American Pastoral [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 27, 2005

As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father's glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him.

For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longer-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth's masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Philip Roth's 22nd book takes a life-long view of the American experience in this thoughtful investigation of the century's most divisive and explosive of decades, the '60s. Returning again to the voice of his literary alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, Roth is at the top of his form. His prose is carefully controlled yet always fresh and intellectually subtle as he reconstructs the halcyon days, circa World War II, of Seymour "the Swede" Levov, a high school sports hero and all-around Great Guy who wants nothing more than to live in tranquillity. But as the Swede grows older and America crazier, history sweeps his family inexorably into its grip: His own daughter, Merry, commits an unpardonable act of "protest" against the Vietnam war that ultimately severs the Swede from any hope of happiness, family, or spiritual coherence. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A terrorist bombing in a quiet rural community is the focal point of this novel. Protagonist "Swede" Levov is living the American dream. After growing up in Newark, New Jersey, during the post-World War II era, he takes over the glove business started by his grandfather, marries the "all-American" girl, has a daughter, and lives in a big country house. But the dream is shattered when his daughter becomes a terrorist during the Vietnam War years. Roth takes the family from the orderly postwar years, through the turmoil of the 1960s, through to the present. He evokes nostalgia for the "good old days," but makes his characters take more realistic views as they mature. Not to be listened to in a hurry, this novel requires reflection. Reader Ron Silver expresses a wide range of emotions and moods in his narration and characterizations. Recommended for adult fiction collections.?Catherine Swenson, Norwich Univ. Lib., Northfield, Vt.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books (September 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099771810
• ISBN-13: 978-0099771814
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (293 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,769,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003--2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 117 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sixties at their worst May 20, 2002

By Tim Klobuchar

Format:Paperback

One of the knocks on this book, even from reviewers who have liked it, is that it trivializes the rebellious spirit of the 1960s through the screeching lunacy of Merry Levov. There were countless examples of logical, righteous protest, they argue, and by showing only the thoughtless Merry and her equally deranged companion, Rita Cohen, and the ingratitude of black rioters in Newark, Philip Roth comes off as someone who missed the decade altogether, perhaps in seclusion doing research for Portnoy's Complaint.

I think, however, that Roth's one-maybe-two-dimensional portrayal of Merry and the other revolutionary forces of the '60s was precisely the point. This novel was not so much about the turbulent '60s as it was about the disintegration of the '50s. The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman and told through the (imagined) eyes of Swede Levov, both of whom graduated high school before 1950. Roth is not only concerned with the collapse of the Swede's American dream, but also with his assimilation into American society, his pursuit and eventual attainment of the American dream -- all typical characterstics of the '50s. The Swede had no concept of the attributes which we typically ascribe to the '60s. He was too busy worrying about how to make the perfect lady's dress glove. The reason Roth did so much research and wrote in such painstaking detail about the glove industry was to tell the reader precisely what Lou and Swede Levov's lives revolved around. Since the Swede is the only character whom we see others through, of course he isn't going to question himself for being concerned with such things as D rings and piece rates. It's up to the readers to draw the inference that maybe, just maybe, the Swede is out of touch and too concerned with materialism and achieving the perfect life.... This is not necessarily a terrible thing by itself.

What Roth aims to do is not to paint a 100 percent historically accurate portrait of the '60s, but instead to illustrate what a horror the '60s looked like to someone who was not a participant in the counterculture movement -- to someone who had something to lose. The best way to do that was to take the worst of that counterculture movement -- self-absorbed adolescents who raged against their successful upbringing in order to conform to the growing popularity of the rebellion -- and spill it onto the page, to show how berserk this decade was to someone who was in no way trained for it. To show how justified, cool-headed and rational some parts of the '60s revolution were would have detracted from an integral theme of the book, as imagined by the Swede: He learned "the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense."

Also, keep in mind that Zuckerman is the book's narrator, and he is imagining nearly all of the story. He is trying, somehow, to make sense of the Swede's tragedy. It's possible that Merry really had a few more redeeming characteristics than is written, and than Jerry Levov says she did. The best way to make sense of tragedy sometimes is to say the whole world is crazy, and maybe that's what Zuckerman did, turning Merry into a raving lunatic in order to show that there was nothing the Swede could do to save her or himself. What Roth has done, with Zuckerman's help, is something along the lines Tim O'Brien talked about in his novel The Things They Carried -- to create a story that is emotionally true, if not entirely factually true.

At its core, this novel is an allegory, with the Swede representing the all-too-perfect 1950s and Merry the tumultuous, unexplainable '60s. In order to get across the full effect of this gulf, Roth had to show the '60s at their worst. Read more ›

164 of 183 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Despair and Failure Beautifully Wrought June 26, 2000

By John Noodles

Format:Paperback

"American Pastoral" is indeed a special book. It displays none of the often unsettling preoccupation with sex that some of Roth's other books do. This novel examines the rise and fall of a man with a life that all his acquaintances thought was blessed--a start athlete and war hero, who goes on successfully to run his father's glove factory. A non-religious Jew, he marries a pretty Catholic girl (the former Miss New Jersey!), lives in a nice house, and has a pretty daughter, Merry--slips comfortably, in other words, into mainstream America.

Merry grows up, though, to be a sociopath, a fanatic, who as part of the general 60's counterculture movement, commits a terrible act of violence, and has to go into hiding...for the rest of her life. Her act destroys the foundations of Swede's world. We watch him and those close to him slowly disintegrate, emotionally and spiritually. Their decline is not a decline in material fortunes, but it is slow and gruelling nevertheless.

