O jovem Philip Roth, com os seus pais - Herman e Bess - e o seu irmão Sandy, no pátio da sua casa em Newark, New Jerseyt

”O medo preside a estas memórias, um medo perpétuo.” (Pág. 11)

O narrador de ”A Conspiração Contra a América/The Plot Against America” (2004) é o próprio Philip Roth (n. 1933) com sete anos de idade, um rapaz normal que tem a paixão de coleccionar selos e vive com os seus pais, Herman e Bess, um agente de seguros e uma dona de casa, juntamente com o seu irmão mais velho, Sandy, com doze anos de idade, um jovem com um talento prodigioso para desenhar; e que moram no bairro judeu Weequahic, em Newark, New Jersey - ”Em 1940 éramos uma família feliz. Os meus pais eram pessoas sociáveis e hospitaleiras (…)” (Pág. 12).
Charles A. Lindbergh é considerado como um herói americano porque fez no seu monoplano Spirit of St. Louis na Primavera de 1927 o voo sem escala e a solo, de trinta e três horas e meia, de Long Island para Paris e que, mais tarde, ganhou a compaixão e a simpatia dos americanos porque o seu primeiro filho, um bebé com vinte meses, tinha sido raptado e assassinado ou morto acidentalmente, por um ex-presidiário alemão, Bruno Hauptmann, que vivia no Bronx. Depois do julgamento, os Lindbergh deixaram a América e expatriaram-se para a Europa, fazendo sucessivas viagens à Alemanha Nazi, exprimindo Lindbergh o seu elevado apreço por Hitler – sendo inclusivamente condecorado em nome do Fuhrer, chamando ao seu líder “um grande homem”.
”Depois os Republicanos designaram Lindbergh e tudo mudou.” (Pág. 15) – disputando em 1940 a presidência com o actual Presidente, o democrata, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR).
Inexplicavelmente, ou talvez não, Charles A. Lindbergh obtém uma vitória esmagadora sobre Franklin Delano Roosevelt e tudo muda para milhões de famílias judias norte-americanas. Para o jovem Philip Roth ”Lindbergh foi o primeiro americano famoso vivo que aprendi a odiar (…)” (Pág. 18).
A genialidade e a fluidez da escrita de Philip Roth reside, essencialmente, na forma como a narrativa e o enredo, independentemente, da questão “histórica”, reflecte magistralmente o tempo em que foi escrito e o período temporal em que decorre, num relato que encerra o dramatismo próprio dos acontecimentos quotidianos descritos, sobretudo, as imagens e os sons, e as vivências dos pequenos núcleos familiares unificados nos bairros habitacionais dos subúrbios de Newark, no estado de New Jersey.
Mais do que a realidade biográfica dos intervenientes o que é relevante é que o escritor Philip Roth permanece como um homem fascinado pela família, pela estrutura familiar, como um factor fundamental e determinante para a consistência e a estabilidade emocional, superando os pequenos e os grandes dramas familiares, numa temática mais relevante do que nunca, conjugando a ironia e o humor como forma de aceitar ou rejeitar a imposição das novas regras, nem sempre perceptíveis na mente de um jovem de sete anos de idade.
”Conspiração Contra a América” é um excelente romance histórico ou uma “história alternativa”, uma obra sombria e aterrorizante, em que decorridos mais de dez anos sobre a sua publicação, mantém e acentua a sua actualidade, destacando-se a fragilidade da democracia americana, a ameaça permanente às liberdades civis e à segurança interna e externa, com destaque para a injustificada violência inter-racial, a segregação e a marginalização das minorias, a brutalidade policial; em que é inevitável o paralelismo com a nomeação do republicano Donald Trump para disputar a eleição presidencial norte-americana.
Como é que um passado imaginado pode ser convertido num presente ou num futuro desastroso? Vamos ver o que acontece a 8 de Novembro de 2016.


