American Pastoral

448 pages

English language

Published March 17, 2019 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:
978-1-78487-554-1
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(33 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.

32 editions

reviewed American Pastoral by Philip Roth (The American Trilogy, #1)

a very unreliable narrator

A story within a story. I liked how the frame story flows seamlessly into the actual narrative, which in turn is a completely fictionalized biography by the narrator about an acquaintance about whom he actually knows very little, except that his daughter (presumably) committed a terrorist attack. As if the author is taking a double distance, a very unreliable narrator, very postmodern. Along the way, you also learn all about how leather gloves are made. A great book.

Review of 'American Pastoral' on 'Goodreads'

 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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Subjects

  • American literature

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