. To the honeysweet strains of "Dream" I pulled away from myself, pulled away from the reunion, and I dreamed...I dreamed a realistic chronicle.
pps. 88-89, Vintage paperback edition.
I mean, geez, Dick, just read the book. This author won't fool you. He'll tell you what he's doing.
I wish this site recognized the more common html tags -- it doesn't seem to like and now it doesn't like . Is there a primer somewhere of what it will take?
I'm amused a little at how times change. And perhaps the more they change the more they are the same.
To hear now that we of the 50's were "good fifties liberal parents" sounds so strange after all the berating that has been heaped on the generation. And to hear Dr. Spock described as "permissive" seems almost to be a huge mistake, when I see the permissiveness that characterizes parent-child relations these days in the current generation.
It is not that I take particular issue with such characterizations, because, yes, I have always been a classic liberal in a generation that has, to its credit, accomplished passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And I am personally proud to have been part of those landmark events. Since then, however, there have been hard times and many epithets for us kind of liberals.
I have always thought of Dr. Spock as reasonably conservative in terms of parents setting expectations and guidelines for their children. At least that is how we read him in our family and it worked out. He seems conservative to me, especially when compared to even more modern parents than we were, who now dote and admire and foster every action and activity of their child as "creativity" and "expressiveness" that we would have thought out of bounds.
So, I guess the ponderous truism from that personal rant is that we each see American Pastoral through our own eyes, against no fixed standards and with very few common expectations.
To hear now that we of the 50's were "good fifties liberal parents" sounds so strange after all the berating that has been heaped on the generation. And to hear Dr. Spock described as "permissive" seems almost to be a huge mistake, when I see the permissiveness that characterizes parent-child relations these days in the current generation.
It is not that I take particular issue with such characterizations, because, yes, I have always been a classic liberal in a generation that has, to its credit, accomplished passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And I am personally proud to have been part of those landmark events. Since then, however, there have been hard times and many epithets for us kind of liberals.
I have always thought of Dr. Spock as reasonably conservative in terms of parents setting expectations and guidelines for their children. At least that is how we read him in our family and it worked out. He seems conservative to me, especially when compared to even more modern parents than we were, who now dote and admire and foster every action and activity of their child as "creativity" and "expressiveness" that we would have thought out of bounds.
So, I guess the ponderous truism from that personal rant is that we each see American Pastoral through our own eyes, against no fixed standards and with very few common expectations.
Dick, I think angle-bracketed b will do it, with the analogous angle-bracketed /b at the end, like this.
Thanks. Anybody know how blockquotes works around here? That's a handy one if you're dealing with literature.
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There is a "some html OK" link at the bottom of this page.
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There is a "some html OK" link at the bottom of this page.
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trying again to see if I get an indent
which I do not.
Thanks for that quote, Dick. My own story has a slight parallel to American Pastoral in that I’m a gay offspring of evangelical parents thereby ending their American dream. When I brought Peter (my partner) home that was a kind of a bomb. Thirty years later they still can’t stand him. I have a good relationship with my folks, though. We have really worked at it. There’s a novel there, too, if I would only finish the damn thing.
Robt
Not to worry too much, Robert. Loads of us oldsters loathe our het sons- and daughters-in-law, too.
I've been fascinated by several aspects of the dramatic structure of American Pastoral.
First of all, the story is built around a genuine protagonist and a genuine antagonist, (just as Shakespeares Othello, for example, features Othello and Iago in conflict). For whatever reason, I have not read many novels lately with dramatic conflicts between two major characters. Protagonists against life, or circumstances, yes, but protagonists against a well-defined human antagonist, not many, and none that come too recently to mind.
Second, I frequently try to see if a classical 5-part dramatic structure fits the story, and frequently enough one can parse the story quite readily that way (into Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Ending). With two major characters in dramatic conflict, it gets more intricate because, as we'll soon see, each character may be following a different story arc in terms of dramatic events within their own life. So the overall story can become a working out of the tensions of these opposing and out-of-sync dramatic arcs.
Third, this novel is a story of loss and grieving, so the 5-stages of grieving established by Kubler-Ross come to mind (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance), and the extent to which they may couple into the overall dramatic structure becomes of interest. These provide two additional story arcs for gaining insight into the story -- Swede's grieving, and Merry's grieving.
To cut to the chase, I think it is fair to say that the detonation of the bomb marks the dramatic highlight of Merry's story arc, and the departure of Swede, when she asks him to leave, marks the dramatic turning point in his own life. The interval from the bombing to his departure would neatly bracket the beginning and end of an Act 3, the climax of the story if viewed as a stage play. Between those two events, the protagonist encounters and fends off Rita and then encounters Merry to resolve the major issue of their relationship.
