Cosa c'è da aggiungere se non questo?

How to penetrate into the intimacy of people? It was a gift or a capacity that he didn't possess. He simply didn't have the combination of that lock. He took as good those who sent out the signals of kindness. He took as loyal those who sent out the signals of loyalty. He took as intelligent those who sent out the signals of intelligence. And until that moment, he hadn't been able to see inside his daughter, he hadn't been able to see inside his wife, he hadn't been able to see inside his only lover: perhaps he hadn't even begun to see inside himself. What was he, stripped of all the signals he sent out? People, everywhere, stood up shouting: - This person is me! This person is me! - Every time you looked at them, they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth was that they didn't have, no more than he did, the slightest idea of who or what they were. They also believed in the signals they sent out. They should have stood up and shouted: - This person is not me! This person is not me! - They would have done it if they hadn't had a minimum of modesty. - This person is not me! - Then perhaps you would have known how to proceed among those signals, among the countless absurdities of this world.

As I reached the conclusion of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, I couldn't help but remember Henry James’s description of Russian novels as “loose and baggy monsters.” I found myself pondering if this label could be applied to Roth’s work. This is the third Roth novel I've read (Goodbye Columbus and Everyman being the others), and unfortunately, it's my least favorite.

Don't misunderstand me; it's a captivating read, a torrent of words, emotions, history, characters, and even glove making. There's an abundance of details, like the whiteness of the whale, suggesting a greater unity. However, I'm uncertain what that whole is – perhaps that's the point. The book is, at least in part, about America, with Seymour (“Swede”) Levov, the high school superstar, taking on the role of Captain America – but with one or two fatal flaws, compounded by an uncontrollable history that Roth memorably labels “American Berserk.”

“The Swede.” These are the first two words of the novel (which could easily have been titled American Tragedy, but that title is already taken), and they are on the lips of Nathan Zuckerman, Roth’s frequently used protagonist and author. The Swede was Zuckerman’s boyhood hero, a blond athlete who could hit, shoot, and run like few others. Zuckerman’s reflections on his boyhood idol and his post-World War Two neighborhood life are wonderful, as are his descriptions of a 45th high school reunion, which opens the novel. (Roth's handling of memory, aging, and mortality is both special and poignant.) At the reunion, Zuckerman meets the Swede’s brother, Jerry, and discovers that the Swede (whom Zuckerman had recently met for dinner) has just passed away. What follows, and it's easy to forget this after a few pages, is Zuckerman’s imagining (the story itself) of the Swede’s life. I'm not sure why Roth chose to add this filter. I need to give it more thought. Zuckerman has a great, humane voice, an expansive one, where you hardly notice this transition. But it is there, and I couldn't help but wonder about it while reading some of the incredibly long-winded conversations and meditations from virtually every major character.

Simply put, the novel is about a seemingly perfect couple, a high school star with golden boy looks and a former Miss New Jersey (he's Jewish, she's Catholic), who give birth to a troubled child, Merry, a 1960s-style terrorist who hates the Vietnam War, hates her family, hates America. She is chaos to the Swede’s order. How did she become this way? Well, it could have started with a mildly (!!!) incestuous kiss between father and daughter. Roth circles around this event as the story progresses. It's the unspoken secret, the burst of the Edenic bubble in the American Dream. The Swede worries about it on occasion, but Merry never mentions it (though she rages about everything else). However, late in the novel, a former mistress (and Merry’s speech therapist) of the Swede asks him if something bad ever happened at home. The Swede doesn't answer. Incest (or a hint of it, as in this case) is a powerful fictional tool, but I don't think it's the kind of thing that can capture a generation's story. It's unique and horrible, but it doesn't explain the 1960s.

