Alternative history that almost happened and maybe did happened to some extent. Important but quite boring book. At least for me: I don't like reading such "historical textbook style". And it was hard to comprehend sometimes probably because it's a very American. It was easy to get lost in dozens political names and events. The best thing here is a suspense or perpetual fear, like one of the chapters were titled. The lives and position of this particular Jewish family didn't change in a day and we can see how dictatorship and totalitarizm slowly crawling in everyday lives stealing freedom by small pieces. Very realistic and therefore extremely horrifying.

Published in 2004, this novel is an invented history of America: Nazi-sympathizer and renowned pilot Charles Lindbergh is elected President of the United States. He espouses isolationism, but has made agreements with Hitler’s supporters to stay out of the war and simultaneously relocate and assimilate Jews in America through something called the Office of American Absorption. The program is so well-orchestrated that it is espoused as a wonderful thing by many Jews, but in the “Jewish ghetto” of Newark there are some holdouts. Roth speaks in the first person, using his own family’s real names, in this alternate history, and it is chilling.

What’s chilling is how easily lies become truth because enough people derive importance by having their social status raised by coming onboard with those in power. And when famous journalist Walter Winchell, leader among the holdouts, gets dumped from his radio program, in a last ditch effort to speak truth, he writes what turns out to become a much-reviled final newspaper column:

“The Lindbergh fascists . . . have openly begun their Nazi assault to freedom of expression. Today Winchell’s the enemy to be silenced . . . Winchell ‘the warmonger,’ ‘the liar,’ ‘the alarmist,’ ‘the Commie,’ ‘the kike.’ Today yours truly, tomorrow every newscaster and reporter who dares to tell the truth about the fascist plot to destroy American democracy. Honorary Aryans like the rabid rabbi Lyin’ Lionel B. and the snooty Park Avenue proprietors of the gutless New York Times aren’t the first ultracivilized Jewish Quislings to grovel before an anti-Semitic master because they’re just too, too refined to fight like Winchell . . . and they won’t be the last. The jerks at Jergens [the radio sponsor that fired Winchell] aren’t the first corporate cowards to play ball with the dictatorial lying machine that is now ruining this country . . . and they won’t be the last. (242)

Things deteriorate, Americans are fighting each other, and New York City’s Mayor La Guardia decries the gossip and innuendo that have become truth:

“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!” (316)

A timely story. An exhausting, not-particularly-fun-to-read book.

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.

I finally picked up The Plot Against America because I wanted to read it before watching the new HBO series. I had never read anything by Philip Roth, though I’d of course heard things about his books and writing style.

The comparisons between this novel and the current political environment are so obvious as to be barely worth mentioning, though I must say, not only could you just substitute the word Trump for Lindbergh for whole sections of the book without skipping a beat, but even the similarity of some of the minor details comparing the fictional Lindbergh and actual Trump campaigns (reliance on showmanship, ignoring advisors, finding key endorsements to create a permission structure for reluctant voters) are downright eerie. The book postulates—I think correctly—that Lindbergh’s election didn’t create anti-Semitism, but created an environment in which people who had been secretly anti-Semitic all along suddenly felt comfortable letting their racist flag fly in public (think tiki torch Neo-Nazis marching through Charlottesville, and every video form the last three years of people yelling racial slurs at minorities).

So as a work of prognostication, this book gets full marks. But the story is somewhat inconsistent. It’s more a family drama than a true alternative history, which probably could have been predicted by Roth’s decisIon to tell the story through the eyes of an eight-year-old alternative version of himself named Philip Roth. Yet one of the most interesting storylines about the family—the tension between Sandy and his father as they disagree about how Jews can or should assimilate into an America governed by Lindbergh—is abruptly abandoned and not resolved in a very satisfying manner. As for the alternative history, for a book that talks a lot about the dangers of onrushing fascism, it takes a long time for the fascism to actually show up. When it does, it’s the best part of the book, in part I think because Roth tells the climax in the manner of newsreels and steps away from the family drama for that portion of the story.

As for the writing, it feels absurd to criticize a writer of Roth’s pedigree, but I must confess I thought it was ... fine. Every now and then there was a highly quotable or moving sentence or two, but I certainly wasn’t blown away by the quality of his writing, like I was by Orwell or Nabokov or Vonnegut or Cormac McCarthy. Recommended, but there are solid reasons people don’t revere this book the way they do  1984 or  The Handmaid’s Tale.

A book that resonates today as a family sits powerless while the United States slowly descends into a lesser---and much more dangerous---form of government. 

Perhaps the most important parallel to today is how both sides of the political aisle are whipped into a frenzy by the populist antics of politicians. Roth brilliantly captures the human tendency to dispense with rationality and embrace political hysterics.

While the context is different in the book, the similarities to politics in the Trump era are striking: "nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others."

And: "How can this be happening in America? 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."