Switching to Merry for the moment, her grieving begins when the bomb goes off and she loses both her previous life and her future as well. Her grief cysle is largely hidden because she is on the run, but she seems to be in complete acceptance of her situation, and her destitute future, when Swede encounters her. She has reached the final stage of grieving -- acceptance. Swede, on the other hand, is quite likely still mired in depression when he encounters Merry.
At the final moment of Act 3 when she asks him to leave, she does it with the full inner calm provided by her acceptance of her grief, and is able to prevail over him as he is bewildered how to proceed in his depression. So he leaves and she has won the climactic dramatic encounter. Her life apparently continues through its falling action, to her easily projected demise. Swede's life now enters a phase of falling dramatic action too, but it may be that, at that exact moment, he transitions into the beginning of grieving acceptance that she is gone forever. So I think one might argue that their different relative stages in their grieving are what tip the dramatic scales in favor of Merry in their dramatic encounter.
So far I do think the stages of the story fit that analysis, once the nonlinear timeline is straightened out using Swede's life as the sequential time reference for events.
First of all, the story is built around a genuine protagonist and a genuine antagonist, (just as Shakespeares Othello, for example, features Othello and Iago in conflict). For whatever reason, I have not read many novels lately with dramatic conflicts between two major characters. Protagonists against life, or circumstances, yes, but protagonists against a well-defined human antagonist, not many, and none that come too recently to mind.
Second, I frequently try to see if a classical 5-part dramatic structure fits the story, and frequently enough one can parse the story quite readily that way (into Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Ending). With two major characters in dramatic conflict, it gets more intricate because, as we'll soon see, each character may be following a different story arc in terms of dramatic events within their own life. So the overall story can become a working out of the tensions of these opposing and out-of-sync dramatic arcs.
Third, this novel is a story of loss and grieving, so the 5-stages of grieving established by Kubler-Ross come to mind (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance), and the extent to which they may couple into the overall dramatic structure becomes of interest. These provide two additional story arcs for gaining insight into the story -- Swede's grieving, and Merry's grieving.
To cut to the chase, I think it is fair to say that the detonation of the bomb marks the dramatic highlight of Merry's story arc, and the departure of Swede, when she asks him to leave, marks the dramatic turning point in his own life. The interval from the bombing to his departure would neatly bracket the beginning and end of an Act 3, the climax of the story if viewed as a stage play. Between those two events, the protagonist encounters and fends off Rita and then encounters Merry to resolve the major issue of their relationship.
Switching to Merry for the moment, her grieving begins when the bomb goes off and she loses both her previous life and her future as well. Her grief cysle is largely hidden because she is on the run, but she seems to be in complete acceptance of her situation, and her destitute future, when Swede encounters her. She has reached the final stage of grieving -- acceptance. Swede, on the other hand, is quite likely still mired in depression when he encounters Merry.
At the final moment of Act 3 when she asks him to leave, she does it with the full inner calm provided by her acceptance of her grief, and is able to prevail over him as he is bewildered how to proceed in his depression. So he leaves and she has won the climactic dramatic encounter. Her life apparently continues through its falling action, to her easily projected demise. Swede's life now enters a phase of falling dramatic action too, but it may be that, at that exact moment, he transitions into the beginning of grieving acceptance that she is gone forever. So I think one might argue that their different relative stages in their grieving are what tip the dramatic scales in favor of Merry in their dramatic encounter.
So far I do think the stages of the story fit that analysis, once the nonlinear timeline is straightened out using Swede's life as the sequential time reference for events.
No, now I'm starting analyzing the front cover of my edition."One of Roth's most powerful novels ever....Moving, generous and ambitious....A fiercely effecting work of art." -- Michael Kakutani, The New York Times
Now I didn't go to the Matchbook Cover School of Famous Literary Criticism, but where the heck do you learn to write like that? And 'generous'? I mean, I can sort of buy into 'moving' and any halfway serious book published in America since Vietnam definitionally has to be at least a little 'ambitious' just to compete with R. Crumb and the advent of the graphic novel. But 'generous'? What could that even mean? Maybe they put the wrong quote on the cover of my book.
Russ, that was all so rational and well thought out, but I'm pretty much in agreement with Ruth in message 122 - nuttier than a fruitcake. Sane people just don't react the same way that Zuckerman/Roth imagines Merry acting. Look at real Weathermen - extremists, yes, but way more sane than Merry.I really didn't see this as a classical protagonist/antagonist story. Could you elaborate?
And, Dick, most of the time I don't think that the people who write the blurbs have even read the book.
I can't go along with "nuttier than a fruitcake", first because although Merry exhibited stubbornness she wasn't mean or irrational that we were shown,until of course the bombing. She was passionate about others in pain...the monks and her blame fell on LBJ and the government mostly because of her grandfather's diatribes against Johnson. From what I could gather of her NYC meetings it seems the ones she met had to be the ones that steered her to the bombing, and her youth and impressionability was used by them in the worst way possible.