And strangely, the 1960s don't seem all that present. Roth lived and wrote during the 1960s, so I was expecting some cool insights from a writer of his caliber. Instead, in American Pastoral, published in 1997, those times seem canned, not immediate, unlike Roth’s vivid descriptions of the old neighborhood or Zuckerman’s high school reunion. References like “Deep Throat,” “Vietnam,” “Nixon,” and “Watergate” just seemed like name-dropping to anchor the story. And there's no cool music. No Stones. No Beatles. What's that all about? If you're throwing bombs, you need a soundtrack. I've noticed that a number of reviewers (whom I really respect) rate this novel higher. And many of them say they look forward to reading it again. I didn't have that sense of greatness (which I do feel with Roth's Everyman). I was just glad to be done. It was a good read, with several powerful scenes, but those parts didn't add up to a satisfying or convincing whole.

Basketball is something else

This is life. It is the imperfect life of Seymour Levov, "The Swede". A third-generation American Jew, first a representative of the middle class and then of the upper class, an exemplary father and a devoted husband for sixteen years, until the explosion of a bomb shatters, not only metaphorically, his existence. "The Swede" perfectly embodies the human archetype of the American dream: handsome and talented, a college football, baseball, and basketball champion, a successful entrepreneur in his father's company, the devoted husband of Miss New Jersey 1949, and the adoring father of Merry, who hates everything her father has built and loves, but especially hates the United States of America in 1968 and everything it represents, including her parents. And to "The Swede", the poor "Johnny Appleseed" who happily sowed seeds in the valleys, but now wanders like a ghost on the grounds of his estate in "Old Rymrock", his promised land finally reached, there is nothing left to do but helplessly witness the breakdown and decline, the degradation and destruction of his entire life and the progressive detachment from the people he loves, which symbolically concludes on Thanksgiving Day, in an allegorical "American pastoral" in which the characters approach, the most unconsciously, what may be their last supper. It would seem such a desolate picture as to offer no hope at all or any possibility of salvation, if it were not that Roth provides the salvation loophole from the very first pages: the real drama of "The Swede" is only hinted at, only minimally intuited, and all the events narrated are only a supposition, an interpretation of Roth's own alter ego, the writer Nathan Zuckerman, Skip to his schoolmates, among them Jerry Levov, Seymour's brother, who tells him some of it. The almost seventy-year-old "Swede" that Zuckerman meets is a "Swede" who, in the face of his failure, has managed to rebuild a life: he has a new wife and three tall, handsome, blond sons, football, baseball, and basketball champions, his revenge, albeit with a great sense of loss to live with. After all, what is less reprehensible about the life of the Levovs? And the American dream can continue.

Note: If you don't like books in which the characters go off on too many digressions or that analyze the situations and states of mind too much, leave them alone and move on!

Read with the ongoing readings group
http://www.anobii.com/anobi/forum_thr...

E' il primo libro di Philip Roth che leggo e di sicuro non sarà l'ultimo. The narrative structure of the novel is based on flashbacks within flashbacks, which sometimes makes the reading difficult, but never heavy or boring.

It has a wonderful writing, in which not a single word is inappropriate nor a thought redundant. The story is told by the writer Nathan Zuckerman, the "alter ego" of Roth, who in 1995 meets an old schoolmate, Seymour Levov, called the Swede, an American Jew. The specification of the Swede's religion is important because the religious theme is present everywhere in the narrative.

From here begins the reconstruction of the story of this man, with continuous passages from the third to the first person, signifying the "incarnation" of the writer with his character and with Roth himself. The Swede is the personification of the "American dream": handsome, rich, athletic, the most beloved and obedient son of his parents, the in love husband of a very Catholic Irish girl who was Miss New Jersey in 1959, the affectionate father of a girl, Merry.

His life is aimed at "pleasing people". As his brother Jerry will mercilessly reproach him, the Swede is "the one who is always there trying to minimize things. Always there striving to be moderate. Never tell the truth if you believe it can hurt someone's feelings. Always ready to compromise... The boy who never breaks the rules...".

An event shakes the existence of the Swede and his family: his adored Merry, at sixteen, in 1968, becomes a terrorist and kills 4 people. The daughter's revolt against the father's conformism, which is realized not only with terrorist acts, but with a life of hardships and physical and psychological violence, leads to the total destruction of the Swede's family.

