Customer Reviews

The Great American Novel

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Philip Roth fans tend to divide into two categories. One group admires his more Henry James-like efforts: the Zuckerman books, "Deception," "Patrimony." And then there are those of us who like those books but also cherish every foul, hilarious, in-you-face word he's ever written, like in "Portnoy's Complaint," "My Life as a Man" and this wonderful mock history of baseball. (Although I can't say this enough: you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it.) This book, which is carefully ignored by the palefaces among Roth admirers, is his comic masterpiece. It is an encyclopedic satire of mid-20th century American life, with many pages that will have you falling out of your chair with laughter. It's a cult book, like "A Confederacy of Dunces" or Dan Jenkins' "Semi-Tough"; once you read it you will buy copies for your best friends.

Philip Roth's THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL is a big, bulbous, brocaded, bullshooting joke whether viewed from the box seats behind home plate or way in the back row of the right field bleachers-but let me not get pulled into the alliterative traps in which Roth indulges himself by way of his narrator, one Word Smith. Through the pen of the almost ninety-year-old "Smitty," we read the sad and disturbing tale of how the Ruppert Mundys of the mythical and defunct Patriot League were forced to spend all of 1943 playing away games after their owners sold their home stadium to the War Department as an embarkation point for our brave soldiers. Is Smitty as insane as many others obviously find him? Did the Mundys really have a one-legged catcher, a one-armed center fielder, a 14-year-old second baseman and a dwarf as a relief pitcher? Just who really is the Babylonian former ace pitcher Gil Gamesh? Was there really a Communist plot to destroy America by first destroying baseball?

It is curiosity and determination to finish this too-long-by-a-third book that may keep you reading through to the end, I'm afraid I had to force myself through it. We certainly aren't supposed to like any of the characters, so that means the story better hold us. And while it's a great story with a good number of laughs, there are too many long-winded passages that just aren't as funny once you get the rhythm down-the satire is dulled by them, in fact. I submit that Roth knew this and simply didn't care: by 1973 when this book was published he had been a bestseller for over twenty years. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had a Dickensian paid-by-the-word contract for this book. Additionally, there are the letters to Smitty in the Epilogue from publishers rejecting his manuscript of the Patriot League story, one of which says, "by and large the book seemed . . . to strain for its effects and to simplify for the sake of facile satiric comment the complex realities of American political and cultural life." Now while the complex realities of American political and cultural life can never be underestimated, Roth clearly knew the monster he created. And what fun for him to slap the Great American Novel title on it all!

I really enjoyed the first couple of hundred pages of this book, and I recommend it to those who are also students of baseball history (Roth weaves many real names and situations and speeches of old into his text) and aficionados of Roth. This is only my third Roth book, his earlier works PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT is one of my favorites of all time and GOODBYE, COLUMBUS is an entertaining first novel. I'm sorry I couldn't stay as excited about this one as it lumbered on, even if that was the point. Terrific concept, though.

Smitty can talk. He's Master of Words, Master of Baseball History and Master of knowledge of the Patriot League. Ever heard of the Patriot League? I didn't think so. The Great American Novel will provide you with the history lesson your grandfather never told you about.

Previous reviews I read compared the book to Confederacy of Dunces. Both are excellent reads. Yes, it's nutty like Dunces, but if you are not a true lover of baseball, you may not like this book. It's all baseball (statistics, long explanations about players and their positions, and history).

Every baseball season I read a "baseball book" and this was my choice for 2006, although I bought the book more than 6 years ago (it sat on my shelf waiting for its day).

Some may find the book verbose and slow moving at times, but the overall style is quite unique and the story is hilarious. I laughed out-loud at least a dozen times.

I highly recommend this to baseball fans who aren't looking for Grisham-level writing. Roth shines with the TGAN. Don't wait 6 years like I did. Buy it now and read it.

Roth's ribald rearrangement of American baseball history (as told by an alliterating retired sportswriter, Word Smith, who opens his narrative with the majestic phrase, "Call me Smitty") sets the record straight with respect to the suppressed history of the third professional baseball league, the Patriot League, which flourished from 1898 to 1945. This is a book "about" baseball, America, and "Literatoor" which, like John Kennedy Toole's wonderful book, frequently provokes the reader to laugh out loud. I would rate "A Confederacy of Dunces" to be a superior work, but I also think that those who enjoy the travails of Ignatius J. Reilly will equally enjoy the story of the pathetically decrepit Ruppert Mundys.

If only I had stopped reading this book about page 300. It was some of the funniest writing I had ever read, funnier than _Portnoy's Complaint_, surely. Hell, funnier than Dave Barry, and smarter. Most of Roth's books have some wicked humor in them, but this is his only out and out farce.

The trials and tribulations of the Rupper Mundys, the baseball team without a home, are some of the most riotously hilarious things ever written about baseball. The first half of the book in particular actually made me laugh out loud several times, and I believe this is because Roth concentrated more on a series of preposterous _baseball_ scenes, delicious parodies of the game I love. It's a farce, but when the Mundys celebrate shutting out a baseball team of asylum inmates in an exhibition game, there's no lack of satire, either.

The problem is, Roth wasn't happy with a plain old farce and satire of baseball, and the second half of the book descends rather rapidly into inanities; it's purely political, in which Communists are attempting to destroy America by undermining the Patriot League (which, of course, they succeed at, and _that's_ why you've never heard of it). The political farce is dreadful, particularly the last hundred pages or so, and I remember being a bit depressed that such a ribald parody turned into an attack on McCarthyism. Not that McCarthyism shouldn't be attacked, but Roth's diversion into it is utterly lame.

