The Great American Novel

Rating:
Summary: A Classic of American Humor
Review: Philip Roth fans tend to divide into two categories. One group admires his more Henry James-like efforts: the Zuckerman books, "Deception," "Patrimony." And then there are those of us who like those books but also cherish every foul, hilarious, in-you-face word he's ever written, like in "Portnoy's Complaint," "My Life as a Man" and this wonderful mock history of baseball. (Although I can't say this enough: you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it.) This book, which is carefully ignored by the palefaces among Roth admirers, is his comic masterpiece. It is an encyclopedic satire of mid-20th century American life, with many pages that will have you falling out of your chair with laughter. It's a cult book, like "A Confederacy of Dunces" or Dan Jenkins' "Semi-Tough"; once you read it you will buy copies for your best friends.

Rating:
Summary: 3 out of 5, Still a Damn Fine Batting Average
Review: Philip Roth's THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL is a big, bulbous, brocaded, bullshooting joke whether viewed from the box seats behind home plate or way in the back row of the right field bleachers-but let me not get pulled into the alliterative traps in which Roth indulges himself by way of his narrator, one Word Smith. Through the pen of the almost ninety-year-old "Smitty," we read the sad and disturbing tale of how the Ruppert Mundys of the mythical and defunct Patriot League were forced to spend all of 1943 playing away games after their owners sold their home stadium to the War Department as an embarkation point for our brave soldiers. Is Smitty as insane as many others obviously find him? Did the Mundys really have a one-legged catcher, a one-armed center fielder, a 14-year-old second baseman and a dwarf as a relief pitcher? Just who really is the Babylonian former ace pitcher Gil Gamesh? Was there really a Communist plot to destroy America by first destroying baseball?

It is curiosity and determination to finish this too-long-by-a-third book that may keep you reading through to the end, I'm afraid I had to force myself through it. We certainly aren't supposed to like any of the characters, so that means the story better hold us. And while it's a great story with a good number of laughs, there are too many long-winded passages that just aren't as funny once you get the rhythm down-the satire is dulled by them, in fact. I submit that Roth knew this and simply didn't care: by 1973 when this book was published he had been a bestseller for over twenty years. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had a Dickensian paid-by-the-word contract for this book. Additionally, there are the letters to Smitty in the Epilogue from publishers rejecting his manuscript of the Patriot League story, one of which says, "by and large the book seemed . . . to strain for its effects and to simplify for the sake of facile satiric comment the complex realities of American political and cultural life." Now while the complex realities of American political and cultural life can never be underestimated, Roth clearly knew the monster he created. And what fun for him to slap the Great American Novel title on it all!

I really enjoyed the first couple of hundred pages of this book, and I recommend it to those who are also students of baseball history (Roth weaves many real names and situations and speeches of old into his text) and aficionados of Roth. This is only my third Roth book, his earlier works PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT is one of my favorites of all time and GOODBYE, COLUMBUS is an entertaining first novel. I'm sorry I couldn't stay as excited about this one as it lumbered on, even if that was the point. Terrific concept, though.

Rating:
Summary: oh so funny, but oh so flawed
Review: Roth's ribald rearrangement of American baseball history (as told by an alliterating retired sportswriter, Word Smith, who opens his narrative with the majestic phrase, "Call me Smitty") sets the record straight with respect to the suppressed history of the third professional baseball league, the Patriot League, which flourished from 1898 to 1945. This is a book "about" baseball, America, and "Literatoor" which, like John Kennedy Toole's wonderful book, frequently provokes the reader to laugh out loud. I would rate "A Confederacy of Dunces" to be a superior work, but I also think that those who enjoy the travails of Ignatius J. Reilly will equally enjoy the story of the pathetically decrepit Ruppert Mundys.

Rating:
Summary: flawed but great
Review: This novel fizzles out by the end, but before that comes some of the most hilarious and entertaining writing you can possibly read. In fact, it amazing. My friends and I have regaled each other with incidents and characters from "The Great American Novel." Maybe it really is the great American novel. Nickname Demur will never die.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing and Entertaining
Review: Whatever else this novel is, it IS NOT the "Great American Novel". Such a thing, of course, will never exist except in the minds of those who are completely ignorant of writing. What the novel purports to be is a novel about the "Great American Novel", written by one Word Smith (or Smitty). Smitty sets out to tell the tale of the forgotten Patriot League, and the final inglorious season of the Ruppert Mundys. As the other reviewers have noted, this is high farce - sometimes too broad, sometimes too cruel, but often hilarious. I can't quite recommend this as highly as some of the others (for the record, I am not a baseball fan and I think it definitely would be funnier if I were). However, there is enough talented wordplay for me to give this four stars. Not Roth's best, but far from his worst.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing and Entertaining
Review: Whatever else this novel is, it IS NOT the "Great American Novel". Such a thing, of course, will never exist except in the minds of those who are completely ignorant of writing. What the novel purports to be is a novel about the "Great American Novel", written by one Word Smith (or Smitty). Smitty sets out to tell the tale of the forgotten Patriot League, and the final inglorious season of the Ruppert Mundys. As the other reviewers have noted, this is high farce - sometimes too broad, sometimes too cruel, but often hilarious. I can't quite recommend this as highly as some of the others (for the record, I am not a baseball fan and I think it definitely would be funnier if I were). However, there is enough talented wordplay for me to give this four stars. Not Roth's best, but far from his worst.