I have loved every Philip Roth novel I’ve read so far: he has a way of punching me in the guts with his words, of creating such vividly real characters and putting me right in their shoes… I hesitated picking this one up because current events echo the story a little too much for my taste, but I was morbidly curious to see how Roth had imagined a fascist America. That being said, I wish I had read it a couple of years ago, because reading “The Plot Against America” right now makes it impossible to separate the story on the page from the current American political situation. The parallels between Trump and Lindbergh are chilling; from the isolationist slogans to the friendship with avowed violators of human rights, by way of complicit approval of white supremacists… It can get upsetting, even for a Canadian looking at the American train wreck from the outside, even when you tell yourself “it’s a book, it’s fiction”…

Earlier this year, I read another work of alternate-historical fiction that involved a very different WWII, but “The Plot Against America” is not really like “The Man in the High Castle” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which worked really well as a novel of ideas but did not flesh out any of its characters. Here, we see the nosedive of America into fascism through the eyes of someone directly impacted by this wind of change in so many ways. Roth weaved himself in this story, as he tries to imagine how his family would have reacted to the changing climate – from his father’s outrage, his brother’s strange but fascinating defection and his cousin’s urge to do something, even if that “something” turns out ill-advised, with tragic consequences. The way he describes the stunned disbelief, the paranoia, the feeling of surreal helplessness experienced by his loved ones is painfully vivid and familiar.

There’s something about watching the news these days that make books like this one much more frightening than they must have been when they were first published. Too bad I didn’t get my hands on this years ago, I would have probably enjoyed it more. 4 stars, because it is beautifully written and heart-wrenching – but reading it now also makes it very depressing…

This novel is told by a pre-teen protagonist during the 1940's and his family who live in New Jersey in a Jewish neighborhood with an alternate history of what actually take place. For the most part I thought it was a well written story but not as stark as books like "It Can't Happen Here" by Lewis. This was a book recommended by a Rachel Maddow podcast that I had listened to and hers was an actual real life story of Americans plotting with Nazi Germany to change our country into a fascist republic rather than a democracy, and it is so close that it's what could actually happen here if we don't wake up. I can understand that this novel would be popular during this time and it made both the Critics and Readers NY Times 100 most popular books so far in the 20th century.

An alternative blip in history, it melds a terrifying possibility with the timeline of WWII. It’s worth reading and, I liked it. The ending made me think of the sound a phonograph needle would make if you drug it to the right track.

I first read this in the early aughts when I had a small child, a demanding job, and a limited amount of intellectual energy to lend, and still I really loved it. As I recall what I liked most were the parts that were clearly autobiographical. It was novel to see Roth writing about a good mother (a great mother actually) and a loving father with moral strength. Roth's fictional mothers are largely pathological and overbearing and his fictional fathers, where they exist at all, are like ghosts. As i recall I thought the alternate history element of this book was interesting, but seemed far-fetched.

Fast-forward to 2019 - Not only is this alternate history not far-fetched, it has ceased to be particularly alternate. Sure its not the 1940's. the players are different, but holy mackerel the Lindbergh presidency in this book looks a whole lot like the Trump presidency. Lindbergh even runs on an "America First" platform. The white power rallies in the book are our alt-right rallies. In the book the focus was on antisemitism alone, rather than the current war on all people not white, straight and christian, but wow, did Roth have Americans pegged or what?!?!

I recommend this to all. I didn't love the ending, but I understood the point; there is no ending to this story. A book to be admired, but also a gripping story, beautifully written (as one expects from Philip Roth) about the danger of principles, the uncertainty and joy of childhood, the many kinds of loss, the depth of familial love, the ravages of guilt, and the hate that people choose to embrace so they do not have to face fear. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I am going to call this a masterpiece.

One star??!!!?? Really???!!! I gotta be kidding right? Either that or I’m on some kind of crazy drug trip.

Well, no. I really “did not like” this book. Hence, the single solitary star.

I hate it when mainstream novelists try their hand at science fiction. They usually muck it up. This is not too surprising given the disregard most of them have for science fiction in the first place. It’s even worse when the science-fiction novel in question is a thinly disguised political rant because the politics overwhelms everything else. Paul Theroux had that problem with O-Zone. Philip Roth has that problem with The Plot Against America.

