Review of American Pastoral

American Pastoral by Philip Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I finished this book about a month ago and intended on writing a review, but life is always busy during the school year. Honestly, this book was a struggle. The beginning really seemed to drag and seemed to offer nothing but the building of the mythos of Seymour "The Swede" Levov and frame the rest of the narrative so to give it an unreliable quality, as we understand we are receiving the rest of the narrative as hearsay.

I have no doubt about Philip Roth's literary abilities, and I can see how his prose itself earned him the Pulitzer in 1998. The themes were complex and defined a generation, though I did think that at times I had trouble relating to some of the book as a Gentile: it is certainly Judeo-centric, which is neither positive or negative, but I believe that someone with a Jewish background would certainly relate to the book in a more meaningful way.

The portions of the book that I enjoyed most were the passages that focused on the Levov daughter, Merry. I thought she was the most intriguing character. The way her appearance changed throughout the book is ingenious: reflecting what is going on inside and out. As she is becoming overweight, it is revealed that she is amassing a psychological complex inside of her that can only later be released through radical activism and kooky religions. While she is growing larger and larger, she appears an American consumer: growing fat on greed and ignorance, a symbol for America itself. The last time we see her: disheveled, and a wasting waif, a third-world citizen in the middle of a first class country, I believe that Roth is making a commentary about the possible future of America. A future that has become reflected in today's society, though not to the extreme which Roth seems to be foreboding.

I would recommend this to those who don't mind a challenging, dense text. It isn't necessarily the story itself that is compelling. In order to make the read worthwhile, I had to hunt for the underlying themes.

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