American Pastoral | 
| Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $1.84
You Save: $13.11 (88%)
New (56) Used (89) Collectible (3) from $1.84
Avg. Customer Rating:  219 reviews
Sales Rank: 2249
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375701427
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375701429
ASIN: 0375701427
Publication Date: February 3, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: **COVER WEAR/CREASES AND GENERAL SIGNS OF USE, HIGHLIGHTING, WRITING AND/OR UNDERLINING**MAY NOT INCLUDE DUST JACKET** Cover wear, creases, page edge wear and/or markings. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| 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.
Product Description
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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 214 more reviews...
 Scrupulous Account of a Pivotal Point in America October 8, 2008
I recently finished an outstandingly beautiful novel (The Master Planets), and immediately went into one of those "I'll-Never-Find-Anything-As-Good-Again" funks. Then I found this book, which is not only a brilliant piece of literature (it's by Roth, after all), but also deals with some fascinating issues similar to those in Planets--issues I wanted to read more about.
As just one example: I am not Jewish, but have noticed in certain writings something uniquely poignant in the Jewish love for America immediately after World War II. This was the country that had taken in many Jews' parents and grandparents in a way never before experienced, I believe. For the first time they were not outsiders, but simply immigrants in a land full of immigrants. And for the first time, every opportunity--in this nation of bounteous opportunities--was open to them. It is not surprising that the name "America" would become almost a hymn on the lips of many American Jews in this period, that they would develop an unparalleled love for their country. As all of America basked in a cornucopian economy and the righteous sense that our own good works had entitled us to it, American Jews were, perhaps, "Ultimate Americans." So it is also not surprising that, like everyone else, they also gave little thought to the idea that the richness of life here was too well fed by our military industrial complex and exploitation of Third World nations.
The protagonist, Seymour "Swede" Levov, certainly does not think about these things, and therein lies his downfall. As Amazon reviewer Ian Muldoon (above) so aptly notes, the central question of the book is whether it is acceptable for Levov to to accept that he is one of the lucky ones and simply enjoy his place in time and history, or whether his good luck also carries an obligation. An inherently decent man, Levov does not look beyond his own life to wonder if it impinges on the lives of others. But his daughter cannot feel so sanguine. Merry has not had the good fortune of Seymour and his wife to be thought "perfect": She grew up with a terrible stutter, over which her beautiful parents agonized. Is this what gave her the ability (willingness? determination?) to see the fissures in the edifice they revere? In any event, she sees the fissures yawning, and her answer is to place sticks of dynamite in them. And later to withdraw so far from the world that she scarcely eats so as not to "destroy plant life," and will not even wash for fear of "harming the water." She has started by demolishing the world around her, and is now obliterating herself. Miraculously, the stutter that at one time "terrified" Levov is gone... as she herself soon will be.
American Pastoral is the story of a beautiful nation that, about 40 years ago, let some part of its best self slip away. As the "Ultimate American," Levov is the perfect symbol. As he thinks, so thought we.
Recovery impossible October 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From reading through various reviews on here, I imagine my opinion on this book is shared by the majority but there are still many who disliked it very various reasons. I was born after all the events of the 40's, 50's, 60's, and seventies took place. This book was a giant eye-opener for me and taught me more than any textbook or college course. This was one of those books that so touched me personally, and helped me conceive of how my grandparent's moralistic generation warped into the mess of today, that I feel I will never recover from reading this book. For better or worse it has changed me. It may be the heaviest book I've ever read.
 Horror Story September 24, 2008
As an analysis of Weather Underground types, or homegrown violent terrorists the story fails completely. The book says almost zip about the 60's. This is yet another book by Philip Roth about the mindset of Philip Roth. Basically the US is a horror story for Philip Roth. Roth sees a littleness in the United States and for Roth terrorism is a natural response. This is more a horror story than a work of literature.
 Pulitzer, really? September 20, 2008
I can not think of why this book won the pulitzer prize. Of course is well written, but that's about that. Unless you love gloves...
Very boring.
Fake and farfetched September 2, 2008
Roth is still a great prose stylist. And the passages on Newark were brilliant. But for a historical novel, the history is way off. The radicalism is cartoonish or worse. Other writers have tackled this fascinating subject (the 60's radicals and what became of them) and done a much better job - Marge Piercy, for one.
|
|
|
