Nathan Zuckerman, Philip Roth's alter ego, makes his appearance here. He is a novelist like Roth, but was once known as a single-minded kid searching the neighborhood for a grape to burst. Unlike Serenus Zeitblom, Zuckerman knows when to step back and let the story unfold. That grape.

That grape is Seymour Levov, The Swede, because he doesn't look Jewish. The Swede was a star athlete and followed in his father's glove-making business. He would become a multi-millionaire, marry a Miss New Jersey, own the old house he always desired, and have a child, Merry.

Right before reading this, I attempted, unsuccessfully, to read Ian McEwan's The Children Act. Both authors take current headlines and weave a story from them. But McEwan tells, while Roth shows.

They say you can't talk about Race. In fact, I say that. You, we, can't. If you do, you might get fired.

Roth, however, talks about Race. He also discusses religion, politics, and the differences between the sexes. But, as a novelist should, he lets his characters do the talking.

The Swede is a product, first and foremost, of his father. Mr. Levov is one of those Shakespearean characters who provide comic relief. When the Swede wants to marry the Irish Catholic Dawn (Miss New Jersey), Mr. Levov conducts a cross-examination of her.

But it's the Swede's daughter, Merry, who becomes politicized at sixteen during the Vietnam War. She makes a bomb and blows up a rural post office, killing Dr. Conlon.

I think this is Roth's best work. It is artistic, profound, and funny. I live here, not in Newark, New Jersey, but in a similar time and place. I'm trying to understand the times and myself.

Zeitblom Zuckerman stars at his high school reunion. Read this book for this event alone. It's there that Zuckerman is reunited with Mendy Gurlik.

Circle jerks and high school reunions. I was never much of a joiner.

One thing that is so amazing about Pastorale is how full it is - of life, of characters, of years, of small and big stories and reflections - but also how empty it is at the same time, or rather, how spacious. Roth, like no one I have read so far, has the ability to say so much about his characters and yet say so little, that is, to make them into empty palaces and leave the interior to us.

This entire contradiction can also be applied to the novel itself - it is extremely ordinary. Greek tragedy and myth, exemplified by the little man who will be wiped out by history. A pampered child, rebellious against the world. Happiness, and the grief that overflows. A difficult novel, sometimes incomprehensible, but also flawless, important, universally personal, like a small collection of fifty human wonders - they are all in it, and I am in it too. It is read quickly, despite Roth's borderline verbosity (because if we are honest, this is a two-hundred-page novel stretched to four hundred and fifty; perhaps the only flaw), and the sentences are memorable. Seymour Levov is memorable. And Lou, and Merry, and Dawn, and Jerry, they are all memorable.

And they remain.

5

Seymour Levov, the grandson of a poor and hardworking Jewish immigrant, comes to embody the American idol. He is tall, athletic, and good-looking, excellent in both studies and sports, a successful entrepreneur, a family man with a beautiful wife and an exemplary daughter.

He feels more American than Jewish, which disappoints his father, whom he holds in reverential respect. The other thing that disappoints his father is his marriage to the beautiful Dawn, an Irish Catholic. Nevertheless, being a civilized American, he manages to maintain family unity.

However, Seymour also desires to be an exemplary citizen. He is kind, never gets angry, prefers to yield in a discussion rather than end up in a fight, absorbs painful situations alone to avoid bothering others, and takes care of and respects his family and friends.

At one point, Seymour invites the narrator (a writer) to lunch, creating the expectation of a revelation. But the lunch consists only of banalities.

Later, in a casual event, the narrator meets Jerry, Seymour's wayward brother, through whom he learns of Seymour's death and his sufferings. The fall of a myth.

Through what the narrator hears, we will then learn about the bomb that shook the foundations of all of Seymour's certainties, upon which he based his joy of living, initiating the process that will lead to the fall of his voluntary immaculate life.

Roth's mastery comes into play here. The excellent characterization of the characters, not only through description but also through their actions and conversations, and his skill in handling the tempo, which takes us along the development of the story. Meanwhile, the reader, at least I, feels in the stomach that he can no longer resist more. But Roth is patient. With excellent narration, he takes us without low blows to places we do not want to know, culminating Seymour's Calvary with the last dinner, one of many dinners, with its biting, dogmatic, naive, and malicious dialogues of those who inhabit that educated space of the upper-middle class in America.

This is an excellent novel, especially for an American Jew over fifty years old, and willing to endure the tension of the detailed and planned way the author designed to show it.

After two days of reflection on this novel, I find that I was charmed by the architectural perfection of the work, as well as the excellence of the characterization of the characters. But I think literature is more than that; it is also fantasy, humor, and poetry. And this is a painful work from beginning to end, almost without space to breathe, based, I believe, on the suffering perspective of the author. On the other hand, it shows us an era that seems to suggest that it will have an impact on the future but that almost constituted an anecdote in the history of the United States. Therefore, I rate it 4 points.