"Three generations. All had taken steps forward. The one who had worked. The one who had saved. The one who had broken through. Three generations in love with America. Three generations who wanted to integrate with the people they had found there. And now, with the fourth, everything had ended in nothing. The complete vandalization of their world."

The whole novel is built on the attempt to give an explanation for what happened: how can a good American family produce a murderer? But the conclusion is that there is no explanation and the reader is left free to lean towards one or the other motivation without getting to the truth.

This is what has most fascinated me in the book. "They had raised a daughter who was neither Catholic nor Jewish, who had been first a stutterer, then a murderer, then a Jain. All his life he had tried never to do wrong things, and this is what he had done. All the mistakes he had refrained from making, which he had buried as deeply as he could, had come to light anyway, just because a girl was beautiful."

This is the explanation I have given for what happened. But it is a book so dense with reflections and contents that the comment I have written seems inappropriate to me. I only recommend reading it.

Evaluating this work is difficult, almost impossible to judge.

It narrates a personal experience, soaked in the social context as seen by those who are the temporary protagonists of our brief era or by subjects influenced, even unconsciously, by the power of the multitude.

The America of past, present, and future generations, generations that build but others that, horrifyingly, prefer to deliberately destroy.

It is a difficult and very slow text. Probably in 2 months I will have forgotten it, but that doesn't take away the fact that once read, it enters the most forgotten and hidden area of the mind and will resurface when we least expect it.

This work seems to offer a complex and multi-faceted view of American society and the human condition within it.

It makes the reader reflect on the different generations and their actions, as well as on the power and influence that surround us.

Although it may be a challenging read, it has the potential to leave a lasting impression and spark further thought and discussion.

Perhaps it is a work that requires multiple readings to fully appreciate and understand its depth and significance.

Overall, it is a text that invites us to look beyond the surface and explore the hidden meanings and emotions that lie within.

To my fellow reviewers in the room:

Do you ever pause and reflect on the reasons why you pen your reviews? For me personally, I find great pleasure in concluding a reading experience by penning a summary of my feelings regarding a novel. On occasion, I even offer some amateur analysis. And I always hold the hope that my reviews will assist someone in uncovering a book that is perfectly suited for them. I firmly believe that this last purpose is of the utmost importance. Indeed, no author requires my approval on a published work. However, numerous reviews have steered me either towards or away from a particular novel.

So, if you are seeking a glowing endorsement of Philip Roth's American Pastoral, you would be better off looking elsewhere. I state this with complete sincerity: this is a highly beloved book that has garnered some deeply moving reviews, meticulous analysis, and a significant amount of critical acclaim. A short yet captivating review by my friend Douglas prompted me to select this book from my stack of Pulitzer winners as the next installment in my monthly Pulitzer reading. Thanks, Doug! I always appreciate a recommendation, even if it doesn't quite pan out as expected. What I am about to embark upon is a rambling exploration of some of the reasons why this book frustrated, bored, and confused me. Hopefully, my review will prove helpful in influencing your decision to take on some of Roth's works.

For some inexplicable reason, the novel commences with Nathan Zuckerman - an aging author whom I can only presume is Roth's alter ego - as he waxes poetically about his childhood hero, Swede Levov. As it transpires, Swede is the true protagonist of the entire novel. However, it takes a good 100 pages for us to reach the point where Zuckerman begins to relate Swede's story. Or, rather, his interpretation of the story? This was my initial source of frustration with the novel. In essence, my complaint is this: just get on with it.

Once we finally delve into Swede's crumbling family life in the aftermath of his daughter's bombing of a post office, the story briefly hits its stride before veering off into countless diversions. There are meandering, pages-long paragraphs that delve into ladies' leather glove manufacturing, the state of America during the Vietnam War, and various character portraits. Roth also has the exasperating tendency to cram an entire conversation into a single paragraph rather than spacing it out between pieces of dialogue. While I had anticipated a smooth reading experience, I instead found myself constantly coming to abrupt stops, starts, and sputtering attempts at generating momentum.

