Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Probably has the second best dinner party set piece in all of literature, behind In Search of Lost Time.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
At the heart of this book is a powerful and emotional story of a father and a daughter whose bond is forever broken by the daughter's descent into life as a violent revolutionary during the Vietnam War. It was heartbreaking a powerfully and poetically told. Unfortunately, the book's power was a bit muted by a lack of editing as it could have been trimmed down about 100 pages. 3.12 Martinie glasses
I originally gave this four stars but I think 3 is better. It was super well written but definitely too long. The last part especially went on for too long and I definitely didn't get the resolution I was looking for...leaves you wanting some kind of conclusion or ending thought to walk away with but somehow the last 100 pages kind of drag on and also don't say anything new...
However, the descriptions of America in the 1950s and 1960s were incredibly gripping and the idea of bland suburban Americans being more than they appear on the surface with some very intense scenes was all great. I think there are probably better books about the pitfalls of the American dream but this was still a good read!
However, the descriptions of America in the 1950s and 1960s were incredibly gripping and the idea of bland suburban Americans being more than they appear on the surface with some very intense scenes was all great. I think there are probably better books about the pitfalls of the American dream but this was still a good read!
"Today, to be what they call ‘repressed’ is a source of shame to people—as not to be repressed used to be.”
Why does someone, in the midst of your worst suffering, decide the time has come to drive home, disguised in the form of character analysis, all the contempt they have been harboring for you for all these years?
“Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.”
Lonesome. As sad a word as you could hear
Everyone’s narcissism is strong at a reunion,
Musical Caravan, Bill Cook’s show, I ordinarily listened to in my darkened bedroom on Saturday nights. The opening theme was Ellington’s “Caravan,” very exotic, very sophisticated, Afro-Oriental rhythms, a belly-dancing beat—just by itself it was worth tuning in for; First the tom-tom opening, then winding curvaceously up out of the casbah that great smoky trombone, and then the insinuating, snake-charming flute.
father passed the secrets on to the son along with all the history and all the lore. It was true in the tanneries, where the tanning process is like cooking and the recipes are handed down from the father to the son, and it was true in the glove shops and it was true on the cutting-room floor. The old Italian cutters would train their sons and no one else, and those sons accepted the tutorial from their fathers as he had accepted the tutorial from his.
But the unions never understood the competition from overseas, and there is no doubt in my mind that the union speeded up the demise of the glove industry by being tough and making it so that people couldn’t make money. The union rate on piecework ran a lot of people out of business or offshore.
The Swede carefully read the papers in order to be able to explain to her why the monk had done what he did. It had to do with the South Vietnamese president, General Diem, it had to do with corruption, with elections, with complex regional and political conflicts, it had to do with something about Buddhism itself. . . . But for her it had only to do with the extremes to which gentle people have to resort in a world where the great majority are without an ounce of conscience.
“The influence you allow others to have on you, it’s absolute. Nothing so captivates you as another person’s needs.”
We stayed at the Crillon. The greatest treat of the whole trip. I loved it. So from there we took a car and we went down to Zug, the center of the Simmentals, and then we went to Lucerne, which was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and then we went to the Beau Rivage in Lausanne.
Was it bigger, more important, worthier things that inclined others to a lifelong mate? Or at the heart of everyone’s marriage was there something irrational and unworthy and odd?
Why does someone, in the midst of your worst suffering, decide the time has come to drive home, disguised in the form of character analysis, all the contempt they have been harboring for you for all these years?
“Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.”
Lonesome. As sad a word as you could hear
Everyone’s narcissism is strong at a reunion,
Musical Caravan, Bill Cook’s show, I ordinarily listened to in my darkened bedroom on Saturday nights. The opening theme was Ellington’s “Caravan,” very exotic, very sophisticated, Afro-Oriental rhythms, a belly-dancing beat—just by itself it was worth tuning in for; First the tom-tom opening, then winding curvaceously up out of the casbah that great smoky trombone, and then the insinuating, snake-charming flute.
father passed the secrets on to the son along with all the history and all the lore. It was true in the tanneries, where the tanning process is like cooking and the recipes are handed down from the father to the son, and it was true in the glove shops and it was true on the cutting-room floor. The old Italian cutters would train their sons and no one else, and those sons accepted the tutorial from their fathers as he had accepted the tutorial from his.
But the unions never understood the competition from overseas, and there is no doubt in my mind that the union speeded up the demise of the glove industry by being tough and making it so that people couldn’t make money. The union rate on piecework ran a lot of people out of business or offshore.
The Swede carefully read the papers in order to be able to explain to her why the monk had done what he did. It had to do with the South Vietnamese president, General Diem, it had to do with corruption, with elections, with complex regional and political conflicts, it had to do with something about Buddhism itself. . . . But for her it had only to do with the extremes to which gentle people have to resort in a world where the great majority are without an ounce of conscience.
“The influence you allow others to have on you, it’s absolute. Nothing so captivates you as another person’s needs.”
We stayed at the Crillon. The greatest treat of the whole trip. I loved it. So from there we took a car and we went down to Zug, the center of the Simmentals, and then we went to Lucerne, which was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and then we went to the Beau Rivage in Lausanne.
Was it bigger, more important, worthier things that inclined others to a lifelong mate? Or at the heart of everyone’s marriage was there something irrational and unworthy and odd?
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
How harrowing it must be to live in the mind of a boomer who desperately tries to understand people the way someone desperately tries to understand a book by furiously staring at the cover.
I wish I had read this book when I was a bit younger, even in high school. The Swede is gifted an identity and through his father/school/society/military that identity is constantly reinforced and shaped for him. His biggest personal choice seems to be his decision to enter the military oddly enough, but even that turns into a situation where the identity of The Swede overrules his individuality.
