American Pastoral

Rating:
Summary: The dark side of the American Dream
Review: Like no other country, America's greatest writers periodically produce wide scope, zeitgeist state of the nation novels that attempt to encapsulate an entire social commentary in one novel. For me, the best of these is Tom Wolfe's 'Bonfire of the Vanities'. But American Pastoral comes a close second. In this novel, Roth lavishly rips apart all that is wrong with orthodox, prosperous, middle class American life by telling the story of Seymour Levov 'The Swede', a Jewish, blonde, handsome high school athletic hero who marries Miss New Jersey, inherits his father's glove factory and settles down to domestic idyll in Old Rimrock, New Jersey.

What goes wrong? Everything. The Swede's daughter commits an atrocious act of political terrorism and the Swede's comfortable life is savagely blasted apart. How can this happen? The novel concludes with a rhetorical question- 'And what is wrong with their life? What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?'. What indeed? Roth goes into great depth into answering this question over the course of the preceeding chapters. He draws out the snobbery, narrow mindedness, peer pressure and teenage rebellions of affluent Americans with characteristic rich, subtle prose. The characters are portrated realistically and sympathetically. By the end of the novel, one is left in no doubt as to why The Swede's life went so catastrophically wrong. This probably is Roth's masterpiece and probably deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it was subsequently awarded.

Is it flawless? No, it could do with some judicious editing at times as sometimes the luscious, hard hitting prose is over verbose. But what editor would have the balls to go through the manuscript of such an established Writer as Roth and suggest swingeing cuts? And I am not an unconditional fan of the way Roth portrays the Jewish dimension in the novel. This is an important part of the plot, as the Levovs are a Jewish family, envious of WASP goyism. But at times I sense that Roth has somewhat of an axe to grind and his attempts to portray the anti semitism prevalent in East Coast America slightly distort this aspect of what is otherwise a brilliantly drawn and executed novel.

Rating:
Summary: The moral boomerang...
Review: In "American Pastoral", Philip Roth chooses the cultural paroxym of the late sixties to tell the story of a personal tragedy, but we're left feeling not so sure if the tragedy's genesis is the reprehensible actions of Merry Levov--the protagonist Seymour "the Swede" Levov's daughter--or the Swede's early near-deification in his small town, which leads to his cushy life spent on moral cruise control. In the end, this book is a gut-wrenching screed against both sides of the generational divide, one side seduced into an illusory American dream and the other, just as deluded, bent on destroying that dream. Inexplicably, Merry discovers the injustices of the world at fourteen and becomes obsessed with the Vietnam war. Quickly she comes to despise everything America and her father stand for and goes the distance in proving her convictions by becoming a terrorist. The Swede doesn't understand it all: the ingratitude, the blind hatred. But when the Swede encounters loathing for his way of life from his own brother...the answers he has used to explain Merry's violence just aren't that easy, and cannot be put down to transpersonal forces of a society in upheaval. Somehow he is responsible..."American Pastoral" is the first Philip Roth novel I've ever read, and on freshly encountering his style of narrative it put me off at times, because it seems wholly constructed on violating the cardinal rule (show, don't tell) of fiction writers. It's a book of telling, at times a discursive and self-flagellating monologue. The flashbacks and asides are just ladled on too thickly, and run on far too long, slowing down the thrust of the story. But perhaps this is to show how the Swede's life has ground to a spiritual and emotional halt. In all, it's an occasionally insightful and complex book, but loses its power as it comes to a middling end.