Confession time. Before yesterday, I had never finished American Pastoral. I had started the book at least twice. The paperback version that I own is 423 pages. I thought that, perhaps, I had gotten 100 pages in to the novel in the past. The dog ear on page 194 begged to differ with me.
As I passed page 194, I wondered what had caused me to put the book down so far into it in the past. Many questions arose. Was I bored? Did something happen? Did a new book I really wanted to read come out? Did I take a vacation and plan to go back to the book? Who invented liquid soap and why? (Bonus points for the somewhat obscure movie reference for the last question)
American Pastoral is a dense, rich, excellent read. Many, many themes. The novel traces much of the life of Seymour Levov, the Swede. The Swede was a high school sports legend. A Jew who looked to have the world by the gonads--smart, athletic, heir to a family business, married to a Miss America contestant. As Philip Roth's literary alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, says, ''Swede Levov's life, for all I knew, had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore just great, right in the American grain. . . I was wrong. Never more mistaken about anyone in my life.''
Swede Levov endures a family tragedy, a parental nightmare. And Roth (well, Zuckerman), imagines a plausible construct before, during and especially after the tragedy which is used as a vehicle to show the cracks in the foundation that could have fortold the tragedy or at least given a glimpse into Swede's world--a world that clearly wasn't what it seemed from the outside. Many themes--capitalism, anti-war, Jewish issues, anti-semitism, interfaith marriage, appearances vs. reality, appearance vs. substance and that's just a start.
I cannot recommend/not recommend a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. American Pastoral won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and again, I do not feel qualified to second guess. Not that I would in this case, as American Pastoral is, again, a great read.
Remember, RIF.
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Okay, Mark, my blogging sabbatical is over and I'm catching up on posts. I'm glad to see your assessment of American Pastoral. It's been on my To-Read list for a number of years, but I've heard mixed reviews. One friend (a Ph.D. in literature, so I've always trusted his literary instinct) was deeply moved by it and could hardly pick up another book once he finished it. Others give it a so-so rating. Sounds like it should remain on my list, but perhaps not skyrocket to the top.
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