Her parents didn't seem to know how to control her, gave in to her at every turn not providing the discipline she so desperately needed.
Second reason I don't consider her 'nuttier than a fruitcake is because if she was truly that way I don't think she could have exhibited the true remorse and inflicted the self punishment she did at the end. Again. Misguided and passionate, but not crazy.
So, I'd term her misguided, passionate, overly sensitive [too much so for her own good:], and neglected.
Her parents didn't seem to know how to control her, gave in to her at every turn not providing the discipline she so desperately needed.
Second reason I don't consider her 'nuttier than a fruitcake is because if she was truly that way I don't think she could have exhibited the true remorse and inflicted the self punishment she did at the end. Again. Misguided and passionate, but not crazy.
So, I'd term her misguided, passionate, overly sensitive [too much so for her own good:], and neglected.
Pontalba,I’ll respectfully disagree and weigh in with nutty. Four deaths by bombing underscores Merry’s derangement and criminality. The plain Jain thing was weird in the extreme. I hold Merry responsible for her actions and not her parents. There’s something about Merry that ain’t right.
Robt
I really didn't see this as a classical protagonist/antagonist story. Could you elaborate?
Well Wilhelmina, maybe it isn't, since I'm not up on lit. crit. by any means, nor am I any sort of lit major. But here are my reasons, quickly summarized without going back and doing a lot of page flipping for citation and documentation. If there is a reference for a classical protagonist/antagonist story I sure would like to see it. I'm sure there is and you must know it, judging from your question.
I see Swede pretty much as a solitary protagonist up against quite relentless criticism all the way through the book, who insists on sticking with his own integrity and way of proceeding. He goes to Hebrew school but "frankly was never interested in any of that stuff." His father is emphatically opposed to his marriage to a "shiksa" but he goes ahead anyway. When Sylvia Levov, his mother, asks if he will ask Dawn to convert, he asks how he can ask her to convert when he himself doesn't believe any of that stuff (his phrasing, not mine). Jerry heaps vitriolic scorn on him for his love and tolerance of Merry, telling him that it is finally a good thing that the monster is dead. Jerry mocks him by calling him "gentle giant" at one point. When his wife questions the advisability of moving out to the old line Protestant bastion of (anti-semitic) Old Rimrock, his response is that he really believes that if he treats people fairly and with respect they will treat him fairly and with respect in return, and he resettles his family out there. In his factory he believes he is doing right by his employess but has to withstand the absolutely withering scorn of both Rita and Merry. In fact I believe that, even in extremis, he allows Merry to remain in her hovel because he believes in her right of free choice and self-integrity and that it would be unthinkable to overrule her. In short he is his own man determined to live a life of integrity despite criticism from virtually every other charater in the book. I think it was Jerry who said "he just takes it and takes it."
Merry as antagonist stems largely from her opposition to him, beginning in adolescence during that memorable series of conversations, and her oppostion to him during their meeting in her hovel where she really did come out opposed to what he "was," an oppressive capitalist etc etc. She was the antagonist to his wanting her to grow up more compatibly with his wishes for her (never explicity spelled out), probably "nice" would be the word, I suppose. So I see the crucial antagonism as her wanting to live her life in accordance with her own (revolutionary) wishes and ideals, and to be free of her family's control and expectations. In more temperate form they would be no more than the standard separation issues from one's family that all adolescents and families have to grow through.
Within that framework, Swede and Merry are the two central characters in the novel and the novel is their story in my view. All the rest are a surrounding Greek chorus as I see it. They are there to comment, berate, criticize and argue with the two principals, while the two principals fight out their personal conflict in center stage. To deliberately overstate it, I think the Vietnam and Newark race-riots are just background story -- if not merely stage scenery -- and all the rest of the characters beyond Dawn, Lou and Jerry are walking talking paper-thin spear-carriers, each with an attitude or viewpoint to symbolize or project at the right time in the story.
[And if that all doesn't generate comment, nothing will :) :) :) Perhaps I should have hired my own Zuckerman to say it.]
Well Wilhelmina, maybe it isn't, since I'm not up on lit. crit. by any means, nor am I any sort of lit major. But here are my reasons, quickly summarized without going back and doing a lot of page flipping for citation and documentation. If there is a reference for a classical protagonist/antagonist story I sure would like to see it. I'm sure there is and you must know it, judging from your question.
