1,001 Novels: A Library of America
American Pastoral (1997)
by Philip Roth
Newark, New Jersey
New Jersey: 8/14
I read American Pastoral in December, 2017 for the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die project. 'Twas a simpler time, ha ha. I wouldn't say I "discovered" Roth through the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die project, but I certainly conquered his bibliography thanks to the start 1,001 Books gave me. Roth amazingly placed eight books on the 1,001 Books project- a truly astonishing amount and even including a lesser work like The Breast, among its selections. If you want to pick one major difference between the construction of the two lists (besides the obvious difference in area covered), it's the decision by 1,001 Books editors to include multiple picks for MANY authors, while so far editor Susan Straight hasn't done it once.
As I said back in 2017, American Pastoral was from his series of Nathan Zuckerman novels- his suburban everyman character, though in this book he is merely the narrator and the book is about a his neighbor and his 60's radical-bomber daughter. Roth is a great pick for New Jersey but personally I would have preferred The Plot Against America which, like many of Roth's books, is also set in Newark, New Jersey.
Published 12/19/17
American Pastoral (1997)
by Philip Roth
Man, the hits keep coming for late career Philip Roth. American Pastoral won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and even though he inevitably seems to write about weird old guys from New Jersey, he never writes the same book twice, dabbling in meta fiction, speculative fiction and the roman a clef despite having established his initial literary reputation on the back of realistic portraits of urban life in the northeast. American Pastoral is also one of Roth's Zuckerman novels, about Nathan Zuckerman, successful novelist generally assumed to be the alter ego of Roth.
Despite American Pastoral being narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, the book is about Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American student athlete of vast renown, grown old and successful, but tormented by the 1960's radical inspired bombing of the local postal office by his 16 year old daughter. Although Zuckerman narrates from the present, most of American Pastoral takes the form of Zuckerman imagining Levov's life, culminating in the bombing, but moving back and forth within different periods in the past.
I thought it was a little strange that this was the book that won Roth a Pulitzer. By 1997 he had been a prospective Nobel Prize for Literature winner for a decade, and he still had not won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Ultimately, American Pastoral derives its strength from the well observed horror of a parent at the choices made by a child. That is under developed literary territory.
American Pastoral (1997)
by Philip Roth
Man, the hits keep coming for late career Philip Roth. American Pastoral won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and even though he inevitably seems to write about weird old guys from New Jersey, he never writes the same book twice, dabbling in meta fiction, speculative fiction and the roman a clef despite having established his initial literary reputation on the back of realistic portraits of urban life in the northeast. American Pastoral is also one of Roth's Zuckerman novels, about Nathan Zuckerman, successful novelist generally assumed to be the alter ego of Roth.
Despite American Pastoral being narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, the book is about Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American student athlete of vast renown, grown old and successful, but tormented by the 1960's radical inspired bombing of the local postal office by his 16 year old daughter. Although Zuckerman narrates from the present, most of American Pastoral takes the form of Zuckerman imagining Levov's life, culminating in the bombing, but moving back and forth within different periods in the past.
I thought it was a little strange that this was the book that won Roth a Pulitzer. By 1997 he had been a prospective Nobel Prize for Literature winner for a decade, and he still had not won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Ultimately, American Pastoral derives its strength from the well observed horror of a parent at the choices made by a child. That is under developed literary territory.
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