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Loading... American Pastoralby Philip Roth
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. wow, amazing writing, story has really stuck with me (  )GCPLreader | May 2, 2009 |   I have read almost all of Roth's ouevre, and this is his great tragedy (Sabbath's Theater is his great comedy). Fueled by rage, grand in its reach, deeply historical, it is a masterwork. For a good article on its virtues (contrasted with the mediocre Indignation, Roth's most recent novel), see this article in the online Dublin Review of Books: http://www.drb.ie/more_details/08-12-... 5 stars and unhesitatingly part of my core collection. ( )bitchesbrew | Jan 5, 2009 | I am not okay with giving Philip Roth one star, after all he wrote Ghost Writer and a bunch of other good books. This one, however, did nothing for me. The prose was too dense. The story too plodding. I'm sure it's an amazing book, but not one I'm ready to read yet. (  )chicklit | Jan 3, 2009 | 3  Very difficult and very good. A little perplexed at how we just leave the narrator (Nathan Zuckerman) for the Swede. I liked only having his perspective though. Still, not seemingly tragic enough because we never return to the narrator for summation and criticism. Maybe that’s why it’s as good as it is. Maybe it suffers from not being able to be better than it was. Still, feels like something is missing. Great prose. Great, great characters. A little too much influence on gloves, but gloves serve as a good, extended metaphor for hiding the icy coldness of the American pastoral. (  )jamguest | Dec 11, 2008 | It’s going to be a while before I read another “classic American novel.” One of the few things that I was thankful for while reading this was that it was half the length of Underworld by DeLillo. Apart from that, there wasn’t much else that impressed me. This is a story of someone’s life. The blurb on the back says that it’s the revelation of the dirty laundry that a perfect looking American-dream achieving citizen keeps under his shirt. Well, yes, that’s what it’s about and, I think if that was all it was about, it might not be a bad novel. But Roth, like DeLillo, fills the novel with all sorts of... All sorts of what? Read the rest of the review (and comment!) at Arukiyomi. (  )arukiyomi | Dec 7, 2008 | 0.050 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0375701427, Paperback)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.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:02 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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