Roth is brilliant as ever. Every line is crafted with energy and precision. My only complaint is the large passage near the end when he deviates from dialogue-driven narrative that unfolds slowly to a sweeping, high-level summary of events. If it ain't broke---and it surely wasn't---don't fix it.

All in all, a great book. The lesson to be learned: the fabric of American government is fragile and it's continuity shouldn't be taken for granted.

Bay Roth Beni Lütfen Affedin:Hadi barışalım!

Portnoy'un Feryad'ı ile tanıştım Philip Roth ilk. O dönem bir okuma klübü ile birlikte okuduğum Roth'u son derece laubali bulmuştum ve ek olarak Amerikan edebiyatını çok sevmememle paralel olarak kendisini sanırım yerin dibine sokup çıkarmıştım. Fakat, Amerika'ya Tuzak ile tüm ön yargılarımdan dolayı kendisinde özür diliyorum. Philip Roth bu alternatif tarihi ve otobiyografik bir politik roman ile kendisine olan saygımı tamamen değiştirdi.

Konu

Roth, 9 Bölümden oluşan fantastik bir politik romanın ana kahramanı olarak 1927'de Atlantik Okyanusu'nu uçakla geçen ilk pilot ve Nazi sempatizanı Charles Lindbergh'in Başkan Franklin D. Roosevelt yenip Amerikan başkanı seçilmesi sonucu, Amerika'yı faşizme doğru sürüklenmesini kendi çocukluğundan ve ailesi gözünden anlatıyor.

Yavaş yavaş açılan roman, Linbergh'in Başkan olmasından sonrası korkuyu, anti-semitizmi, II. Dünya Savaşı'nın Avrupa'da var ettiği kapalı klostrofobik atmosferi oldukça canlı, gerçekçi olarak Amerika üstünden varsayımlar içinde inanılmaz gerçekçi bir roman yazıyor.

Sonuç

Philip Roth her ne kadar temelinde bir politik roman meydana getirmiş olsa da ,romanın alt metni olan aile teması aile kavramını kendi ailesi ve çocukluğu gözünden inanılmaz derece etkili ve içten anlatıyor. Politik değişimlerin aile dinamiklerini nasıl etkilediğini kendi çevresinden ayna tutuyor.

Oldukça zekice yazılmış bir roman olan Roth, kitabın sonunda okura ek notlar sunarak gerçeklik ve kurmaca arasında romana kendini tamamen kaptırmış okur içinde bir son hatırlatma ve ek notlar sunuyor. Bu ek açıklamalar ve notlar romanda geçen kişilerin kim olduğunu takibini hem kitaba başlarken hem de sonunda okura inanılmaz kolaylık sağlıyor

Son zamanlarda benim gibi simetri takıntısı olan bir okur için, abuk subuk kitap boyutlarını sonunda bir standart boyuta sabitleyen ve tekrardan çıkardığı yeni kitaplarla (Kobo Abe'leri tenzih ediyorum) ilgimi tekrardan çekmeye başladı Monokl. Yayınevi oldukça iyi bir iş çıkarıyor.Çeviri oldukça akıcı ve başarılı.

Sonuç olarak ben kitabı çok beğendim.Roth'un yarattığı alternatif dünya ve var olan tarihi kişileri mükemmel şekilde romana yediriyor. Fakat herkese tavsiye edebileceğim bir kitap da değil. Philip Roth ile tanışma kitabı değil kesinlikle. Amerika'ya Tuzak eğer tarihsel ve politik romanlardan hoşlanıyorsanız, Roth'u daha önceden okuduysanız ve biraz tanıyorsanız okumaya değer bir roman.

İyi okumalar!

I cannot tell a lie. George Washington


WE'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY!



1 star bonus (lifting it from 4 stars) in 2018 { козырь }

From The Plot Against America

n“The pompous son of a bitch knows everything. It's too bad he doesn't know anything else.”

"--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others”

“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 Roth, The Plot Against America

Roth's convincing tale of an alternate U.S. history has been made all the more plausible by recent events. I mean, look again at these quotes. In this 1940 America, the heroic Charles Lindbergh, known as an isolationist and admirer of Hitler in his early years, is elected U.S. President in a landslide over FDR by voters fearful of becoming involved in another European war. The U.S. does not get involved in WWII and the election unleashes a swelling tide of anti-Semitism resulting, ultimately, in assignments of Jewish citizens to certain areas designated by the U.S. government's new Office of American Absorption.

Roth impressively paints this tense fictional world in the Newark, New Jersey in which he himself was raised. He narrates through his early teen, fictional self providing an absorbing read made more captivating by recent Russian interference with the U.S. Presidential election and even more timely and chilling with this week's announcement that U.S. law enforcement agencies are investigating possible collusion between Russia and Trump campaign leaders/associates as well as possible covert Kremlin aid to Trump's campaign.




