American Pastoral: American Trilogy 1 (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (Vintage International)
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century—a compulsively readable elegy for America’s promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss, and "one of Roth's most powerful novels ever" (The New York Times).
Here is Philip Roth's masterpiece, featuring Nathan Zuckerman and the story of 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 domestic terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, American Pastoral gives us Philip Roth at the height of his powers.
Here is Philip Roth's masterpiece, featuring Nathan Zuckerman and the story of 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 domestic terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, American Pastoral gives us Philip Roth at the height of his powers.
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Community Reviews
The writing is amazing, sentence after amazing sentence. I really did not like the story though, and didn't understand the character of the daughter or her friend.
I highlighted half the book, but my favorite sentence is: “He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one's history.” I kind of wish I was like the early Swede and didn't understand this sentence.
Another sentence I love, but which is a bit less straight-forward is: "A dozen candles burned in two tall ceramic candelabra, and to the Swede, who sat flanked by his mother and by Sheila Salzman, everyone's eyes--deceptively enough, even Marcia's eyes--appeared blessed in that light with spiritual understanding, with kindly lucidity, alive with all the meaning one so craves to find in one's friends."
I highlighted half the book, but my favorite sentence is: “He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one's history.” I kind of wish I was like the early Swede and didn't understand this sentence.
Another sentence I love, but which is a bit less straight-forward is: "A dozen candles burned in two tall ceramic candelabra, and to the Swede, who sat flanked by his mother and by Sheila Salzman, everyone's eyes--deceptively enough, even Marcia's eyes--appeared blessed in that light with spiritual understanding, with kindly lucidity, alive with all the meaning one so craves to find in one's friends."
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