This alternate history written during the presidency of Bush bis is clearly an attack against the Republican party and its supporters. Notwithstanding my personal inclinations towards such a viewpoint, I found the book deeply dislikeable.

The novel depicts an America in which a President Charles Lindberg, Republican, signs a peace treaty with Germany, Italy, and Japan, having won the election on the promise of peace. Both houses of Congress are also delivered into the hands of the Republican party by crushing majorities. The movement to war is derided as a product of a Jewish conspiracy, and programmes to integrate American Jews into the American community are launched. Given what we know of World War II, we are clearly intended to suspect that such programmes are little more than thin disguises for a later Jewish pogrom. With President Lindberg at the helm, in the space of two years, virulent anti-Semitism spreads and American undergoes its own kristallnacht. Democracy is replaced by fascism almost overnight.

As an alternate history, I found this to be pure bunkum: poorly put together and thought through. Even more damning is that it is depicted in a manner that I found entirely unconvincing.

Now, I am quite ready to believe that no country, with absolutely no exceptions, is immune from embracing totalitarianism. That was not why I found the novel unconvincing. I found it unconvincing because Roth never takes the trouble to show us how the America in his novel comes to embrace fascism. In his America, large majorities of the American citizenry are apparently in hearty support of this course. The only reason Roth gives for their adulatory approval of this trajectory is their desire not to be drawn into war.

All events are seen from the perspective of the narrator, an alternate world Philip Roth, aged nine, living with his family in a tight-knit Jewish community more or less isolated by choice from the rest of white America. From this perspective, we are only allowed to see how the programmes initiated by President Lindberg—apparently with the full support of the WASP-majority, the black minority, and the wealthy Jewish community—impact their lives and shatter the young Roth’s hitherto happy and comfortable childhood.

As I remarked, I do not believe that any society has some kind of natural anti-body against totalitarianism. However, I do believe that such ideas first require fertile ground in which to grow. A prosperous, peaceful nation is not the kind of ground that is ordinarily readily receptive to such ideas. In the novel, at the time of Lindberg’s rise, FDR’s two mandates have brought America to just such a situation. We are meant to accept that despite his success, the public would heartily reject his candidacy in favour of Lindberg’s simply because they idolize the handsome blond aviator and because they fear war.

Even then, I might have been prepared to accept this turn of events if we had been shown how the ordinary American’s thinking changes over the course of Lindberg’s presidency. But we never see this. We are never shown anyone else’s viewpoint other than the narrow view of Roth’s nine-year old protagonist. This choice of perspective is severely limiting not only because of the nine-year old child’s limited understanding of events but because it is a viewpoint confined to that of a working class family living in a wholly Jewish community. Except for a handful of token gentiles who make the occasional walk-on appearance, we are given no other view on events. As a result, we are given no access to the kind of mind set that might be won over by Lindberg’s fascist anti-Semitism or that might gradually come to embrace it.

We are instead presented with a fait accompli which seems to assume the complicit acceptance of a reader already convinced that a relatively prosperous and peaceful democratic America is inherently capable of overthrowing its founding principles in the space of less than two years for no reason other than a desire to avoid war with Hitler. No extended period of deprivation and suffering necessitates the search for a convenient scapegoat; no chaos and breakdown of government legitimacy is needed for people to turn to the illusory certainty afforded by totalitarianism; no seething long-standing community resentment barely held in check by a civil government is needed for hatreds to explode. No, apparently, the hatred of Jews is strong in the gentile. They fear and despise Jews so much that the vast majority would eagerly blind themselves to the loss of their own freedoms to see the hated kike die. Seriously, Roth?

I can see how a fringe minority of the population might be like this. But it generally takes much deeper periods of humiliation and suffering and far harsher shocks to mobilise the majority of a population to such hate. Without showing us this process at work, all we have really is an anti-gentile novel. Ironic, really, given the novel’s ostensible anti-intolerance message.

Изключителна книга!