____________________________________
Update 3/14/17: Great podcast discussion of Novel

Trumpcast: Discussion of The Plot Against America and what Roth's 2004 novel can tell us about the current state of affairs

[3/14/17: White House officials admit no evidence to backup his latest Twitter claim {that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Towers campaign HQ} intended to distract attention from legislative and FBI investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia and its attempt to influence Americans' election of President of the United States]

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief."
Lionel Trilling

n  “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.”n
Jonathan Swift

I have not been a fan of alternate history over the years, because real history is so interesting, and the actual stories of real events are wonderful. However, I did enjoy Philip Roth's The Plot Against America because so many of the details of the nonfiction part of the story seemed so accurate that the slight exaggerations of the fictional part weren't off base.

This is a novel of a Jewish family living in New Jersey from 1940 to 1942 and the terrible events that rocked the family because of the change of government and the policies they promulgated. The reader sees how the family dynamics evolve through the eyes of young Philip. One of the strong points of the book is the narrator who always seems to be the correct age.

The ending to me was unsatisfactory, but it would have been a much longer novel to have the whole alternate history play out to its logical conclusion, so I can see why Roth brought this family drama to a close.

Uma certa desilusão, ainda que não totalmente surpreso. Depois da desilusão de “The Man in the High Castle” (1962) de Philip K. Dick, já não vinha expectante, ou melhor não vinha com gula. Não consigo explicar porque sempre me fascinou esta ideia de História alternativa, mais ainda do imaginar: “e se a Alemanha não tivesse perdido a 2ª Grande Guerra?’. Talvez por ser algo que ninguém quer ousar imaginar, uma espécie de pensamento proibido, faça dessa possibilidade objeto de imaginação mais apetecível. Mas a verdade é que ambos os livros são muito parcos em termos imaginativos, talvez porque a sê-lo teriam de embarcar pelo puro género de horror, o que acabaria por deitar a perder a componente dramática. Fica-me a faltar leitura de “Fatherland” (1993) de Robert Harris, mas a julgar por estes dois e algumas críticas que li, quer-me parecer que já não será para mim.

Tenho de dizer que a obra de Roth não se foca concretamente na história alternativa da Alemanha ganhar a Guerra, mas antes na alternativa dos EUA não participarem na Guerra. Mas logo aí acaba por ficar curta a digressão de Roth, já que o enredo acaba por avançar muito pouco. Em termos cronológicos somos encerrados num período de apenas 2 anos, entre 1940 e 1942. Roth foca-se assim mais sobre a possibilidade de um regime fascista poder tomar conta da “Terra da Liberdade”, transportando alguns dos eventos ocorridos na Europa para os EUA.

O livro tem a particularidade de fundir de forma muito rica o real e o ficcional alternativo, no sentido em que todos os intervenientes políticos são figuras reais da história americana, ao que se junta o facto da personagem principal, responsável por relatar o que está a acontecer, ser o próprio Philip Roth, na sua infância, dos 7 aos 9 anos. Ou seja, temos uma história alternativa impregnada de autenticidade vívida. Roth é judeu, nasceu em 1933 em New Jersey, e aí vivia no período relatado. Por isso a leitura ganha toda uma componente, apesar de paradoxal, autobiográfica, uma vez que Roth recorre às suas memórias reais para nos dar a ver o mundo dessa época pelos olhos de uma criança judia. Porque mesmo distante da Europa, seria inevitável para as crianças nos EUA que ouviam os pais comentar o que se passava na Europa, ver os jornais e as notícias nas salas de cinema, e não sentirem o peso dos eventos, da incerteza e nebulosa do que significavam.

O livro é de 2004 mas ganhou toda uma nova proeminência com a eleição de Trump em 2016. Muito sinceramente não vejo grande relação, ainda que o desenho da personagem e da eleição de Lindbergh se aproxime bastante do ocorrido com Trump, são tempos muito distintos, e na verdade são pessoas também muito distintas. É verdade que dá conta de alguma presciência por parte de Roth, mas mais relevante que isso, dá conta da sua enorme capacidade de observação e análise da sociedade Americana, da compreensão do que a move.

Como se não bastasse, a escrita de Roth é, como sempre, irrepreensível e puro deleite. Não sei como o consegue, nem como trespassa a barreira da tradução, mas ler palavra atrás de palavra, atrás de frase, é um pouco como seguir o ritmo de um rio de água fresca em pleno verão escaldante, e de vez em quando pousar a mão sobre a frescura da água para sentir o interior de cada personagem.


Publicado em: http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...

"And how long will the American people stand for this treachery perpetrated by their elected president? How long will Americans remain asleep while their cherished Constitution is torn to shreds?"