I fully understand that making rankings is something infantile and even stupid.

That being said, since I have no pretense of being intelligent, I can calmly state that "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth has entered my top ten favorite books like a speeding train. And it has entered from every perspective: Roth's clear and incisive writing, the emotions it has provoked in me, the many characters who have passed through it, the History told within the story.

It is a narrative of modern America - from the 1950s to the 1980s - that unfolds through the drama of the Swede (for me, at this point, a mythical and mythological figure) and his family: the crazy daughter, the beautiful wife Miss New Jersey, the Jewish father with his glove factory... In short, the entire American Dream (?) that burns furiously through the rancor of three generations!

It is a book that shows you the most dramatic, angry, and visceral American pastoral that one can imagine, leaving you with more questions than answers, but with the feeling of having lived a story that could blow up not only a small supermarket but an entire continent.

* Except for the ranking of the most beautiful women in the world, because that one does make sense since objectively Winona Ryder is at the top and it can never change!

Since I am on vacation, I don't write anything. I let Roth say it all - he said it anyway.

"And yet, what do we do about this most important matter called 'other people', which loses the significance we think it has and acquires a ridiculous significance? Are we all so incapable of predicting the inner workings and the invisible purposes of one another? Will each of us rise up to leave, will he lock his door and isolate himself, like the hermit writers, in a soundproof cell, to call people around him with words and then claim that these people made of words are closer to the genuine than the real people we create every day with our ignorance? The fact remains that understanding people correctly is not the essence of life anyway. The essence of life is to misunderstand them again and again and again and then, after thinking about it carefully again, to misunderstand them again. This is how we know we are alive: by making mistakes. Perhaps it would be best to forget whether we fall in or out with people and to participate out of simple curiosity. But even this you achieve - you are lucky."

Grande libro, che potenza, che stile! This simple yet powerful exclamation truly encapsulates the essence of a remarkable book. It speaks volumes about the impact and significance that a great literary work can have. The word "grande" emphasizes the magnitude and grandeur of the book, suggesting that it is not just an ordinary piece of writing but something extraordinary. The mention of "potenza" highlights the power that the book holds, perhaps the power to move emotions, to inspire thoughts, or to change perspectives. And "stile" points to the unique style and craftsmanship of the author, which gives the book its distinctiveness and魅力. A book with such qualities is not only a source of entertainment but also a valuable asset that can enrich our lives and expand our horizons.

I was not a fan. I had never really been interested in that particular thing. It just didn't seem to hold any appeal for me. Maybe it was the way it looked, or perhaps it was the lack of something that would catch my attention. I would see others around me who were passionate about it, but I just couldn't understand why. It all seemed so foreign and uninteresting to me.

However, one day something happened that made me start to take a second look. I was in a situation where I had no choice but to be exposed to it more closely. At first, I was still reluctant and unenthusiastic. But as I began to pay more attention, I started to notice some things that I had never seen before. There were details and aspects that I had overlooked, and suddenly it all started to make a little more sense.

Slowly but surely, my attitude began to change. I wasn't quite a fan yet, but I was no longer completely disinterested. I was starting to see the potential and the value that it could have. It was a strange and unexpected transformation, but one that I was willing to explore further.

Unique Roth, once again.

Roth is among the writers I respect. If I had him in front of me, this is what I would tell him: RESPECT. I sympathize with his Jewishness, always a prominent theme. I love his alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, a middle-aged writer with many warts. I am charmed by the seriousness that emanates from his books, his subtle humor and self-mockery, which always capture my full attention from beginning to end.

The structure of Roth's books has specific characteristics: memories are intertwined with the historical and political background of post-war America, the charm of his narrative with its focus on applied or not Jewishness and its caricature, the psychological details that gradually give the idiosyncratic mark of the characters. All these are well-researched, all these suffer in order to finally surface something, a result, a feeling, a sting that remains in the reader and he carries it as "Roth experience" or "Roth's sting". I feel that I have to say it like this: Roth, he doesn't write nonsense.

In Roth's hometown, Newark, a place that features prominently in his books, the story of the Jewish family of the Liboves unfolds. The key, the sting (we also have a kind of sting here as in Human Stain) comes warningly in the form of the wounding of Seymour Libov's daughter, a by no means normal, peaceful, successful, "Aryan" we would say person who lives a normal and non-confrontational life.

The utopia of an orthodox normal life in America is shaken, immorality confronts the political correctness of the American dream, the conformism of the flawless American life receives the biggest blow from the daughter-victim, the daughter-critic and doer.