Roth writes like an angel. Much of this book is expository, written in precise, evocative, sometimes Faulkneresque, sometimes academic prose. The characters are vivid, immediate, and believable. This is also an idea book, though, and often the ideas are left abstract...which isn't bad. Roth doesn't try to force answers where perhaps none exist.

This book is truly a treat.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written and important book. April 28, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

"American Pastoral" is a remarkable novel which canbe read and enjoyed on a variety of "levels."^M

Stylistically, Philip Roth's prose glides effortlessly between passages of sheer lyricism and Hemmingway-like reality. The characters of Swede Levov, his wife, Dawn, and their daughter Merry, --as well as other characters in the novel---are sharply etched and observed. The dialogue each of the characters speak is right on target and delineates their character without the author imposing his own "voice" upon the words they speak.^M

However, Roth's novel achieves the level of "art" in terms of social commentary and his view that America has somehow lost its soul and sense of direction. A decent, hardworking family--a family that has done its absolute best to raise their daughter to become the kind of person who reflects the best values our country represents---is totally destroyed when their daughter, Merry, becomes a terrorist and eventually lapses into madness. Roth's vision of the world is an extremely depressing if not a totally pessimistic one. Nothing that happens by way of historical or social events seems to make any sense. All is simply "chaos." What happens, simply "happens" and there is nothing one can do to stop the descent into a hell where nothing makes sense---where events totally overwhelm decent parents and their family's attempts to control them. ALL parents and families are not, of course, as Philip Roth describes them. But the trend away from traditional "values" and values which, apart from religion per se or political "correctness" have heretofore given our nation a sense of purpose and unity, are swiftly disappearing--as any, daily reading of contemporary headlines indicate....^M

There are a few minor "flaws" in Roth's novel. The scene in which Merry's friend, Rita Cohen, tries to seduce Swede Levov after visiting his factory, is a bit overdone and the crassness of the sexual encounter and the language spoken by Rita is out of keeping with the rest of the dialogue spoken by the character in the novel. One feels that the author has momentarily "lost control" of the scene and situation and sunk to a level that is out of proportion to the action which is taking place. ^M

The ending of the novel is a bit anti-climactic and does not leave the reader with a satisfying sense of plot resolution and fulfillment. But these are minor flaws indeed!^M ^M

"American Pastoral" is a deeply moving, often humorous, but most of all extremely disturbing novel. The author's descriptions of buildings, neighborhoods, and the effects which the riots of the sixties had on Newark and elsewhere throughout the country are graphically described. He captures the sights, sounds, and meanings of social upheaval and the people involved in the political events that take place as only a journalist and literary artist can.^M ^M

One may question the blackness of Roth's vision of an American gone astray---but one cannot question the humanity of his doomed family or the author's sense of compassion for the characters he has created and described. Never preachy or dogmatic, Philip Roth simply lets his characters speak as their destructive, nihilistic natures dictate.^M

The result is a novel that is, by turns, both immensely sad, often humorous, ferociously angry, but always intelligently written and conceived. It deserves to be widely read. Read more ›

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous character analysis; deflated us with weak ending. December 6, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I started this book with very high hopes - I'd only read one other Roth, the short and highly sarcastic "The Breast," and I had heard that in recent years he'd turned more sober and objective. To me this meant Roth was coming of age, a voice expressing a fuller range of our hopes, fears, loves and angers.

Much of "American Pastoral" satisfied this desire. Book one (of three) is a 100-or-so page, somewhat tedious prologue, where Roth's alter ego Nathan Zuckerman intruduces the main character and creates a setting to present his secret story. With book two, it settles into a wonderful exploration of inner and outer lives. This central section, and most of book three, is beautifully written and reads effortlessly, making the first part feel worthwhile. By combining real world places (hint - it helps a lot to know New Jersey) and politics, with fictional characters whose lives embody the times and themes, Roth puts us directly into the drama of the story.

This sounds like a cliché; but through lengthy description, we learn by stages about the conflicts inside the main character. Seymour "Swede" Levov, a handsome, Jewish industrialist and high school athletic hero who marries Dawn Dwyer, Miss New Jersey of 1949, and whose vigor and generosity of spirit bring him success in business and to a life in the affluent (and WASPish) Jersey countryside, suffers a tragic fall when his radical daughter Merry goes berserk with one murderous bombing, and then others. As she begins a life on the run, he and Dawn endure recrimination and only-partial recovery. We watch Swede in a journey through his past and his present, an apparently peaceful man who learns to accommodate the real world by devising his own reality.... This seems the central theme, just how we are to construct a world that we want to live in. His traditional, Jewish father, and his angry brother, are respectively full of shame and hatred for the daughter, but Swede, who still wants to know what went wrong, is frozen - first in denial, later in incomprehension.

In the reading, we come to identify the people and the many facets of their predicament. Yet in the end, the plot is dropped, and that's where it failed as a narrative. American Pastoral ends symbolically and inconclusively. We never learned Merry's ultimate fate, what happened to Swede's marriage, or even the real identity of Rita Cohen, the vicious young woman who may or may not have been Merry's accomplice. I know it's a novel of ideas, but a book that goes to such trouble to develop characters and establish plot, should keep its promise and resolve the plot. It made me wonder Why Roth went on at such length, in so many sections. Why tell us the whole background to Swede and his family, and their latest heartbreaks, and then not finish the story? If the point was simply to illustrate clashing symbols and themes, it could have been done much more economically.

American Pastoral won the Pulitzer Prize, I think largely on the strength of its exposition. Much of it reads like an essay we'd want to write ourselves, from our very heart and soul, exploring our own tensions, flowing and unfolding with nervous honesty. I wish those Pulitzer people cared more about story-telling, since this is how the greatest writers, Dickens, Melville, Twain, Nabokov, and others, truly touch our lives. Read more ›