Not a big fan of alternative history at all, even though thought experiments like Harris' Fatherland create an atmosphere of chilling excitement, I was skeptical when I started on this bestseller. Being a big fan of Roth in general, I was suspicious of both the genre he had chosen and the success it had - it didn't bode well.

What can I say?

Seeing America in the hypnotised grip of a fascist leader seems less and less like an "alternative history" to me, and I have to acknowledge Roth's political instincts. The story of Charles Lindbergh winning a landslide victory against Roosevelt during the Second World War could definitely have happened in the divisive political climate of today, so the "What if?"-effect of the novel has turned into a sigh of frustration: "That's it! - Only worse!"

So as a prophesy of the current developments in America, I will give the novel all the credit it deserves. It is well-written and exciting, and has some vintage Rothisms.

BUT.

It is not as good as his other novels, unfortunately, and compared with himself, Roth loses ground in this story which would be a less talented writer's masterpiece. It is a bit too simplistic, bowing too much to sensationalist, bestselling writing techniques, to be a true critical study of America in decline.

Roth can do better than this, and that says more about him than about the novel. It is a good read, whereas he can be brilliant!

I've decided that Philip Roth will be my Christmas present to myself each year. I've noticed that this wasn't the favorite of some Roth fans. I had no expectations from this book other than, like the blurbs suggested, to be horrified and disturbed by the alternate history and how plausible it was during WWII for Charles Lindbergh to become President of the U.S.

In this book, Roth shows what would've likely happened if a known Nazi sympathizer (Lindbergh) had become President during the reign of Hitler. It's shocking, horrific, scary, but also timely, prophetic, and a sort of ticker-tape of the now.

Here's the beauty of this book. One could replace the name of Lindbergh with any number of our past great leaders, and change the oppressed from Jews to any number of other people groups, and instead of alternative history, you have actual history. Some of the fiction in this book has actually happened, and some of it, you could argue is happening even now.

I don't know why, but since I was a young child, I've always hated racial inequality and prejudice of any kind. I grew up in a small town in an area of the country known for its bigotry. So, since I thought thought this way and hated this kind of thinking, was I an outcast? Absolutely. I payed dearly for it. But, did I truly know what it was like to be hated because of my race or perceived differences? Absolutely not, as I would later learn.

What struck me while reading this book was that I need to not just agree and proclaim, "Yeah, this book could be about now", and then go about my business. No. That's not enough. I need to take action as well, and I think that's what Roth is trying to say as well. The Jews were oppressed in this book, but there were also people that stood up for the Jews and people in the majority that fought for the minority.

Being a white male, I was absolutely struck with the sense that I need to do more. To put my money where my mouth is. I've never really known what it's like to go through oppression, racism, or hate to this degree. Tables always turn, though, so it's possible for this to change in my lifetime. And even if it did, admittedly, any oppression I might suffer would never make up for history. Not in my lifetime.

I love the "By the Book" series in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/column/by-the-...). They interview famous writers about their favorite books. One question they often ask is, "If you could pick one book for the President to read, what would it be?"

I can't think of a better one to recommend than Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. In fact, I can't think of a book I'd recommend more to anyone right now.

I have had a few days to think about this book. When I began reading it, I thought perhaps Roth was presenting a sort of 'alternate reality' to what actually occurred historically in 1940 and the years following... with Charles Lindbergh beating FDR in the presidential election. Having anti-semitic feelings and a supporter of Hitler,what happened in Roth's story is very different factually from what actually occurred historically.

As I continued to read, I thought perhaps Roth was holding a mirror up to the country and daring us to examine our own attitudes and feelings. Perhaps both of these are true. Being a person of German descent, I can't help but always wonder just what it really was which enabled this monster (Hitler) to fool people so completely and actually get elected and subsequently put his horrific plot into motion. It is absurd to think that all of Europe was harboring anti-semitic feelings. This book raised many questions in my mind..... the biggest being, could this happen again today? Could it happen in this country? I would like to think that it could NEVER happen again. The truth is.. I just don't know... and that is very troubling.

I can't say this was an enjoyable book to read.. it actually was very uncomfortable to read. But perhaps, in the end, that was Roth's intent.

Wow. What a novel. Once again, Roth gives us a brilliant alternate history to chill our blood. Starting from the defeat of Roosevelt during the presidential elections in favor of Lindberg (notorious anti-Semite and ready to swear allegiance to the Fuhrer), the author continues to probe America and these contradictions, and it is clear that the fiction is quite scary. The brilliant idea of the novel comes from Roth's choice to imagine what the face of the world could have been if this hypothesis had happened, to look at it through the eyes of a Jewish child, the narrator (Roth himself) in his family, in his community and more widely in this America so proud to brandish the banner of freedom in others and to be ultra protectionist towards it.
The Newark author skillfully mixes proven historical facts and fiction to create a look that is at once fascinating, abundant, and terrifying—there is nothing to say. Roth is one of the greats.