This key is transformed into something more savage, into the killing of people within the framework of the rebellious idiosyncrasy of the daughter - in this case against the Vietnam War - and marks, keys the American ideal, seizes the exposed Achilles heel of it and begins to spread like a drop that draws concentric circles in restless waters. It spreads disturbing the hypnotic normality of the American Dream. This is also the American idyll, which is perfectly represented in the final scene, in a finale so theatrical that it leaves the reader full of mixed feelings to decide on his own, to solve his doubts on his own, to think on his own what the hell went wrong? What could have gone wrong for this unexpected deviation, for this deviation-stranger who made such a wild rush to change the course of normality across the generations.

The American Idyll is finally a moratorium - according to Roth - a suspension, a rupture, a void in between, in order to explore the difference, the tolerance, the mixture of two or more worlds (here with a religious hue), the perception of reality which is a very personal matter. A break between different theories in order to give each one the time and space to breathe, to jump back into the next delusion.

What did Roth finally tell us in this book? Around a seemingly indifferent family portrait, he wove the eulogy and at the same time unraveled the lie that lies within the wrapper of the American trim. Everything was so right, so in its place. But if a piece of the domino falls into a deviation, nothing remains right anymore.

*Special mention to Roth's humor ∙ the point of negotiation of Seymour's father, Lou Libov, with the prospective bride of Dawn, (Catholic, wow!), regarding the pre-agreement on the religious upbringing of the future grandchildren was enough to make you laugh until you cried. ("I would rather not leave it up to the child to decide, Dawn. I would rather decide myself. I don't want to leave a child to decide if he will eat Jesus [for the communion]. I'm sorry. That's out. Look what I'll do for you. I'll give you the baptism. That's all I can do.)

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Philip Roth (born in 1933) is a renowned American writer. His book “Pastoral Americana” was published in 1997. It is the first volume of the so-called American Trilogy, along with “I Married a Communist” and “The Human Stain”. The narrator is his alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman gives voice to Seymour Irving Levov, better known as “Swede”, a “perfect” young man, cheerful and physically attractive, with an irreproachable behavior in school, sports and social activities, and the future heir of a glove manufacturing empire. Through a long flashback to the present, it presents a brilliant and profound narrative about the “American dream”. The historical context of “Pastoral Americana”, such as the social convulsions of the 1960s and 1970s, the political scandal of “Watergate”, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, the changes in politics and patriotism, religion and education, racial conflicts and the economy, and especially violence, are factors that explain and frame the evolution of the characters in terms of behaviors and emotions. The family ties and behaviors of “Swede” are decisive in the evolution of the moral conflicts between “parents” and “children”, in a complex logic of unpredictability and betrayals, which is reflected in a detailed characterization of human relationships. The writing of Philip Roth is admirable, with a masterful plot and dialogues, where the characters evolve throughout the book, in a true and cruel portrait of the paradigm of the “American dream”. It is obligatory...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUbXl...

The reason for the existence of the "shattering" shelf in my book list traces back to a professor I had during my undergraduate days ages ago. Her name was Marjorie, and she was truly remarkable. She was extremely intelligent, kind, maternal, and worldly. Her specialties were Chinese philosophy and Feminism. Sadly, she had an accident on a stairwell or something similar and fractured her leg. She was on sick leave for several months as her bones reset and she had to learn to walk again.

When she returned (we remained on friendly terms even after I stopped taking her classes), I inquired about her rehab. True to her nature, she said the time away was tough as she couldn't do what she loved most, but it was fruitful in other ways as she got a lot of reading done. What stood out? American Pastoral, which several other professors had been urging her to read for a long time. Wow, was it that good? Yes, she said, she found it "shattering" in fact. I've always loved the Kafka quote that books should be axes for the frozen sea inside of us, and I remembered the adjective and the book for years.

I generally like trilogies, and I've read some other works by Roth with varying degrees of enjoyment. I read "I Married A Communist" a few years ago and quite liked it. I also intended to read Roth's great 90's trilogy, which apparently won him numerous awards. Finally, I picked up American Pastoral, sat down, and was immediately blown away. It is powerful, colloquial, multilayered, provocative, intense, and wholly American. You get to see not only the splendors of American life in all their Hallmark glory but also the nightmares lurking beneath the surface.