Imagem da revista/site Forward

Sem dúvida que Philip Roth é um dos maiores romancistas americano, vencedor do Prémio Pulitzer para Ficção em 1998 pelo genial romance ”Pastoral Americana”, eterno candidato a receber o Prémio Nobel da Literatura - surge em 2016 como um dos favoritos numa casa de apostas com uma relação de 8/1 - será que é desta?

4.5⭐️

Roth sempre diverso e sempre uguale a se stesso, e non è una critica: ritrovo anche qui la sua prosa articolata e sapiente, curata nel dettaglio, personaggi indimenticabili come sempre complessi nella loro umanità onesta, una trama originale che temevo non mi avrebbe catturato. Sbagliavo.

Philip Roth is one of "the" guys in American literature - Harold Bloom puts him together with Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon as the four American novelists he thinks are worth praise. Having read at least one work from each of these authors the hour came to try Roth, too; this one was available so I picked it up and read it.

Well, it turns out that The Plot Against America ain't all that it promises to be. iIn the novel it's 1940, and Roosevelt lost the election to Lindbergh, who's a nazi sympathizer and I think y'all can guess where this is going. This book screams "alternative history!" which is something I normally dig, but it does not deliver the promised goods. Mainly because the political and ideological turmoil is shown through the eyes of a young Jewish boy growing up in Newark, as he describes how he and his family and fellow Jews are affected the Lindberg presidency. The boy shares many biographical similarities with the author, which means that the book is about Philip Roth remembering his boyhood in New Jersey. The fact that the main character is named Philip Roth also helps support this claim. This is not Fatherland, which is a fabulous romp by Robert Harris about the world where Germany wins WW2. It's an exercise in personal reminiscence, with the alternative history aspect pushed into faint background.

There's not really much to be said about The Plot Against America; it's not The Handmaid's Tale, 1984 or even Fatherland. I did not find anything of exceptional value in it, nor did I thought it to be completely worthless; its biggest flaw is that it's largely forgettable, mostly because Roth does not do anything particularly original or challenging with the premise. The novel feels to be written very much by the numbers, and does not develop any particular dramatic tension. The pace feels sluggish at times, and the reader has to work to maintain interest in the text. The quality of the prose does not stick out as particularly worth of praise, but it needs not be condemned all the same - it carries the work forward instead of keeping it still. Perhaps the biggest flaw of the novel if that it might prove to be forgettable - although the details of the boyhood in Newarks and struggle of the Roth family can be interesting, one can ask - what's the point? the novel begins strongly but quickly loses steam, and at the end literally fizzles out, leaving the reader spent, but without a feeling of satisfaction. I am afraid that this particular volume does not show Roth's strenghts as a writer, and will try his other works in the future to get a better idea of him as a writer.

Meanwhile, check this out - Roth wanted to correct a Wikipedia article on one of his novels, but they did not let him change the information and simply added what he submitted to the article.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertain...

It’s extremely cliche, during the Trump Administration, to brand dystopian fiction “timely” or “prescient,” yet there’s no other word for Philip Roth’s striking alternate history novel. This book (originally penned in 2004, and recently adapted into an excellent HBO miniseries) imagines that Charles Lindbergh, heroic pilot-turned-Nazi sympathizer, ran for President in 1940 and defeated Franklin Roosevelt, installing a pro-Hitler government that remained neutral in World War II while slowly transforming America into a police state. Roth frames the novel as a fictitious memoir, with the protagonist a fictionalized version of his own childhood in Newark in the early ‘40s. This limits some of the novel’s perspective (leading to dense information dumps, spelling out the effects of Lindbergh’s policies, inserted throughout the narrative) but it’s also effective in capturing the everyday dread of fascism. Roth’s family (his headstrong insurance salesman dad, his housewife mother with bitter memories of growing up in a Gentile neighborhood, his artist brother who not-so-secretly admires Lindbergh) experiences the change in terms of minor slights and inconveniences that snowball into oppression. A nightmarish trip to Washington where they’re harassed at the Lincoln Memorial and kicked out of their hotel, vandalism and death threats from local bullies, a cousin who joins the Canadian Army and comes back minus a leg, the mother’s sister becoming an assistant to a pro-Lindbergh Rabbi, a government program that relocates Jews to the American heartland to assimilate them into Christian culture. This book anticipates the creeping dread of our current moment, the slow transformation of the Normal into the Nightmarish, oppression seeping into every facet life until it becomes impossible to ignore, better than classic dystopian novels like 1984 and Brave New World. It’s brilliantly conceived until a hurried ending, which briefly plunges America into all-out dictatorship before abruptly restoring the status quo. It’s an extremely disappointing, even lazy ending to what had been a chillingly plausible scenario. But then, perhaps that’s the point Roth wanted to make: that the demons he conjures in this book were very real, and America was lucky to avoid the Lindberghs and Father Coughlins seizing power when capital-F Fascism was a going concern. Hopefully, Americans in 2020 will be so fortunate.

