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Sales rank 4,471
Customers rating (based on 225 reviews)
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As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father's glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him.For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longer-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth's masterpiece.
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| Publisher | Vintage | | Release date | 02/1998 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Paperback |
| | List price | $14.95 | | Our price | $10.17 (you save 31.97%) | | Used price | from $4.5 |
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 Pulitzer?
The characterization in this book is admirable, but it flounders in the plot and narrative departments. Much time is spent in pondering ontological and deterministic questions, as well as explaining in great detail the intricacies of glove-making. Roth dwells on the emotional inner torment of his characters to an almost maudlin degree.
It's not a terrible book by any stretch, but I have a difficult time believing there was none better in 1998, and it certainly isn't among his strongest. Anyone disappointed by this novel should try Ghost Writer, which is more compact and substantial, without so much self-indulgence in suburban philosophy. Roth is still a great writer here, it simply feels as if he begins coasting near the halfway point, and the book floats on from there to its stultifying conclusion.
Mundane suburbanality, complete with anxiety disorder.
So there's this guy who is a naturally gifted athlete with male model looks. He joins the Marines, then goes to college, inherits his fathers successful factory, and marries a beauty queen. They buy a 20 acre estate out in the country, and dabble in a semi-rural farm type life. Oh yeah, he's also got an anxiety disorder. And big Rothy devotes his considerable literary abilities to describing a lifetimes worth of neuroses.
His wife cheats on him, and his daughter's a psycho. I think he has an affair too somewhere along the way, and he likes to eat spaghetti at an Italian joint in midtown after catching a show. But it's mostly about this dudes anxieties. Phil's tremendous skills make this a pleasant book, and despite the mundane suburbanality, I actually didn't yawn once. Quite an impressive accomplishment, all things considered. Still an overrated book.
 An American Tragedy - 1968
American Pastoral is the story of Swede Levov , a Jewish All-American hero from Newark, NJ in post WWII America. A three sport athlete and superstar at Weequahic High, everything seems to come easy for Swede. After graduation, he does a hitch in the Marines, returns home to New Jersey, attends college, and marries Miss New Jersey. He takes over his father's successful glove making business, moves to the Jersey suburbs and lives in the house of his dreams. Appearances, however, are not as they seem. The Levov's have one daughter, Merry.
Ah, Merry (who is anything but what her name might imply)! Merry is a precocious child and the apple of Swede's eye. She is pampered and doted on by her father, but somewhere along the line something goes haywire. Growing up in the 60's, Merry becomes a passionate supporter of the anti-war movement. She falls in with fanatical elements of the Weather underground and, at the ripe old age of sixteen, plants a bomb at the local general store and blows it to smithereens! An innocent bystander is killed and Merry goes into hiding. She is henceforth legendized as "The Rimrock Bomber".
From this point forward, Swede lives a double life. While maintaining the outward appearance of living an ethereal life in the suburbs, Swede inwardly struggles with the "why" of his daughter's atrocity; what did HE do to allow this to happen? Where is she? Did she really do this? How can he help? His suffering is both haunting and heroic.
Philip Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, a boyhood friend of Swede's brother Jerry, decides to write Swede's story after an encounter with Jerry at a high school reunion. The results are gripping!
Many novels remind me of network TV - you read them and they fade into oblivion. The characters and the plot line are a blur, if there are any memories at all. Occasionally, a novel will take root and you will carry it with you forever - An American Tragedy and Sophie's Choice come to mind. American Pastoral is a novel that will stay with you!
One of Roth's best novels
I understand that a movie version of AMERICAN PASTORAL is in production. Great novels are difficult to make into great movies. Roth, who has written several great novels does not translate well to the screen. Interior action has primacy in a book and is near impossible to replicate in a movie. Roth is a wordsmith of the highest order. Each sentence is crafted with a flair and precision that raise the novel not merely through thematic content, but in terms of aesthetics, to a high artistic standard. A major theme of AMERICAN PASTORAL and several other Roth books is helplessness..the futility of trying to control one's destiny. This futility, which inevitably leads to anger, and can lead to hopelessness, and personal disintegration, is due to circumstances beyond one's control. Those circumstances can be either internally or externally generated. One can be a slave to one's own passions and obsessions (Mickey Sabbath in SABBATH'S THEATER), or as in the case of Seymour Levov in AMERICAN PASTORAL, an innocent victim of societal whim, a leaf blown off a tree called the American Dream, and swept off into a terrifying unknown. Written with masterful prose, laced with cynicism, humor, bitterness, and rage, AMERICAN PASTORAL is a great novel. Philip Roth has a distinct style, insight, and sensibility that sets him apart from most of the writers of his generation. He has the ability to present historical events in a new light, with passion and style, through a unique personal vision.
Roth at his Finest
Roth combines two things we look for in a great novelist. A thorough command of the English language and a human heart. He can execute literary pyrotechnics on par with DeLillo or Pynchon, but what elevates Roth to the status of a master is his empathy. He deep, immersive compassion for his characters.
The last sentence of American Pastoral reads, "What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?" It cuts through so much ephemera and filigree of lesser literature.
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