A famous personality wins the Presidency of the US by railing against minorities, whipping up populist fervour against "the other". Once in office he adopts divisive policies aimed at isolating a vulnerable minority, whilst enacting America alone foreign policy.

He is aided by a foreign power, which seems to have a hold over him on account of a dark episode from his past.

This is a work of fiction. In today's topsy turvy world it could almost be a news report.

I repost this because The New York Times has two of Philip Roth's (RIP) novels on their list of 100 best novels of the 21st century, at the one quarter-century mark: The Human Stain and The Plot Against America. Many Roth fans do not think this is one of his top books, but I do, and it remains very relevant to the rise of fascism in the US and everywhere else.

I have not see the Netflix series based on this book yet.

“Anything can happen to anyone, but it usually doesn't. Except when it does”—Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America is a must read for our times. A tour de force (and also sort of tour de [dark] farce) that is at turns funny and scary and moving, it is an alternate history novel exploring “what if” isolationist and anti-Semitic aviation hero Charles Lindbergh had actually defeated FDR in 1940, running as he did on an anti-war platform, and had made a pact with Hitler [I know! Why would a major American politician cheer for Hitler?!), whose tyranny—unimpeded by the USA as its new key ally—then continued unabated. Specifically, Roth wonders what effects Lindbergh’s presidency might have had on one (his) actual decidedly Jewish family.

Young Philip, 7, is inspired by his father’s opposition to both Hitler and Lindbergh, as is his cousin Alvy, who actually enlists with The Canadian Army (because Lindbergh fulfills his promise of America First—that nationalism and isolationism—and doesn’t let the US fight Germany) and loses his leg in France, thereby getting Philip’s rich uncles to blame Philip’s father for that, for his even wanting to fight Hitler’s fascism in Europe. Alvy, having fought with Canada, is increasingly harassed as anti-American, for choosing to fight Hitler, who becomes, thanks to Lindbergh, a kind of ally of the US!

One way Lindbergh gets elected is that a prominent New Jersey rabbi argues for Lindbergh and against the war. Lindbergh's first domestic initiative is the creation of the Office of American Absorption to "encourage America's religious and national minorities to become further incorporated into the larger society." The focus here is on the better assimilation of Jews in particular. The OAA also later develops the Homestead Act, which helps relocate Jews and other minorities. Sound familiar, Indigenous Americans? Or does it sound a little like deportation or travel bans, in principle? Anyway, Phil’s brother Sandy goes to a farm in Kentucky for the summer, and loves it, becoming for a time aligned with Lindbergh and a spokesperson for the program.

“To have enslaved America with this hocus pocus! To have captured the mind of the world's greatest nation without uttering a single word of truth! Oh, the pleasure we must be affording the most malevolent man on earth!”—Philip’s Dad

Sound ridiculous and possibly paranoid? Well, that’s what I initially thought. But it is one storytelling feat to make the basis for the story outlandish, even screwy, and yet on some level make it darkly reasonable and frightening. Could an isolationist, racist fascist become President of the US of A?! Nah, it can’t happen here.

But as Philip’s father says, “What do you mean it can’t happen here? It is happening here!”

Roth weaves in actual forties historical characters throughout. For instance, Walter Winchell, the liberal journalist, remains just as anti-fascist as he was in real life in this version of American forties reality. With the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winchell actually becomes the Democratic candidate for President. But when Winchell takes his act on the road to (anti-Semitic) Father Coughlin’s Detroit, America’s Kristallnacht begins, and all hell breaks loose, especially for Jews in America. Fascism reigns, though that’s not the end of the story.

Maybe ultimately this novel is a reminder or rejoinder to Jewish (and other pacifists) who might have once opposed any war against fascism or dictatorships elsewhere. Roth is saying that sometimes war is justified, and the war against Hitler was for him surely justified. And Roth doesn’t really care about Lindbergh. What he cares about is an electorate he sees as awed by media darlings, and moved by simple slogans like America First (both Lindbergh’s and 45's slogan; huh, isn't that interesting?) that allow him to demonize and scapegoat particular minority groups. Disinformation campaigns founded on lies, which we now know were hugely funded by the likes of actual American hero Henry Ford, though none of probably read this in high school history.