What truly frustrated me was the fact that I have read books written in a similar vein that I have thoroughly enjoyed. The World According to Garp by John Irving immediately springs to mind. However, that novel takes strange turns that never irked me in the same way that American Pastoral did. Approximately halfway through the novel, I turned to the internet to see if other readers shared my sentiments. Fortunately, I found validation in the opinions of numerous readers who expressed similar thoughts: this is the type of book I typically like, so why can't I get into it?

For me, it simply comes down to the fact that Roth is a bit too verbose, a bit too self-indulgent, and often retraces old ground in a manner that drove me crazy. I'll admit: the man can clearly write, but it just doesn't resonate with me in the same way that the writing of other authors does. Moreover, I believe there is a certain social disconnect with the book. I did not live through the Vietnam War protests and the transition in America from traditional values to the chaos of the modern era. I guess I have always known the chaos.

This also makes Swede, for me, a rather vexing protagonist. He is a well-to-do everyman, a symbol of classic American values, and a largely ineffective individual once things start to go awry. He is trapped by his beliefs and loyalties and never seems able to adapt to the challenges he encounters in the modern world. I understand, I understand, the whole point of the novel is that Swede is unable to adapt to the changing face of America. I just didn't particularly enjoy watching him flounder about as characters regularly swooped in to inform him just how spectacularly he had messed up.

*sigh*

I do not mean to completely pan the novel, but for me, this was not an enjoyable read. I approached it as if it were a job and attempted to read encouraging reviews along the way to boost my resolve. Even with the Pulitzer winners that I have been lukewarm about, I have been able to discern what the jury might have seen in the novel. With American Pastoral, I just felt as though I had completely missed the boat.

This is the fifth book of my 2020 Pulitzer Challenge!

Everyone has a home. It is where everything always goes wrong.

Our homes are supposed to be our sanctuaries, places of comfort and security. But often, it seems that no matter how hard we try, things just don't work out as planned. There are leaky faucets that need constant repair, appliances that break down at the most inconvenient times, and furniture that seems to always be in the wrong place.

Yet, despite all the chaos and disorder, our homes are still the places we return to at the end of a long day. They are filled with memories, both good and bad, and they are a reflection of who we are. So, even though everything may always seem to be going wrong, we continue to love and cherish our homes, flaws and all.

I hold Roth in quite high regard when it comes to American writers. However, this, the first Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I ever perused, was rather inconsistent for me. The word "frustrating" might just sum it up. It is indeed a thoughtful and intelligent piece of work, yet it failed to meet the expectations of a masterpiece that I had. At times, I found it rather dull. For every twenty pages or so that managed to impress me, the next twenty would leave me uninterested. I mean, do I really have to know the manufacturing process of ladies' gloves in such minute detail? Perhaps if I had a glove fetish, but alas, I don't. Fortunately, the last third of the novel made up for the disappointing first two-thirds, which seemed to drag on for far too long.

The main story that runs throughout is that of Seymour Levov (or "the Swede" as he is called) and his attempts to understand why his beloved daughter Merry transformed from an all-American child into a raging and hateful teenager who commits an act of terrorism in their community, shaking the family to its very core. Roth is clearly passionate about his country, and there are strong themes of family loyalties, civil disobedience, and the trouble brewing during the Lyndon Johnson era and the Vietnam War, when so many young Americans became disillusioned. There is a significant amount of flashback involved, which helps in understanding the family history. I truly felt a deep sense of sorrow for Merry when her father finds her years after she flees home. I did appreciate reading this novel, and it is a good one, but I still couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment.

Back in late 2004, my life was a whirlwind of events. In October of that year, I had just endured a significant break-up. At the same time, I was dealing with an uncomfortable situation involving a not-so-secret admirer who kept sniffing around my workplace. Additionally, I had entered the early stages of a new relationship, but I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to be a proper relationship. That December, I was in such a state that I was having a hard time reading just one page, let alone finishing an entire book.