I'm just guessing I read this book in 2007. Added in 2016 when I created the shelf for alternative/futuristic/dystopian. I had the audio and not the book, and I think I got it from the library. Would that have been audio CDs? Or was this the brief period during which Recorded Books was furnishing and they hadn't yet been made by the publishers to limit who and how many could get the book all at one time. A brief interlude of no queues and no limits, and you could download from the library onto an mp3 player. When that ended and you had to queue up, I ran into the arms of Audible.com.

I thought the book was good but it had a weak ending; that was probably what was responsible for my three-star rating.

The 2020 miniseries: now that was something.

Getting ready to reread now. ☺️

As of February 6, 2024, I have reread and posted my new review. Click link to new review to read.

In this literary novel Roth has written both a prescient and well crafted work. I have been critical of him in the past as having been the recipient of high praise, awards and honors far beyond the literary merits of his writing. As it turns out, this is a pretty good book -- so much so that it has changed my own view in appreciation of his gifts as a major American novelist. The premise for the story line is that aviator Charles Lindberg defeats FDR for the pre-WW II Presidential nomination and keeps America out of the war by declining to aid Britain. As a result the USA sheds no blood or treasure and becomes a passive ally of the Axis powers ultimately to become emergent as a fascist state through its alignment with Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan. American Jews become widely imperiled by anti-Semitism in this sinister plot against America. The narrative is written through the voice of young Philip Roth in this scenario living in the Jewish neighborhoods of Newark, NJ. The storyline is eerily plausible as Roth writes layers of detail in his character portraitures and settings, which lend an uncommon reality to this surreal tale. One senses in this reading that the inhumanity of the brutal 40s in the USA is reawakening within our federal government today giving deference to powerful, self-interest groups and corporations who have claimed that government is an exclusive franchise belonging to them alone, and to which powers and resources they alone are entitled. The straight-ahead narrative style provides a compelling and accessible read as young Philip attempts to make sense of the bewildering and brutal events surrounding his family life as a Jew in North Jersey during the global ascent of Hitler. Roth embraces the narrative of the young story teller who is both naïve and worldly beyond his years in presenting the social and political landscape of the storyline. As seems to be the case with much of Roth, this is a dark and often ugly tale in which all-too-human, realistically drawn people are taxed by extreme circumstances testing their strengths and foibles. The writing itself -- while devoid of stylistic innovation, which is often the mark of true literary genius -- certainly presents a straight-ahead literary quality evident in its construction, syntax, dialogue, character development and settings. It is a major accomplishment that Roth is able to make this scenario work so convincingly and the events of 2017 lend credibility that so much of what many Americans have long believed could never happen here may well be happening here now. If you believe that American democracy is immune to the destructive influences of fascism and oligarchy, then Roth's prescient novel will alert you to the clear and present dangers confronting us now. I would encourage you to venture with Roth and his richly prescient and cautionary premises in "The Plot against America."