I see Swede pretty much as a solitary protagonist up against quite relentless criticism all the way through the book, who insists on sticking with his own integrity and way of proceeding. He goes to Hebrew school but "frankly was never interested in any of that stuff." His father is emphatically opposed to his marriage to a "shiksa" but he goes ahead anyway. When Sylvia Levov, his mother, asks if he will ask Dawn to convert, he asks how he can ask her to convert when he himself doesn't believe any of that stuff (his phrasing, not mine). Jerry heaps vitriolic scorn on him for his love and tolerance of Merry, telling him that it is finally a good thing that the monster is dead. Jerry mocks him by calling him "gentle giant" at one point. When his wife questions the advisability of moving out to the old line Protestant bastion of (anti-semitic) Old Rimrock, his response is that he really believes that if he treats people fairly and with respect they will treat him fairly and with respect in return, and he resettles his family out there. In his factory he believes he is doing right by his employess but has to withstand the absolutely withering scorn of both Rita and Merry. In fact I believe that, even in extremis, he allows Merry to remain in her hovel because he believes in her right of free choice and self-integrity and that it would be unthinkable to overrule her. In short he is his own man determined to live a life of integrity despite criticism from virtually every other charater in the book. I think it was Jerry who said "he just takes it and takes it."
Merry as antagonist stems largely from her opposition to him, beginning in adolescence during that memorable series of conversations, and her oppostion to him during their meeting in her hovel where she really did come out opposed to what he "was," an oppressive capitalist etc etc. She was the antagonist to his wanting her to grow up more compatibly with his wishes for her (never explicity spelled out), probably "nice" would be the word, I suppose. So I see the crucial antagonism as her wanting to live her life in accordance with her own (revolutionary) wishes and ideals, and to be free of her family's control and expectations. In more temperate form they would be no more than the standard separation issues from one's family that all adolescents and families have to grow through.
Within that framework, Swede and Merry are the two central characters in the novel and the novel is their story in my view. All the rest are a surrounding Greek chorus as I see it. They are there to comment, berate, criticize and argue with the two principals, while the two principals fight out their personal conflict in center stage. To deliberately overstate it, I think the Vietnam and Newark race-riots are just background story -- if not merely stage scenery -- and all the rest of the characters beyond Dawn, Lou and Jerry are walking talking paper-thin spear-carriers, each with an attitude or viewpoint to symbolize or project at the right time in the story.
[And if that all doesn't generate comment, nothing will :) :) :) Perhaps I should have hired my own Zuckerman to say it.]
If she is responsible for her actions then I don't think one can call her nutty. I don't think an insanity defense would save her from a murder conviction, for example.
I’ll respectfully disagree and weigh in with nutty. Four deaths by bombing underscores Merry’s derangement and criminality. The plain Jain thing was weird in the extreme. I hold Merry responsible for her actions and not her parents. There’s something about Merry that ain’t right.
Robert, You could be right, I do however stick with my post and say that I think she was used and misguided. Yes the Jainism was extreme, but I felt that it's very extremism only underscored her complete remorse. She punished herself far more severely than any court would have. In prison she'd have had clean clothes and a fairly clean environment, at the least it wouldn't have been rat infested. She didn't want that, she wanted to die for having killed however many she had blown up.
Yes she was a criminal even with the initial bombing, but as for the other three, I'm not sure that was verified and if it was I'd have to say that something akin to brainwashing was used on her.
She was in a great deal of pain, and I hate to see that minimized.
Robert, You could be right, I do however stick with my post and say that I think she was used and misguided. Yes the Jainism was extreme, but I felt that it's very extremism only underscored her complete remorse. She punished herself far more severely than any court would have. In prison she'd have had clean clothes and a fairly clean environment, at the least it wouldn't have been rat infested. She didn't want that, she wanted to die for having killed however many she had blown up.
Yes she was a criminal even with the initial bombing, but as for the other three, I'm not sure that was verified and if it was I'd have to say that something akin to brainwashing was used on her.
She was in a great deal of pain, and I hate to see that minimized.
If she is responsible for her actions then I don't think one can call her nutty. I don't think an insanity defense would save her from a murder conviction, for example.
Russ,
There is no way a lawyer would have gotten her off on an insanity plea. IMO
Even if they couldn't prove the three deaths she confessed to her father they'd have convicted her on the doctor at the post office bombing.
Russ,
There is no way a lawyer would have gotten her off on an insanity plea. IMO
Even if they couldn't prove the three deaths she confessed to her father they'd have convicted her on the doctor at the post office bombing.
Russ,I buy the protagonist/antagonist structure. Thanks for putting all of that out.
As for nutty, I think one can be plenty nutty without being psychotic.
Robt
Speaking just as a lawyer I was kind of struck at how little evidence was ever put forward that Merry had actually done any of the bombings. Really, there is only Jerry's word about that and it is limited to the post offce.. All the follow-on material, including the conversation about deaths two through four, and the post-bombing flight to the shrink's house and hiding out there are all Zuckerman's invention insofar as we can tell.Indeed, all her nuttiness except for Jerry's few comments appear to be the product of Zuckerman's invention. So, far from being able to conclude that a lawyer couldn't have successfully defended her on grounds of insanity I don't think we're even in a position to say with any certainty that charges could have been brought in the first place, or a conviction obtained based on what appears to be 'true' from the novel's perspective.