I picked up Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" that same month on a whim. I remember sitting in the backroom of the bookstore where I worked during my lunch break, wearing a super heavy hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, covering as much of my head as possible. I was listening to music with the biggest, thickest headphones I could find, trying to hide from the world. My fingernails were probably painted black, or at least they should have been. Those were dark, sad, and angsty days. In many ways, this book saved my reading enthusiasm during that difficult time. It was the first book in a long while that I wanted to read cover to cover. I was completely captivated by Roth's writing, finding it addictive and mesmerizing. I even swore that I would read other books by him.

Fast forward about ten years after I finished "The Plot Against America." I hadn't read anything else by Roth until I picked up this latest book. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have chosen it on my own if it wasn't the book club winner for this month. Over the past ten years, I've become somewhat disillusioned with all those big-name white male authors, and I consider Roth to be one of them. Yes, he's white, male, and privileged, and it's all about America, blah blah blah. There's a whole other world out there, and I've developed a habit of really enjoying those different perspectives on life.

However, just like with "The Plot Against America," I found myself getting sucked into Roth's writing, his way with words, the world he created, and the characters within it. I was a bit less excited about the framing narrative in this book, or perhaps I should say the half-framing narrative since we never return to it at the end. It starts with Nathan Zuckerman reflecting on former high school hero Seymour "The Swede" Levov and how Levov wants to meet up with Zuckerman as older men to talk about his life. This section was an okay read, but I did learn one very important fact: Men of a certain age only talk about their prostates. I didn't know this before, being non-male and all. It makes me wonder if, at a certain age, my girlfriends and I will only talk about our ovaries - how they function or don't, the tests we need to have to ensure they're working properly, and whether they need to be removed. I suppose it's inevitable.

But then we delve directly into the Swede's life and all the good and bad that came with it. This is the truly fascinating part. We all remember the popular kids from our high school years - some of you might have actually been the king or queen of your school, which is great. But where are you now? Are you still the top dog in your office, in your world, in your life? Probably not. You've probably gained a few pounds, or you've had a child or two, and now they're the ones in charge. You might feel that your life is pretty complete, but there's probably still a void somewhere, one that you might not even recognize yet, but it will eventually make itself known.

In the Swede's life, that void was filled by his 16-year-old daughter, Merry, who blew up a building in their town in protest against the Vietnam War. The story is about the people in Merry's life, dealing with this new hole that has been blown in their world, and contemplating how they are or are not directly or indirectly involved in Merry's ultimate decision.

Life is all about choices - the people we associate with, the homes we create for ourselves, and how we live our daily lives. We often wonder at some point if we've made the right choices: How would things be different if I had chosen x instead of y? Some of us drive ourselves a little crazy playing this game. This entire book is like that. The Swede wonders if something that happened on the beach years ago had an impact on Merry's outcome; if she hadn't had a stutter, would things have been different? What if, later on, he had dragged Merry back home?

There are so many questions, and Roth explores them all. He also has a tendency to go off on tangents, and while some of these work, others seem to overcomplicate things and feel unnecessary. You know those whaling sections in "Moby Dick"? You either love them or you don't. In this book, there are entire sections dedicated to the discussion of how to make leather gloves - just without the diagrams.

I initially found this all a bit irritating because I was thinking, "OMG, prostates and leather gloves, can we be more white?" But after a while, it started to make sense: This is the America of Roth's world. This world is set in the 1960s and 1970s in New Jersey, a time when the world was in turmoil, and everyone was scrambling to keep up with the changes. This is just one family out of millions, all trying to make the right choices for themselves, to remain independent in a land that was supposed to be free but was becoming increasingly clear that it wasn't.

My life has improved significantly since December 2004. I have a different job now, and that guy I wasn't sure I wanted to be more than a cuddle buddy with? We're still together. Reading this book, however, makes me think about all the choices I've made, all the choices you've made, and I wonder if any of us are better or worse off because of them. But, then again, that's just life.

