American pastoral

The Renowned Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel

432 pages

English language

Published Jan. 18, 1997 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:
978-1-4464-0056-2
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4 stars (28 reviews)

American Pastoral takes a look at the 1960's in America from the perspective of Philip Roth's alter-ego main character, Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman meets the brother of Seymour "Swede" Levov, recenly deceased, at a high school reunion. The brother shares the Swede's sad tale of the ruin of his conventional upper middle class life by the turmoil of the sixties.

29 editions

Review of 'American Pastoral' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

 An epic is a long narrative poem that uses heightened, dignified language to tell the story of a heroic figure. The Iliad, Paradise Lost, things like that. It's a good definition, but after reading [a:Philip Roth|463|Philip Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399886959p2/463.jpg]'s Pulitzer Prize winning 1997 [b:American Pastoral|11650|American Pastoral|Philip Roth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1504801263l/11650.SY75.jpg|598119], I felt I had read an epic, though maybe it would be more accurate to call it a family saga. (Yes, I know I'm being dumb because the title states its literary genre and that pastorals portray life in the countryside, particularly that of shepherds, in a simple and idealized way, but the title is meant to be ironic.)
 I have way too many unread books lying around, and I could have chosen easily from a dozen that I'd enjoy reading as much as this one, but I chose this because it the horrible terror attacks had recently been carried out in Israel, …

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