The main focus of this tale is really Roth’s Dad, raging against the rise of fascism in America. As Philip says, “There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty and Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.” Roth’s mother is also just as admirable in steadfastly clinging to goodness and caring regardless of what craziness happens. This book has political targets, but it is also a love letter to his good, liberal, working-class parents and other parents like them.

“How can this be happening in America?”—Philip’s mother

Did Roth in 2004 (when the book was published) have in mind a cautionary tale for America’s future? He says no. Here is Roth emailing with The New Yorker that the Lindbergh nightmare fantasy he wrote about is nothing compared to what Trump could be for this country:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

“How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination”—Philip’s mother

Related to the possible rise of fascism in this or other countries (take your choice), also read It Can't Happen Here. Read The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which posits a ridiculous clownish, crude and rude Hitler-like gangster rising to power in Chicago, ready to take over the country. Read Rachel Maddow's Prequel. It can’t really happen here, can it?! Who are the crazies rising to or already in power?

[3,5*]

«Τι θα γινόταν εάν, στις αμερικάνικες προεδρικές εκλογές του 1940, ο Franklin Roosevelt έχανε από τον Charles Lindbergh;» θα μπορούσε να είναι ο-κάπως μακροσκελής-υπότιτλος αυτού του βιβλίου.

Ο Roth χτίζει μια εναλλακτική πραγματικότητα, μπλέκοντας στη μυθοπλασία με τα ιστορικά γεγονότα, όπου ο φιλοναζιστής Λίντμπεργκ προσπαθεί να ενσωματώσει αρχικά και στη συνέχεια να απομονώσει τους Εβραίους σε αμερικανικές Πολιτείες.

Ένα ενδιαφέρον μυθιστόρημα που δείχνει πώς ένα φασιστικό καθεστώς εκμεταλλεύεται τους ανθρώπους, οδηγώντας τους να μισούν και να αντιδρούν βίαια ενάντια σε μειονότητες, οι οποίες δεν ονειρεύονται, τελικά, κάτι διαφορετικό απ’ αυτούς.

Ίσως όχι το πιο δυνατό βιβλίο του συγγραφέα, αλλά σίγουρα αποτελεί τροφή για σκέψη και προβληματισμό.

It is truly horrifying to discover how much of what was mere fiction for Roth 20 years ago is now undeniably non-fiction today. Magnificent writing and skillful plotting are applied to an exploration of where America's flirtation with Fascist movements - past and present; at home and abroad - can and will lead when allowed.

3.7*
Ενώ μεχρι τα 2/3 του βιβλίου το θεωρούσα αριστούργημα ξαφνικά, εκεί που κανονικά θα έπρεπε να έρθει η κορύφωση μέσω της περιγραφής της φρικώδους ενλλακτικής πραγματικότητας, κάτι έσπασε. Δεν ξερω ακριβώς αν ήμουν εγώ που για κάποιο λόγο δεν κατάφερα να συμβαδίσω με την εξέλιξη της πλοκής ή αν οι μυθιστορηματικές και περιγραφικές επιλογές του Ροθ με απομάκρυναν απο το βιβλίο του. Βρέθηκα πάντως εκεί λίγο πριν το τέλος να διαβάζω με ταχύτητα και χωρίς να δίνω ιδιαίτερο βάθος, περισσότερο αδιάφορα παρά την υποτιθέμενη κορύφωση και αποκάλυψη. Ίσως κι εκείνος να το βιάστηκε αυτό το κομμάτι και να μην το αφησε να ωριμάσει μέσα στον αναγνώστη. Δεν αποτρέπω κανεναν απο το να το διαβάσει γιατί όντως παίρνει και μαθαίνει πολλά κανείς. Αλλά το περίμενα πιο δυνατό με βαση την υπόθεση

My One 4th of July, Apple Pie, Patriotic, Love America and Truly Make Sure it doesn't get flushed down the fascist toilet book for 2019:

“Anything can happen to anyone, but it usually doesn't. Except when it does.”—Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America is a must read for our times. A tour de force (and also sort of tour de [dark] farce) that is at turns funny and scary and moving, it is an alternate history novel exploring “what if” isolationist and anti-Semitic aviation hero Charles Lindberg had actually defeated FDR in 1940, running on an anti-war platform, and had made a pact with Hitler, whose tyranny—unimpeded by the USA as a key ally—then continued unabated. Specifically, Roth wonders what effects Lindberg’s presidency might have had on his actual decidedly Jewish family, somewhat fictionalized in this novel.

