American Pastoral (1997)

There is no American Pastoral. There is only American berserk, according to Roth. Bad things happen, very bad things -- explosions, rapes, cheating spouses, nasty children, prostate cancer, forks aimed at the eye. This is true even for the handsome, seemingly perfect, excessively talented high school athletic star and his beauty-pageant wife.

My reading of this book is that it is a very personal statement about what life brings. There is the perfection we can often see in youth, but that perfection is an illusion. Don't try to embrace it and hold it. Because there is another wholly unexpected event coming along that will disrupt it and, very likely, blow it to the sky. I suppose this is a very cynical view of life, but as spoken in the voice of an aging novelist and focused on the life of a high-school hero whose best attempts often end in failure or total loss, it feels -- as I noted -- like a very personal, lonely lament of a life shaped by harsh realities and disappointments. More of a "coming-to-terms with what I've seen" than "this is a lousy life and don't expect to be happy." Others may see this point differently.

This book is beautifully written but also terribly overwritten. I felt bludgeoned by paragraph after paragraph that said the same thing -- again, in gorgeous prose. That said, this is a book that is worth the time. Philip Roth is an American treasure, even when the message he conveys is melancholy. ( )

Non mi sembra un libro di difficile lettura - e onestamente non lo è - non più di tanti altri. Roth scrive bene, con vigore, è un professionista della parola. Non è un cheeseburger, questo no. Lasciamo ai Follett e ai suoi seguaci quest'onere.

Roth è un artigiano della vita scritta. Certe cose non si dovrebbero scrivere, non dovrebbero trovare spazio sulla carta stampata.

Certi discorsi tra padre e figli, tra fratelli, non dovrebbero essere cosi *evidenti*. Certi meccanismi di rivalsa, di realtà quotidiana, non dovrebbero essere così *palesi*.

Questi dovrebbero essere libri *proibiti*, perchè rivelano, come nelle tele tagliate di Fontana, quello che c'è sotto la superficie - e non vorremmo fosse vero. Certi libri si dovevano scrivere secoli fa, ed essere ambientati a San Pietroburgo. Questo è apparso ai giorni nostri, e tra cent'anni farà lo stesso effetto che i 'Karamazov' hanno fatto a noi.

E se questi sono i libri difficili da leggere, impareremo a farlo. Abbiamo solo da guadagnarci. ( )

This was among the most tedious books I have read in a long time! Years ad years ago I had read other Philip Roth books and have yet to find one that I can say I enjoyed. Through out this book he repeats the same three or four overall thoughts again and again. Different words but the same thoughts. I know more about glove making than I will ever need to know. The disfunction family portrayed in the book are not representative of most American families now or during the time of the plot. All in all reading this was time I can never get back in my life. Read at your own risk of boredom. ( )

What Anna Karenina was to farming, this is to glove-making; there are some brilliant passages in this book, but you need to wade through a lot of stuff on seams and tanning to reach them. The start, which recounts our narrator's awe at a school sports star, reeled me in with its echoes of Rabbit Angstrom, but story of the Swede that followed left me struggling. The concluding dinner party is a marvel, and the relationship between Swede and his daughter takes some pretty dark turns, but in the end I wanted more from such an acclaimed novel. ( )

A book that had me paging back and forth, just to keep up with the plot. An indepth look into life in the sixties as well as the American Pastoral. A masterful pastiche of the glory and agony of the American experience. ( )