Not that I haven't had to deal with juries with as vivid an imagination as Zuckerman's.
Robert,
Thanks.
As to how nutty is nutty, it is a sure thing she wasn't at home baking cookies. But she wan't mentally ill either I wouldn't say. But saying more than that seems to be part of the same question we haven't really settled. "Why did she become that way?" And what way is it that she became anyway? Along with Pontalba I think she was impressionable and misguided and 'acting out' an image of herself opposing the government, perhaps for recognition by some actual or imaginary peer 'approval group' of Weathermen. She felt her bombing would be viewed as "good," in some appropriate quarters, I imagine. But I'm just really guessing.
Thanks.
As to how nutty is nutty, it is a sure thing she wasn't at home baking cookies. But she wan't mentally ill either I wouldn't say. But saying more than that seems to be part of the same question we haven't really settled. "Why did she become that way?" And what way is it that she became anyway? Along with Pontalba I think she was impressionable and misguided and 'acting out' an image of herself opposing the government, perhaps for recognition by some actual or imaginary peer 'approval group' of Weathermen. She felt her bombing would be viewed as "good," in some appropriate quarters, I imagine. But I'm just really guessing.
Michiko -- sorry, reading in dim light on a wine red cover. I have heard unkind words about her from time to time but have no opinion beyond my puzzlement about the cover quote.She's traveling in appropriate company, however. The Boston Globe (apparently the entire newspaper) had this to say on the back cover:
"Dazzling....A wrenching, compassionate, intelligent novel....Gorgeous."
In comparison, you can see why the San Francisco Chronicle is considered a decidedly second rate paper:
"At once expansive and painstakingly detailed....The pages of American Pastoral crackle with the electricity and zest of a first-rate mind."
I mean, who would even want to pick it up after a tepid review like that? If I can't have compassionate and generous in my novels, I'll just watch television.
“Why did she become that way?” And what way is it that she became anyway? Russ2I find Merry’s transition to terrorist a mystery. It’s as though Roth wants to explore: what if your child becomes a terrorist and there’s not an adequate explanation for it? You can point to this or that influence or predisposition but other teenagers with similar situations wouldn’t set off a bomb over it. The extremity of Merry’s actions aren’t really merited given her circumstances and I think that’s the scenario Roth sets up. Part of what tortures the Swede and Dawn is not being able to find the cause.
Robt
Dick, with material like that you could be a stand-up comedian. You are hilarious. :)
I should probably wait until daylight when I can leaf through the pages of the novel, but the keyboard is here and so am I, so here are some stray thoughts of a sleepless night. Perhaps deliberately provocative just to try them on for size.
I've been wondering again what the novel is "about."
Vietnam War? Not really. We notice it because it motivates Merry's bombing, but only Lou and Merry talk about it. No one else does.
Newark Race riot? Nah. Ohly Lou and Swede talk about that, because it drove Newark Maid off-shore finally. No one else is concerned.
Anti-Semitism? Some. But only involving the Orcutts and earning Lou a fork in the face.
Anti-Catholicism. Some. But just mainly in that skin-shriveling interview of Dawn by Lou.
Protestant Snobbiness. Some. The Orcutts.
Beauty Pageants. More. Interesting behind-the-scenes looks and attitudes.
Gloves. Quite a bit. But mostly space-filling.
Raising children. You bet. Merry's stuttering and quirky behavior always there when she is..
Parental agony. You bet. Mainly Swede but Dawn also earns a nervous breakdown.
Weathermen. Yes. But only through Merry. No one else is upset by the turmoil, and there are no other Weathermen in sight. Maybe Rita, one other.
So I think the scorecard tells us that the book is either about "parental agony" or, if not that, then a general mixture of American "issues." The American "berserk" as Roth/Zuckerman calls it. Or both.
So perhaps the book is about "America" in the late 60's -- a wide angle snapshot -- if it isn't about Swede and Merry.
Just casting about for an answer. Inquiring minds want to know. But I think I still vote for Swede and Merry.
I should probably wait until daylight when I can leaf through the pages of the novel, but the keyboard is here and so am I, so here are some stray thoughts of a sleepless night. Perhaps deliberately provocative just to try them on for size.
I've been wondering again what the novel is "about."
Vietnam War? Not really. We notice it because it motivates Merry's bombing, but only Lou and Merry talk about it. No one else does.
Newark Race riot? Nah. Ohly Lou and Swede talk about that, because it drove Newark Maid off-shore finally. No one else is concerned.
Anti-Semitism? Some. But only involving the Orcutts and earning Lou a fork in the face.
Anti-Catholicism. Some. But just mainly in that skin-shriveling interview of Dawn by Lou.
Protestant Snobbiness. Some. The Orcutts.