However, throughout the novel, there was one thing that bothered me. Merry's political radicalism was expressed in rather gruesome, myopic, didactic, knee-jerk, and resentment-ridden terms. The narrator (and perhaps Roth as well) seemed to diagnose this as a reaction to the Swede's oppressive, anodyne normalcy. While I understand this to some extent, being someone who has engaged in kitchen table skirmishes with conservatives, I felt that there wasn't much more of a voice offered in terms of Merry's radical critique. Roth surely knows more than what he put in Merry's mouth, and it was his choice to sketch her character as he did. But the problem for me was that I know there were more principled, complex, and morally distinct radical critiques of the Vietnam War, and a well-intentioned reader might not get any of them from this novel.
I'm not sure if it's fair to criticize Roth for this, as none of his characters (except Merry, and her self-awareness is tenuous at best) seem to make politics central to their identities. But it does seem a bit dubious if you want to expand the reading of the novel to a larger perspective. At times, it seemed to fit too well that he would be feted by the Clinton-era cultural kingmakers. I mean, an imagined conversation between the essentially apolitical Swede and an imagined Angela Davis isn't really enough to drive the political discourse.
The ending also seemed a little weak to me. It was a bit of a plotline anti-climax and didn't quite bring the narrative to a satisfying conclusion. There was so much forward momentum, but the denouement wasn't as elegantly brutal as I would have liked. However, these are just my immediate criticisms. Overall, this novel is a whopper. At times, I had to put it down and rest my bludgeoned head. The roil in the narrative keeps changing the dynamic of the story completely. At certain points, it really felt like a hellfire sermon in a good way.
One of the things that makes this novel so memorable is that Roth sustains a busy, engaging, and wide-ranging momentum throughout the story. The pitch is slowly raised until your heart is racing, waiting for the next blow. It seems very hard to do, especially for a lot of novelists these days, and I imagine Roth deservedly received many prizes for this. At times, Roth and the narrator seem to meld into one and storm into the progression of the story, calling down fire and brimstone upon the heads of the main characters. This is a glimpse of an Americana version of Job, in the sense that Roth wants to show the limitless void of chaos, confusion, dread, and loneliness that lies beneath our feet.
This is a searing, ironic, and indominable vision - "novel" is too insufficient a word - of the America that creates and then destroys the very dreams it needs to sustain itself. It is necessary, eloquent, prophetic, masterful, and true. Nobody is left off the hook, nobody gets away scot-free, no one leaves the party unquestioned, and there isn't a face, word, or landscape that you don't recognize. Read it and exult, read it and tremble, for to read it is to see the beauty and insanity of America, simmering or soaring for 400 (ish) years, coming right at you like a ghost in the bright yellow daylight. Roth loves America as much as he hates what it requires; he hates America as much as he loves what it makes possible. To be an American, in Roth's eyes, is to be in the thick of life's inexorable contradictions. Shattering? Yes. Like a baseball covered in blood violating a stained glass window.

"American Pastoral" is a novel - not a thesis or a critical text - about a novel, which makes evident the magic of artistic creation and literary construction.

This is not immediately obvious, but it becomes noticeable after a few chapters, when one wonders how Zuckermann can know all that he tells about the Levov family, and especially when one wonders when he could have come to know it, since the facts he knows - as he himself states - are limited to a brief encounter with the Swede, a short letter from him, and a conversation with Jerry Levov, his childhood friend.

The reader pays no attention to this implausibility between Zuckermann's account and his sources, even though Zuckermann has openly declared from the start that he had known nothing more about the Swede since college days. Everything that follows the encounter with Jerry is speculation. The reader hardly notices this as he is so intrigued by the unfolding of the plot.

Literary creation has a life of its own, demonstrating its plausibility and its charm even though it is an invention, a concept that is very close to the recurring and fundamental contrast in "Pastoral" between appearance and reality, between the diversity of viewpoints regarding the same experience lived by different people, to the astonishment of realizing that one has never known the other, his thoughts, tastes, and emotions, even though one has lived beside him for a whole life, and this not only because of the tendency of many to disguise their own thoughts, attitudes, and feelings, but also because of the presumption - never touched by doubt - of many in believing that what is right for themselves must necessarily be so for others.

I limit myself to this and would say that it is already enough.

Pre...

I have discovered something new - today, only today, it will seem strange to his affectionate readers of many years - I have discovered Philip Roth. Not when I read "Portnoy's Complaint" but now, only after a few pages of the account of the melancholy and dismayed memory of the past, I feel a great curiosity to go on, certain that the reading will have much to reveal to me. Finally another to be counted among my Faulkner, McCarthy, Márai...

My mother is an ardent fan of Philip Roth. To such an extent that when I heard of his passing last year, my immediate thought was, "Oh, no, poor Mom, now he's never going to get the Nobel prize."

My mom has an excellent taste in literature. Often, if she adores a book, I'll likely enjoy it too. Over the years, I've read three Roth books that she recommended or gave to me, but I always had a rather lukewarm reaction. They weren't terrible in themselves, but they seemed somewhat similar and failed to engage me on an emotional level at all.

Then along comes "American Pastoral" and - it clicks. I discover the writing style to be elegant and impactful. The shift in perspective at the beginning is sheer genius. I would have loved this book even more if it had been more concise and the structure less ambiguous. However, the core story touches me deeply and makes me feel sad. I empathize with The Swede, with his terrorist daughter, and with his "not a Beauty contest"-Beauty Contest-winning wife.

I'm really hoping that this isn't a one-time thing for me and Roth. Fingers crossed.