Young Philip, 7, is inspired by his father’s opposition to both Hitler and Lindberg, as is his cousin Alvy, who actually enlists with The Canadian Army (because Lindberg fulfills his promise of America First—with a focus on isolationism—and doesn’t allow the US military to fight Germany) and loses his leg in France, thereby getting Philip’s rich uncles to blame Philip’s father for that, for even wanting to fight Hitler’s fascism in Europe. Alvy, having fought for Canada, is increasingly harassed as anti-American, for choosing to fight Hitler, who becomes, thanks to Lindberg, a kind of ally of the US! Yikes.

One way Lindberg gets elected is that a prominent New Jersey rabbi argues for Lindberg and against the war. Lindberg's first domestic initiative is the creation of the Office of American Absorption to "encourage America's religious and national minorities to become further incorporated into the larger society." The focus here is on the better assimilation of Jews in particular. The OAA also later develops the Homestead Act, which helps relocate Jews and other minorities. Sound familiar, Native Americans? Or does it sound a little like deportation or travel bans, in principle? Anyway, Phil’s brother Sandy goes to a farm in Kentucky for the summer, and loves it, becoming for a time aligned with Lindberg and a spokesperson for the OAA program.

“To have enslaved America with this hocuspocus! To have captured the mind of the world's greatest nation without uttering a single word of truth! Oh, the pleasure we must be affording the most malevolent man on earth!”—Philip’s Dad, actually speaking of Lindberg, and not you-know-who

Sound ridiculous and possibly paranoid? Well, that’s what I initially thought. But it is one storytelling feat to make the basis for the story outlandish, even screwy, and yet on some level make it darkly reasonable and frightening. Could an isolationist fascist become President of the US of A?! Nah, it can’t happen here.

But as Philip’s father says, “What do you mean it can’t happen here? It is happening here!”

Roth works in actual forties historical characters throughout. For instance, Walter Winchell, the liberal journalist, remains just as anti-fascist as he was in real life in this version of American forties reality. With the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, Winchell actually becomes the Democratic candidate for President. But when Winchell takes his act on the road to (anti-Semitic) Father Coughlin’s Detroit, America’s Kristallnacht begins, and all hell breaks loose, especially for Jews in America. Fascism reigns, though that’s not the end of the story.

Maybe ultimately this novel is a reminder or rejoinder to Jewish (and other pacifists) who might have once opposed any war against fascism or dictatorships elsewhere. Roth is saying that sometimes war is justified, and the war against Hitler was for him surely justified. And Roth doesn’t really care about Lindberg. What he cares about is an electorate he sees as awed by media darlings, and moved by simple slogans like America First (both Lindberg’s and Trump’s actual slogan), Big Business Types who promise us riches and scare us about threats to security and demonize and scapegoat particular minority groups in the process.

But the main hero of this tale is really Roth’s Dad, raging against the rise of fascism in America. As Philip says, “There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty and Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.” Roth’s mother is also admirable in steadfastly clinging to goodness and caring regardless of what craziness happens. This book, written decades before Trump, has political targets, but it is also a love letter to his good, liberal, working-class parents.

“How can this be happening in America?”—Philip’s mother

Did Roth in 2005 have in mind a cautionary tale for America’s future? He says no. But here is Roth emailing with The New Yorker that the Lindberg nightmare fantasy he wrote about is nothing compared to what Trump could be for this country:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

“How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.” –Philip’s mother

I also just read The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which posits a ridiculous clownish, crude and rude Hitler-like gangster rising to power in Chicago, ready to take over the country. It can’t really happen here, can it?! I’m just paranoid, right?