Beauty Pageants. More. Interesting behind-the-scenes looks and attitudes.
Gloves. Quite a bit. But mostly space-filling.
Raising children. You bet. Merry's stuttering and quirky behavior always there when she is..
Parental agony. You bet. Mainly Swede but Dawn also earns a nervous breakdown.
Weathermen. Yes. But only through Merry. No one else is upset by the turmoil, and there are no other Weathermen in sight. Maybe Rita, one other.
So I think the scorecard tells us that the book is either about "parental agony" or, if not that, then a general mixture of American "issues." The American "berserk" as Roth/Zuckerman calls it. Or both.
So perhaps the book is about "America" in the late 60's -- a wide angle snapshot -- if it isn't about Swede and Merry.
Just casting about for an answer. Inquiring minds want to know. But I think I still vote for Swede and Merry.
". . . You can point to this or that influence or predisposition but other teenagers with similar situations wouldn’t set off a bomb over it. . . . Part of what tortures the Swede and Dawn is not being able to find the cause."
Very convincing, Robert. Well said!
Very convincing, Robert. Well said!
Robert, your points remind me exactly what it was like back in those days. There were plenty of smart kids who did themselves in by dropping acid or just plain dropping out. And many sets of parents who beat themselves up over what went wrong with their child.I'm sorry to keep going back to Zuckerman's speech, but I feel like the entire story that Zuckerman imagines for Swede is like so many others of that time. Of course, not everyone turned out to have such terrible things happen in their families. But some did. And in some of those cases, you never know why.
I find Merry’s transition to terrorist a mystery. It’s as though Roth wants to explore: what if your child becomes a terrorist and there’s not an adequate explanation for it? You can point to this or that influence or predisposition but other teenagers with similar situations wouldn’t set off a bomb over it. The extremity of Merry’s actions aren’t really merited given her circumstances and I think that’s the scenario Roth sets up. Part of what tortures the Swede and Dawn is not being able to find the cause.
All of the above!
I keep thinking that we can't find the reason because we as readers were not given enough material to work with, but logically speaking Dawn and Swede were, and should have had the answer, or at least a good idea, but they are clueless, except for Swede immediately blaming himself on account of The Kiss. I capitalize it only because that is the way Swede thought of it. Could it have been some sort of turning point for Merry? He does mention pulling back emotionally from her afterwards, supposedly only to reassure her of his meaning never to do it again. But he was her emotional support system and it had to affect her.
Not the kiss itself, but his emotional withdrawal.
All of the above!
I keep thinking that we can't find the reason because we as readers were not given enough material to work with, but logically speaking Dawn and Swede were, and should have had the answer, or at least a good idea, but they are clueless, except for Swede immediately blaming himself on account of The Kiss. I capitalize it only because that is the way Swede thought of it. Could it have been some sort of turning point for Merry? He does mention pulling back emotionally from her afterwards, supposedly only to reassure her of his meaning never to do it again. But he was her emotional support system and it had to affect her.
Not the kiss itself, but his emotional withdrawal.
Pontalba,
You point to yet another clue.
That Kiss certainly stands out in the book. It happens early, as soon as Zuckerman starts dreaming his "realistic chronicle" and he sticks it right in the reader's eye. In Freudian terms, the father-daughter relationship is certainly one of the significant ones as the daughter competes with the mother for the father's affections. Unfortunately Zuckerman immediately shows Swede's reactions and not Merry's. I think Freud would think it fair to say that if Merry sensed any of her father's reaction as rejection by him then it would have devastating effects on her, exactly as you suggest. However, Zuckerman leaves us to our own thoughts. Just as, incidentally, he leaves us to wonder about her stuttering. Roth provides tantalizing clues; he just never explains them. He has his characters argue about them, instead, thereby setting one of the major tones of the book.
So, a few pages later we find Merry driving Dawn straight up the wall -- Merry in full battle against her Freudian competitor -- and then Dawn and Swede wondering exactly about how to handle their rebellious daughter. Dawn is at wits end, and Swede is counseling patience. Perhaps that three-way of Merry in rebellion, Dawn in despair, and Swede counseling patience captures the story in a nutshell. Freud or no.
You point to yet another clue.
That Kiss certainly stands out in the book. It happens early, as soon as Zuckerman starts dreaming his "realistic chronicle" and he sticks it right in the reader's eye. In Freudian terms, the father-daughter relationship is certainly one of the significant ones as the daughter competes with the mother for the father's affections. Unfortunately Zuckerman immediately shows Swede's reactions and not Merry's. I think Freud would think it fair to say that if Merry sensed any of her father's reaction as rejection by him then it would have devastating effects on her, exactly as you suggest. However, Zuckerman leaves us to our own thoughts. Just as, incidentally, he leaves us to wonder about her stuttering. Roth provides tantalizing clues; he just never explains them. He has his characters argue about them, instead, thereby setting one of the major tones of the book.
