American Pastoral written by Philip Roth.
It took me quite a while to get through this book. I feel like I said that about the last book on this list. The kindle has seriously made me underestimate the thickness of a novel but I have a feeling this one was pretty long.
I have never read a book by Philip Roth until this one. Roth is a very detailed writer. I enjoyed this book because the whole story is a flashback of the All-American-Boy Swede Levov, whose life turns out to not be so picture perfect as everyone around him thought it was going to be. In high school he was the city champ of practically every sport, joined the marine to serve his country, and after the marines ended up marrying Miss New Jersey,not to mention being a very wealthy man from taking over his father's glove business. Picture perfect American right? Until his daughter ruins everything.
I give it 3 out of 5 stars, only because it took me forever to read it and it wasn't a page turner for me. But I did like it, I enjoyed the sequence of events and the writing of course.
Favorite quote from American Pastoral... "What was astonishing to him was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for. It was as though while their lives were rich and full they were secretly ski of themselves and couldn't wait to dispose of their sanity and their health and all sense of proportion so as to get down to that other self, the true self, who was a wholly deluded fuckup."
Ugh, Philip Roth - the literary equivalent of cock rock. (Can I say that on your blog?) Not for girls, or for sensible unpretentious boys either.
ReplyDeleteYes haha you can say that on my blog. He isn't quite the page turner kind of author is he?
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