I suggest you stop reading about page 340 at the latest, and cherish the rest of the book.

As a fan of Philip Roth, I approached this book about baseball with mixed emotions. After reading, I can say that this is one of Philip Roth's finest. Despite being forgotten among Roth's better known works, this book exceeded expectations in my view.

"The Great American Novel" is told from the perspective of sportswriter "Word" Smith. Smith brings to light a story omitted from American history, the third baseball league known as the Patroit League. While many of the stories seems eerily similar to real baseball stories, the tales go a step further. Just being introduced to the vagabonds known as the Ruppert Mundys is enough to make the average reader laugh aloud. From murderous pitcher Gil Gamesh to midgets and dwarfs in professional baseball through the communist scandals that ended the league and caused it to be erased from American history, it is difficult not to laugh. These fictional stories seem to parallel too well with this work of fiction. Even in the story of the performance enhancing food known as "Jewish Wheaties", Roth makes an eerie parallel to present baseball.

Baseball fans should should take delight in this book. I can say that it is among the best book I have read in some time. Fans of Philip Roth will enjoy this purely humorous side of his writing as this is his strongest effort in terms of humor. I highly recommend this book.

I read this book in hardback when it first came out in 1973 as a 13-year-old baseball nut, and just loved it. At least until it started unraveling towards the finish. I won't belabor points made by the other reviewers before me, but I would certainly recommend it to baseball fans who don't buy into the "green cathedrals" nonsense some writers come up with to deify the game. Roth does not treat baseball like a sacred cow. While "The Great American Novel" almost collapses under its own weight when it get into the McCarthyism and Cold War subterfuge near the end, the first six chapters rank as among the best baseball fiction I've ever read...and I've read a LOT, belive me.

P.S. My own favorite scene is when Big John takes Nickname to a cathouse...or so they thought.

This is one of the funniest damn books ever written; perhaps only a true baseball fan could be so enthusiastic about it, however. I remember with fondness reading it at age 16, and my astonishment continues at both Mr Roth's inventiveness and his adherence to the tradition of baseball. At the very least, read about the exhibition game in Asylum...

I suspect I've read the first 200 pages of The Great American Novel more times than any other 200 pages in literature--it's that funny, and as a baseball fan, I always find a new laugh from both the adventures of the itinerant Rupert Mundys, a baseball team from the "third major league" displaced on a season-long road trip (to play the Aceldama Butchers, the Terra Incongita Rustlers, the Kakoola Reapers, and the Tri-City Greenbacks as well as a benefit game against inmates in a lunatic asylum) as their seaside stadium is commandeered by the US government as an debarkation point for soldiers during World War II. The war has also drained talent from the Patriot League, leaving the Mundys with drunken first baseman John Baal (son of the infamous "Spit" Baal), 14-year old second baseman Nickname Damur, 50-year old third baseman "Kid" Heket, and one-legged catcher "Hot" Ptah--along with one-armed right fielder Bud Parusha (he lost the other one in a hand grenade training accident) and two battling midget relievers--O.K Ockatur and Bob "Every Inch a Man" Yamm. Roth gets so many of the baseball details right--even in such a ridiculous context.

The backstory of the Patriot League is nearly as funny--highlighted by the ongoing feud between 19-year old pitching phenom Gil Gamesh, who comes within one pitch of the ultimate perfect game--three strikes and out on 27 consecutive batters, until veteran umpire Mike "The Mouth" Masterton turns his head on the final pitch. The story of Luke "The Loner" Gofannon and his love of triples is another that baseball fans will appreciate. 90-year old retired sportswriter and narrator "Word" Smith tells the story in spasms of alliteration, puns, allusions and other literary devices, led by the memorable first line "Call me Smitty".

The last third of the book--a product of the conceit that the Patriot League really existed, only to be erased from American history as part of the Red Scare of the '50s, bogs down a little as Smitty goes before the House Unamerican Activities Committee--no doubt a personal bit of satire by Roth. Baseball fans will enjoy it the most, followed by fans of clever satire in any form. Sure it's excessive, but what can you expect from a book with such a modest title.

I've never been a fan of Philip Roth. And I really hate him for being so mean to poor Claire Bloom!

But this book is really funny. It's the most outrageous, irreverent, sexual, and scatalogical book ever written about baseball. It's exactly like having Howard Stern rewrite THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES as a porno movie! Then again, it's also like THE BAD NEWS BEARS if it was directed by Stanley Kubrick as a sequel to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

The year is 1943. The Ruppert Mundys, the last place team in the old Patriot League, gets kicked out of their stadium and is forced to play every single game on the road. Due to wartime shortages, every player is either a criminal, a cripple, or some form of psychotic drifter. Each game is more and more gruesome, hilarious and bizarre.

But these warm hearted hi-jinks can be deceptive. Roth isn't just tearing the sentimentality away from baseball's unsavory past. He's tearing raw wounds in the sanctimonious American worship of money, power and respectability. The most brutal killer is an okay guy if he can play a boy's game well. Money is the only thing that matters. The game that teaches Americans to value winning only turns losers into monsters and freaks.

Roth doesn't just make fun of the helpless Mundys -- he shows you superstars reduced to foraging for garbage in Latin American jungles, or being brainwashed into becoming Stalinist revolutionaries and bug-eyed devotees of terror. In passing he gives you an unforgettable picture of Ernest Hemingway, the Communist Party, high society dowagers, and much much more!

Occasionally Roth's personal sicknesses can make you queasy, of course. This is the only "hetero" male I have ever heard of who finds the smell of female arousal nauseating.

No wonder he couldn't hang on to poor Claire Blom!