So, a few pages later we find Merry driving Dawn straight up the wall -- Merry in full battle against her Freudian competitor -- and then Dawn and Swede wondering exactly about how to handle their rebellious daughter. Dawn is at wits end, and Swede is counseling patience. Perhaps that three-way of Merry in rebellion, Dawn in despair, and Swede counseling patience captures the story in a nutshell. Freud or no.
What I wondered about, was why Rita Cohen so desperately wanted to have sex with Seymour. She said that it was what Merry wanted. Maybe Rita had been a confidante at one time or another and sensed that Merry "wanted Daddy" in more ways than one. She was assuming the surrogate position. I don't think I have ever read anything quite like that sexual terrorism scene. Rita obviously was a scam artist, but I still can't understand the why of that "seduction."
Hi Sherry,
They sure don't write novels any more the way they used to, do they?
I think it would have been Swede's utter destruction if he had given in, and that's what she was after. At the minimum he would have been consumed by personal shame ever afterward, and she would have shown him that he was not the respectable person of integrity that he thought he was. But beyond the psychological victory, which would have provided a hold over him, I think she was clearly angling to set up a blackmail situation to milk him forever. He would never have escaped her after that. And, just as a coldly practical matter, from her point of view, he would have become a source of funding to fuel the revolution, which may have been why he and his wealth were targeted in the first place.
I think Joel Grey said it best in Cabaret: "Money! Money! Money!"
They sure don't write novels any more the way they used to, do they?
I think it would have been Swede's utter destruction if he had given in, and that's what she was after. At the minimum he would have been consumed by personal shame ever afterward, and she would have shown him that he was not the respectable person of integrity that he thought he was. But beyond the psychological victory, which would have provided a hold over him, I think she was clearly angling to set up a blackmail situation to milk him forever. He would never have escaped her after that. And, just as a coldly practical matter, from her point of view, he would have become a source of funding to fuel the revolution, which may have been why he and his wealth were targeted in the first place.
I think Joel Grey said it best in Cabaret: "Money! Money! Money!"
I just can't take Rita seriously as a character. I just see her as one more invention by Zuckerman/Roth to knock Swede off his pedestal. I see the kiss in the same way. In fact, I suppose that is why I asked Russ about the protagonist/antagonist view of the story. To me, the whole story seems to spring from Zuckerman's need to find the fatal flaw in Swede, as mentioned before. Swede is the golden boy, in more ways than one. I found it interesting that Roth made him as un-Jewish a Jewish person as you could find, right down to his nickname. To me, this says more about Roth than anything else.Merry doesn't strike me as a fully developed antagonist, because her actions seem less directed at Swede than just bursting out of her anger and delusion. We're told how smart she is, but she can't see the pointlessness of bombing a postal outlet, as opposed to, say, Dow Chemical? We're told that she is sensitive, but she kills the beloved local doctor and goes on to bomb others without missing a beat? An Iago-like antagonist daughter wouldn't come flying into Daddy's arms when she saw him after all those years. She would spew ugliness about the Capitalist Pig tracking her down and disappeared.
Nor is this, to me, similar to what families went through in the '60s. It's way, way over the top. Look at old Weather Underground people today - they're on PBS documentaries! They are community activists! They are Republicans, for goodness sake! They didn't renounce life, like Merry did. Zuckerman painted the worst picture imaginable as the cause of the downfall of Swede. It didn't have to be logical, reasonable, or consistent.
Sorry, just read Russ' comment below.This wasn't a real seduction - she did everything possible to be repulsive to him. I don't claim to be a seduction expert, but if she really wanted him to have sex with her, she could have played the sweet little girl that Merry used to be all grown up. I'll bet that there isn't one man on CR who would have fallen for the disgusting seduction. The only person who was served in this scene was Zuckerman/Roth, who, as we are told, made it up.
I called Merry nutty mostly because we can't find the reason for her behavior. Mental illness does not respond to reason.Merry was born screaming, with the skin off her. No protection between her and the world. Right from the beginning she overreacted to everything. It just gradually got worse until her feet left earthbound reason completely.
She was seriously misbalanced at the time of the bombings. But by the time Swede found her again the Merry he knew was gone into a parallel world where reason did not apply.
I wanted him to drag her off to the nearest mental hospital.
Wilhelmina,
I like your close analysis of the inconsistencies inherent in viewing Merry as an antagonist.
I would have said that all the characters in the novel are utterly believable. I have known many of them personally, in fact, just as I know in fact the physical places spoken about. They walk like, they talk like, they look like actual people and places I have come across. So I guess you are saying "Whoa there! Not so fast! They are not all realistic!" and that I shouldn't be swept along too readily by the fictionist's art.
Point taken. Thank you. So now to wonder why Roth makes the caricatures the way they are.