Εχει αναρωτηθεί αλήθεια κανείς πως θα ήταν σήμερα ο κόσμος μας αν ο Χίτλερ είχε τελικά κερδίσει τον Β Παγκόσμιο πόλεμο;
Τί θα είχε συμβεί αν η Ρωσική Αρκούδα δεν είχε αντέξει την πολιορκία των Ναζί, αν η Αγγλία είχε καταρρεύσει με την πρώτη επίθεση εναντίον ��ης, αν οι ΗΠΑ είχαν σήμερα πλάι στην Αστερόεσσα να κυματίζει «περήφανά» και η σημαία της Ντροπής, αυτή με τη Ζβαστιγκα.
Ο Ροθ λοιπόν που λέτε, το 2004, σαν άλλος προφήτης έγραψε για έναν ξανθό δημαγωγό (σας θυμίζει κάτι...?), που θα μιλήσει στις «πονεμένες καρδιέςτου αιώνια αδικημένου κοσμάκη» και θα κάνει την έκπληξη στις Εκλογές κατατροπώνοντας τον Ρούσβελτ και κερδίζοντας την Προεδρία των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών της Αμερικής. Η ουδετερότητα και το χάιδεμα απέναντι στους Ναζί, η περιθωριοποίηση των μη προνομιούχων έναντι των ημετέρων, και τα παρασκηνιακά μαγειρέματα που λαοπρόβλητου προέδρου, θα κάνει τη ζωή των Εβραίων της Αμερικής μαρτυρική, διχάζοντας την κοινωνία και οδηγώντας τη...
Δε θέλω να σας το χαλάσω οπότε δε θα μπω σε λεπτομέρειες, οφείλω όμως να επισημάνω με θέρμη πως η Συνομωσία εναντίον της Αμερικής είναι ένα τρομερά επίκαιρο βιβλίο, τόσο επίκαιρο που μοιάζει να γράφτηκε χτες, με ένα κέφι και μια σπιρτάδα που κρατάνε τον αναγνώστη κλειδαμπαρωμένο στις παρανοικές σελίδες του, και το προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα σε όλους εκείνους που έστω και μία στιγμή αναρωτήθηκαν «πόσο διαφορετικοί θα ημασταν όλοι σήμερα αν τότε, ο Παρανοικός με το Μουστακάκι είχε πατήσει το Λένινγκραντ σλας Σταλινγκραντ, δεν είχε καμφθεί από τα Χιόνια της Στέπας σλας Τούντρας και είχε καταφέρει στο τέλος να ανάψει το φιτίλι στην Υδρόγειο».
Διδακτικό, εμπνευσμένο, και απόκοσμα εφιαλτικό, και φυσικά μία υπερασφαλής επιλογή για ένα εγγυημένα απολαυστικό αναγνωστικό ταξίδι.

When there's a big election coming up, I try to include a political novel on the reading lists for the book discussion groups I lead. This year was no exception so back in the spring I put The Plot against America on the list for the Atwater Library group. At the time, Donald Trump was considered in many quarters just a rather comical character, someone we smart folk could laugh at and look down on.

Oh, how times have changed. Trump, if anything, has gotten worse: certainly he does not have the hero's trappings that Charles Lindbergh had. The latter at least achieved something historic, the first solo flight across the Atlantic, while the former at best made a lot of money for himself and his family and at worst left a wake of financial destruction behind him.

Lindbergh in Roth's novel is elected president of the USA in 1940, defeating FDR. A closet Nazi, he vows to keep America out of the impending war. At first he does not appear to be too dangerous to Jews, but as time passes, it becomes clear that he is at best the front man for people who want to turn the US into a Fascist state, and at worse, plans the destruction of Jewish society in imitation of what was going on at the time in Europe.

There is a big logical inconsistency in the novel. Why, if Lindbergh and his followers plan on doing away with Jews, do they plot first to disperse them throughout the country? Far easier just to keep them together, right? Nor is there any mention of other groups who were menaced during WWII in the States (and Canada) like the Japanese and Italians who actually were interned during the war.

