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Summary: There is no answer
Review: Every parent on their own mini level confronts that moment when they see their child's behavior and question, hey I am a good person, why is this kid not the glowing image of who I think I am, a me always on my best behavior. Merry is that worst nightmare come true, a child that harbors the "alien" monster we all fear our childrearing will create. She is a child of the time , the sixties, and a child of the pefect incubator, mis wired. American Pastoral was disturbing, but powerful. Read it.
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Summary: Subtle and symbolic, but not Roth's best
Review: _American Pastoral_ may be a touch slow, even for Roth, but the powerful language and sweeping imagery of the work prove that it merits the commendation it has won. However, those who read _Pastoral_ as I have may wonder what happened to the vibrancy and sharp brilliance Roth displayed in his premiere work, _Goodbye, Columbus_.There do exist lines connecting _Pastoral_ to _Columbus_, specifically Roth's questions about religion's incarnation in flesh, and the misdirection of youth. However, _Pastoral_ reacts more slowly and more simply to the questions which tore wildly through _Columbus_. Although Roth tries to resolve these principal issues, he does not approach the success of his first work, which leaves them necessarily unresolved and unresolvable.
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Summary: A First Time Roth Reader Loved It
Review: I have never read a book that handled the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s with such sensitivity and intelligence. Mr. Roth's character development and dignified portrayal of a diversity of types is astonishing. He addresses subject matter that has been written about frequently, but manages to do so without being preachy, simplistic or trite. Anyone who has ever been interested in generation gap issues from the 1970s should read this book, Mr. Roth nailed 'em!
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Summary: brilliant, disturbing, classic Roth
Review: joeb, you got it right, but the Levov's America didn't only destroy them - it both made them and destroyed them. The dinner party at the end of the book reminded me of a dinner party in a Woody Allen movie (was it "Husbands and Wives"?) where everything falls apart and no one is capable of changing anything. This book is a masterpiece of the drama that can (and does) occur in ordinary lives, which I guess makes them not very ordinary at all. Full marks, three cheers, bravissimo, mazel tov!
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Summary: How can he continue doing this?
Review: How can Philip Roth continue writing such engaging and thought-provoking novels...and at such an impressive pace (more or less, every two years)? I don't know how he does it, but he does it. Many critics have said that this is one of the best--if not THE best--novels he's ever written. I don't want to jump on any bandwagon here, but I must say, unlike many other writers who seem to rehash their old words, giving us nothing new, Roth continues to amaze. And he gets better at doing so. He genuinely deserves the title of the most significant American writer living today (sorry Oprah, but as good as Toni Morrison is, she just doesn't have the audacity nor the consistent talent of Roth). "American Pastoral" builds upon the the virtuoso performances found in "Operation Shylock" and "Sabbath's Theater." Roth may offend some, and he definitely isn't the sweetheart of American English departments, but he's someone whose works will continued t! ! o be read, wrestled with, critiqued, and celabrated long after he has exhausted his talents--which, if the past 15 years are any indication, will be a very long time from now...a good sign for American letters indeed!
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Summary: Roth Writes a GREAT GATSBY for the 90's
Review: AMERICAN PASTORAL is a brilliantly disturbing look at the destruction of the American Dream. Like Fitzgerald's novel THE GREAT GATSBY, it introduces the reader to a number of "golden" characters whose lives have run amuck in their desperate search for happiness, but perhaps we are seeing Roth pull GATSBY inside out. The Levov's sad attempt to be a good, productive, happy people is totally destroyed by their America. Whereas, Fitzgerald's characters are essentially a selfish people who are responsible for destroying their America. However, in both cases, as we read,we fear what America has become. Yes, there is not much plot and, yes, there is much about glove making, but most of this is essential if we are to appreciate the full beauty, the full impact of Roth's message. The Swede is one of the saddest characters in modern fiction, the dinner party at the end is a horrific look at America today, and the passages about the death of Newark are realistic and harrowing. This is a novel that will break your heart and stay with you for a long, long time. Roth's '98 Pulitzer Prize is totally justified. A masterpiece.
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Summary: Worthy Pulitzer. Not
Review: This was simply a dull read. Trendy sought of writing style but doesn't quite pull it off where an Updike would. Paradise was nowhere in sight, and Mount Purgatory was too steep for me to finish this book.
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Summary: Not an easy read, but worth the effort
Review: For someone who came of age in the eighties, this novel was refreshingly real in terms of it's perception of the sixties and the years prior to those. While we catch a glimpse of the post-war, optomistic years of the forties, we are also shown the alter-ego of the Nirvana-like sixties, where families, factions, and otherwise good friends found themselves to be divided by a war that was to eccentuate everyone's differences ten-fold. It at times both romanced the war era and personified the conflict it caused. In general, I found this novel to be deliberate and complicated, as well as refreshingly honest, much like that particular era must have been for all, a sort of purging of all that is real, for better or worse. Overall, a good read, but perhaps more than a summer beach novel, for to appreciate Roth's characters, one needs to be prepared to see some of one's own hopes and dreams as utterly unpredictable, yet unstoppably human.
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Summary: If Saul Bellow wrote Crime & Punishment or about Jonesboro
Review: If Saul Bellow wrote Crime & Punishment or about the recent event in Jonesboro, Arkansas, this would have been the book. A contemplative book over the decline of morals in America. It deserved the Pulitzer.
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Summary: Anne Tyler Meets Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Review: In American Pastoral we encounter the amalgam of Anne Tyler and Fyodor Dosteyevski: Breathing Lessons with Crime and Punishment. The book loosely mirrors other works of Western literature by following the Judeo-Christian story in Genesis: Paradise Remembered, The Fall, and Paradise Lost. Philip Roth eloquently tells the story of America's fall from grace as well as Seymour Levov's, who personifies the USA. Seymour Levov is a pallid flavor of vanilla as he comes of age at the end of World War II. His life in the fifties is a metaphor of the times: he marries a runner-up Miss USA and moves from Newark to a hobby-farm in the country. The late Sixties and early Seventies bring turmoil to Levov and to the USA culminating in the Vietnam War. Tragically, Levov's daughter bombs the local post office to protest the war as American policy in Southeast Asia disintegrates - hence "The Fall." As America deals with Nixon's Watergate, Levov must content with his daughter's dubious acts of terrorism, which have now claimed four lives - "Paradise Lost." Parallelism abounds. Irony is found in many great pieces of literature and is not lost on Philip Roth: for example, Seymour Levov's flawed wife's name is Dawn; his terrorist daughter's name is Merry. Philip Roth overtly tells us what he means in the following passages: "The daughter who transports [Seymour Levov] out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral-in to the indigenous American berserk." "A moratorium on all the grievances and resentments...for everyone in America who is suspicious of everyone else. It is the American pastoral par excellence and it lasts twenty-four hours." In other words, our American solace is ephemeral. This story of America's coming of age seems all the more apropos as we Americans struggle to reconcile our bucolic roots and naivete with an evermore-complicated world in which we live. As Roth narrates his story I can hear (and feel) the ripping fabric of our society while my viscera senses hope and redemption.
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