Re Weathermen over the top. I thought some of them carried machine guns and murdered people and were gunned down in a famous shoot out in Los Angeles. Or were they Black Panthers? I guess I should use google as my friend. But either way, extremism was not unknown among the counter-cultural people, and its presence in the novel not too far at variance with at least a part of reality it seems to me.
But, still, your point well taken re Merry.
I like your close analysis of the inconsistencies inherent in viewing Merry as an antagonist.
I would have said that all the characters in the novel are utterly believable. I have known many of them personally, in fact, just as I know in fact the physical places spoken about. They walk like, they talk like, they look like actual people and places I have come across. So I guess you are saying "Whoa there! Not so fast! They are not all realistic!" and that I shouldn't be swept along too readily by the fictionist's art.
Point taken. Thank you. So now to wonder why Roth makes the caricatures the way they are.
Re Weathermen over the top. I thought some of them carried machine guns and murdered people and were gunned down in a famous shoot out in Los Angeles. Or were they Black Panthers? I guess I should use google as my friend. But either way, extremism was not unknown among the counter-cultural people, and its presence in the novel not too far at variance with at least a part of reality it seems to me.
But, still, your point well taken re Merry.
I think appropos Steve's earlier comment about the inverted nature of the narrator's role here, Rita's sex scene is an example of another of Roth's playful inversions. Here, he transposes the usual male and female roles in infliction of sexual violence. I can't see Zuckerman's portrait of Rita's "sexuality" as anything other than a feminized equivalent of the traditional male sexual assault, albeit without touching. But, as we know, all the best parts of sex (and I'd add violence too) occur in our heads.
So, I see Rita's little game as an intentionally shocking act of revolutionary sexual assault against 'the man'. And, of course, it worked. Swede was humiliated by it. She gained power over him, in part, via imposition of sexual violence. You'd think Catharine McKinnon was looking over Roth's shoulder when he drafted those paragraphs.
Wilhelmina,
I think Roth sets us up for the radical change in Merry back on page 94.
She was a perfectionist who did things passionately, lived intensely in the new interest, and then the passion was suddenly spent and everything, including the passion, got thrown into a box and she moved on.
Back on p. 92 after the kiss, Swede wonders...
But then he also wondered if after that day he had perhaps withdrawn from her too radically, become physically distant more than was necessary. He had only meant to let her know she needn't be concerned that he would lose his equilibrium again...
We don't know what set her off, but it seems to me her parents should have. And since Roth/Zuckerman refers to this incident so strongly, it has to be a huge clue. As Russ said, we're hit in the eye with it right off the bat.
I think Roth sets us up for the radical change in Merry back on page 94.
She was a perfectionist who did things passionately, lived intensely in the new interest, and then the passion was suddenly spent and everything, including the passion, got thrown into a box and she moved on.
Back on p. 92 after the kiss, Swede wonders...
But then he also wondered if after that day he had perhaps withdrawn from her too radically, become physically distant more than was necessary. He had only meant to let her know she needn't be concerned that he would lose his equilibrium again...
We don't know what set her off, but it seems to me her parents should have. And since Roth/Zuckerman refers to this incident so strongly, it has to be a huge clue. As Russ said, we're hit in the eye with it right off the bat.
I agree that Roth/Zuckerman wants us to pay attention to this major clue, I just question why.I think that part of my problem with believing Merry may be my age. Back on the main page, Steve listed a number of things that happened in 1968, to set the stage. I was 18-19 in 1968, which means that, because of geography and political viewpoint, I knew radicals and their motivations and Merry just doesn't fit the picture. She fits much better, as Ruth says, as a crazy person. Radicals really didn't just run around bombing everything and shooting any old body. Their drastic actions had an internal consistency, even though the results were tragic. Neil Young, in his song "Ohio", written after the Kent State shootings, has the line,
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming; We're finally on our own."
and that was how many people felt - that they had no other recourse against a violent government except violence. (I thought the movie, "Running On Empty", showed this pretty well.) And I suspect that Roth knows all of this as well as I do. Therefore I feel that his portrayal of Merry, the Kiss, Rita, the whole deal was just Zuckerman's over-the-top musings on the fall of his hero. If Merry were really his focus, I think that he would have done a better job of making her a realistic person.
We're the same age then Wilhelmina. I've always lived down South though in and near New Orleans, and we didn't have as bad a time of it as was up North. At least to my knowledge.
I do however have to say that the more I go back and reread to find various quotes and bits I find more and more about Merry and building her character. My first reading a few weeks ago found her a bit thin on characterization, but the more I reread, the more I am noticing.
I do however have to say that the more I go back and reread to find various quotes and bits I find more and more about Merry and building her character. My first reading a few weeks ago found her a bit thin on characterization, but the more I reread, the more I am noticing.
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