But the creeping threat of The Plot is frightening, and Roth's portrayal of the way the parents--his parents since the characters are drawn from his own family--is touching in contrast to the way he savaged them in some of his earlier novels.

Everything turns out all right, though. Lindbergh and his airplane disappear mysteriously and FDR is re-elected in a special election. Let's hope that the upcoming election gets things right the first time around, and the country--and the world--doesn't have to deal with a president who is hell bent on bringing out the worst in us.

A rather scary scenario wherein Charles Lindbergh, an ultra conservative anti-Semitic, becomes President instead of FDR. A Jewish family and their fears about their future under this guy are focused on.

Mi-a luat aproape două decenii să termin cartea asta. Am citit-o prima dată la 21 de ani, pe-atunci lucram la o librărie-anticariat de la TNB și Complotul împotriva Americii abia apăruse la Polirom. Aveam capul plin de SF și imediat m-a atras subiectul, mai ales datorită asocierii pe care o făcusem cu unul dintre romanele SF ale lui Philip K Dick - Omul din castelul înalt. În cartea lui PKD Germania nazistă câștigă al doilea război mondial, printre statele cucerite aflându-se și America, pe care o împarte cu Japonia, la rândul ei victorioasă.

Acum am citit-o pentru un club de carte (Prietenii literaturii evreiești) și am avut două surprize la început. Prima e când menționează pogromul de la Chișinău din 1903, despre care a apărut recent o carte: Pogromul. Chișinăul și înclinarea balanței istoriei, autor Steven J. Zipperstein, pe care am de gând să o citesc. A doua surpriză a fost să constat că Philip Roth s-a născut în Newark, oraș prin care am trecut în vizitele mele în SUA. Poate am mers chiar pe Summit Avenue, strada pe care a locuit.

Romanul lui Philip Roth nu e SF, dar e tot istorie alternativă. Charles Lindbergh, aviatorul minune al Americii decorat de însuși Hitler, candidează la funcția de președinte și câștigă datorită discursurilor anti-război. Statele Unite încheie un tratat de neutralitate cu Germania și Japonia, astfel angajându-se să nu sprijine țările cucerite de naziști în Europa.

Spuneam la început că a durat aproape 20 de ani să o termin. Asta pentru că abia acum am înțeles-o, având contextul și cunoștințele potrivite. La vârsta când am citit-o prima dată nu știam nimic despre antisemitism, despre Holocaust, despre prigoana evreilor. Am văzut-o cu alți ochi acum. Și ce cred eu că Philip Roth vrea să transmită aici e cât de fragilă poate deveni democrația, chiar și într-o țară ca America. Cât de ușor poate ieși ura la iveală, iar drepturile omului pot fi anulate cu mecanismele potrivite, dar și prin ignoranță și nepăsare.

1001 Libros que hay que leer antes de morir: N.º 162 de 1001

En la vida había leído a Philip Roth, ese eterno candidato al premio Nobel que, como muchos otros en el pasado y más en el futuro, murió sin poder recoger el ansiado laurel sueco. Lo tenía por un escritor sesudo, árido, denso y aficionado al boxeo. Este último prejuicio -real o no, me es indiferente-, se lo debo a Alfaguara y su pésima labor de marketing comparativa, en la que tenía la osadía de comparar La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert con Nabokov por lo pedófilo, Woody Allen por su humor telefónico, y, finalmente, Roth por el boxeo; por cierto, Dicker no les llega ni a la suela de los zapatos. Por todo esto, nunca me había animado a leer a este autor, y si me anime con esta novela es por su trama ucrónica, con la esperanza de que ese tono de "ciencia ficción" lo haría mucho mas accesible. Una vez acabada la novela sólo puedo decir dos cosas: que los prejuicios no valen ni como papel higiénico y que es la mejor novela que he leído en todo el año.