You must all absolutely read it. I start like this to talk to you about this book that has upset me. "American Pastoral" is a manifesto against the strong points of a conservative, blind and bourgeois thought. More than ever, this book is absolutely current. The American pastoral (not only American) is the idea of the perfect, honest life that the protagonist (the happy American loyal to duty) has, in which nothing can go wrong, nothing can infiltrate, an idea that cannot exist and that will end in the most tragic of ends. The greatness of Roth lies in not giving solutions to the problem, in describing without explaining. It would be too easy and it can never be easy. There are two protagonists, a father and a daughter. The daughter becomes the representative of everything that is "wrong", uncontrollable that there can be in life, in history. Why has Merry become like this? What has driven her? How is it possible after having had an idyllic childhood and two parents who have only loved her? There are very many questions. We delve into a thousand possible explanations, backgrounds and snapshots of life that try to explain why the American pastoral is unreachable and should not even be.

This exploration of the American dream and its破灭 is a powerful and thought-provoking journey. Roth's writing is masterful, painting a vivid picture of a family and a society in turmoil. The characters are complex and multi-dimensional, making it easy for the reader to empathize with their struggles.

"American Pastoral" is not just a book about a specific time and place, but a universal story about the human condition. It forces us to question our own beliefs and values, and to consider the consequences of our actions. It is a book that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.

**Detonating Daughter, Disintegrated Marriage**

The most popular guy in Newark's Weequahic High School Class of 1945 was Seymour "Swede" Levov. He was a star athlete in three sports, and got his nickname due to his blonde hair, blue eyes, and Nordic looks. The elder son of a successful Jewish American glove manufacturer, he took over the factory and married the Miss New Jersey 1949, an Irish Catholic girl from nearby Elizabeth. He thought he had set up the perfect American life in a big house in an idyllic town, with a gorgeous wife and a cute daughter.

However, as the Vietnam War and racial unrest plagued the country, his daughter Merry, who had a severe stuttering problem, became angry at the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. She grew increasingly erratic and hideously overweight. In 1968, at 41, Swede's "American Pastoral" life was shattered when Merry, then only 16, bombed the local post office in protest against American intervention in Vietnam and went into permanent hiding. He didn't see her for 5 years until he found her in inner city Newark, emaciated and in a bad state.

The story mainly focuses on the 5 years between the bombing and this meeting and culminates in a 1973 dinner party with guests from local social circles, resulting in another explosion in Swede's life, figuratively speaking, nearly as big as the one in 1968. The novel confronts the American social and political turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including riots, race problems, protests, bombings, the sexual revolution, the Watergate scandal, and "Deep Throat". I recommend this book if you liked Roth's other novels or have any interest in this tumultuous era.

Weather Underground Motto, quoted in American Pastoral

"We are against everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will loot and burn and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers' nightmares."

*4.4 stars*

Reading the last page, I thought I had read 3,000 and still wanted 1,000 more. The reading was slow with many breaks. The second part (Fall) was one of the most enjoyable points of literature that I have read in total.

The plot of my work reminded me a bit of Pynchon, due to its characteristic technique, entropy. The narrator meets his old classmate after many years, for whom he had created a perfect image of his life. Somewhere there, the demythologization begins at a point of ancient tragedy. It is the collapse of the American Dream, it is the irony of life, it is what we want to see everywhere around us but we get it so wrong.

In the second part, which is also the best of the three, we have an excellent psychological portrayal of the characters of an American family, worthy of Dostoyevsky. Exactly at this point, the writing is very dense and full of substance, as if I were reading Pessoa.

Being the second novel of Roth that I read, the comparison with Portnoy's Complaint was inevitable. The two books have a time difference of about 30 years, which is clearly visible from the maturity of the author. The previous one had not satisfied me, while this one impressed me. The only certain thing is that I have a future with Roth.