Vísperas de la segunda guerra mundial. Estados Unidos se enfrenta a unas elecciones muy reñidas: Roosevelt busca su reelección, en tanto que Lindbergh, celebérrimo y temerario aviador, irrumpe fulgurantemente en la escena política como candidato republicano. El punto Jonbar, o de divergencia, ocurre cuando Lindbergh se alza con el poder y Estados Unidos decide no apoyar a sus aliados ingleses; Pearl Harbour nunca ocurrió y Estados Unidos no va a la guerra contra Alemania. El precio de esta neutralidad os lo podéis imaginar, pues Lindbergh siente ese picorcito en el brazo derecho que sólo se alivia estirándolo bien alto. Toda esta deriva nacionalsocialista americana la vivimos desde los ojos de una familia judía de clase media de Newark, Nueva Jersey. Os podéis imaginar su alegría.

La novela esta narrada desde el punto de vista del benjamín de la familia, Philip Roth -no es coña-, por lo que la perspectiva es netamente infantil aunque no por ello frívola o superficial. El análisis que el pequeño Roth nos hace de sus vivencias y de la deriva fascista de Estados Unidos es aún más efectivo y duro; primero, porque el lenguaje es mucho más sencillo y fluido, todo queda expuesto con la honestidad e candidez de un niño; segundo, porque sirve a modo de rito iniciático: vemos a Philip pasar de un niño feliz, que jamás había pensado en su condición ni en su religión, ni para bien o para mal, a un pequeño adulto indefenso que ve cómo sus padres pasan de gigantes a humanos, su hermano de figura a imitar a un traidor, y al resto de su familia y, por extensión, su comunidad, a proscritos.

Pero si por algo esta novela es una lectura indispensable, más aún en estos tiempos de polarización -no diré fanatismo, porque el déficit de atención en este nuestro siglo casi es incompatible con las pasiones exacerbadas en largas distancias-, es por cómo Roth describe una sociedad en proceso de perversión. Lo que ocurre en esta novela, salvando las distancias, remite, inconscientemente, al mandato trumpista, y hasta pueden reconocerse gestos y tácticas inquietantemente similares entre ambos dirigentes. El mérito de Roth, por tanto, es doble, pues cuando escribió está novela Trump no era más que un millonario excéntrico y Estados Unidos no estaba en pleno antebellum social. Roth nos describe perfectamente las artes del populista y el demagogo, y las universaliza, y lo que es más importante, hace terriblemente verosímil las consecuencias que estas ideologías nocivas tienen sobre la población. Antes de Lindbergh, los Roth se sentían americanos, nunca habían tenido un sentimiento de aislamiento o extrañeza, y la sombra de Hitler, aunque alargada, no podía cruzar el Atlántico. No es sino hasta que el aviador se hace con el poder que la familia percibe algo enrarecido en la atmosfera, miradas taimadas, gestos sospechosos. Podría ser neurosis, y al principio lo parece, incluso hay una muy velada insinuación de que la manía persecutoria es uno de los detonantes de la inexorable crisis antisemita, o si no el detonante, si el primer cimiento. Roth no se limita a describir únicamente las vicisitudes de la familia Roth, también nos instruye acerca de esos lobos con piel de cordero, esas figuras de autoridad que, pensando, inconscientemente o a sabiendas, que velan por los derechos de los suyos, no tienen reparos en ponerse al servicio de un poder que les abomina. Porque también hubo judíos delatores, y si por algo Hitler salió victorioso en su país y pudo subyugar media Europa fue porque las potencias occidentales consintieron. Y esto es muy importante, porque en esta novela ser judío es muy duro, pero es el doble de duro si eres judío y pobre.

Podría estar hablando de esta novela durante horas enteras, pero entonces la reseña terminaría por convertirse en pura verborrea sin orden ni estructura. Conforme más escribo, más ideas se me vienen a la mente; conforme más pienso en esta historia más escenas se vienen a mi mente, algunas de una crudeza insoportable. Así que es mejor dejarlo aquí. Leed a Roth, no os va a decepcionar. Salvo que esperéis una ucronía al uso, entonces vais a odiar esta novela a muerte, y no os faltaran ganas de matar al mensajero.