To a degree, everyone centralizes themselves in reality. Everything exists in YOUR reality. And the Swede has this largely unchallenged reality that either through unwillingness or sheer ignorance, doesn't seem to see people as people. Everyone in his life fulfills a role that they were always predestined to fulfill. It's only when Merry's idiosyncrasies bubble up and poke a giant hole in that reality does the Swede start to unravel and have a years-long slow-motion nervous breakdown.
Does the Swede love his daughter, truly? Or does he miss the role his daughter was supposed to fulfill for his life?
I guess this book is more simply about how no one can ever really know the hearts of others, but I think how the Swede reconciles with this is the more interesting throughline.
I wish I had read this book when I was a bit younger, even in high school. The Swede is gifted an identity and through his father/school/society/military that identity is constantly reinforced and shaped for him. His biggest personal choice seems to be his decision to enter the military oddly enough, but even that turns into a situation where the identity of The Swede overrules his individuality.
To a degree, everyone centralizes themselves in reality. Everything exists in YOUR reality. And the Swede has this largely unchallenged reality that either through unwillingness or sheer ignorance, doesn't seem to see people as people. Everyone in his life fulfills a role that they were always predestined to fulfill. It's only when Merry's idiosyncrasies bubble up and poke a giant hole in that reality does the Swede start to unravel and have a years-long slow-motion nervous breakdown.
Does the Swede love his daughter, truly? Or does he miss the role his daughter was supposed to fulfill for his life?
I guess this book is more simply about how no one can ever really know the hearts of others, but I think how the Swede reconciles with this is the more interesting throughline.
wow. So beautifully written and the grotesque parts are so repulsive -- it's amazing how well Roth could write. There is so much to this novel. The main story is about the Swede, Seymour Levov, who was all American and believed in all the stereotypical American vallues, being steadfast, loyal and true. He married a Catholic former Miss New Jersey; bought an old stone house with American Revolutionary connections; played baseball, football, basketball at all American levels. And then America turns on him -- the Vietnam War, Watergate, SDS bombings, the Newark riots. Ultimately he is left with a shell of himself -- the upright American that everyone sees and his shattered, hidden self.
Plus a history of the glove business and the riots in Newark and a little history of Morris County as bonuses.
Plus a history of the glove business and the riots in Newark and a little history of Morris County as bonuses.
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think we have here an all-too prevalent case of “the subject matter is super big and commercial, so story elements be damned”. This is a common illness of American “classics” wherein symptoms can include: an agenda that didn’t age well, a white author writing “of his time”, and pretentious storytelling choices that waste the reader’s time and offer no true value to the story itself.
What is stupidly frustrating about this book is that it feels like Roth’s storytelling decisions are mocking the potential the plot and characters could have had. It is almost like he painted a beautiful landscape with a haunting image at its center… and then chopped it all up with a serrated knife, pieced it back together using scotch tape and colorful yarn, and then arbitrarily drew cartoon stick figures on varying pieces using an 8-Colors set of sharpies. Instead of trusting his story and his characters, he messes it all up for no reason that I can glean.
The book is in three parts, and I need to talk about each one because the structure of this book kills this story.
Part one: the entirety of this part is our narrator describing why the main character means so much to him. This would be interesting exposition and an introduction to a character we’re about to follow closely for the rest of the book… if the POV remained with this narrator in the other two parts (which it doesn’t), if this exposition was built upon and utilized to craft the emotional world of the Swede (it is not, and it is at best just repeated later), and if it wasn’t so boring! Roth in general really focuses on the most useless, boring details that don’t serve the story at all: cows, gloves, leather working, gloves, baseball, gloves, Marsha’s unattractiveness, GLOVES!! These repetitive, never-ending diatribes are a majority of the book as a whole, but some of the longest ones are in this part (and we’re talking five plus pages of nonsense).
Part two: this is the meat of the story, but at best, the plot points to the core of the story are sidelined by Roth’s stupid diatribes. And when we finally do get to a point where the Swede has to interact with plot, he just sits there and pontificates about his existence that lead to Mary doing what she did. What makes part two all the more frustrating is that if part one and three were removed, part two would have been a far more effective story than this mess as a whole. Of this 400-page book, really only about a hundred pages has relation to the plot or characters. It’s so frustrating that I could have not only saved time but enjoyed a better story.
Part three: utterly useless, monotonous, and a massive waste of time. There is a sliver of this part that should be planted at the end of part two, and the rest should have been left on the chopping floor. Also, while not as long as they were in part one, the diatribes are the most prevalent and infuriating in this part than anywhere else. It genuinely reads like two or three paragraphs of relevant character or plot related prose here and there, and then the rest is just wasted on fixating on details that do not serve the story.
Additionally, there is a lot of characterization that would have better served the emotional world of the story and the message Roth was trying to render if it hadn’t been given to us after it was relevant for that character. The delivery of characterization is just as all over the place as the timeline and structure of this story. Imagine part two renders the burgeoning of Mary’s extreme views and then halfway through part three it is revealed that during that time, her father was having an affair. Instead of building the world of that moment, it’s added literally hundreds of pages later as an afterthought… but an extrapolated afterthought. All of the characterization is like that: what would have best served the story in a given moment is given to us later when it no longer has gravitas or importance. I know the pushback on this critique is that a story doesn’t have to be chronologically told, and I agree! But every good story is the careful, intentional leak of necessary information that serves the its elements and final message. Great stories that have effectively leaked important information non-chronologically for an effective impact include: Nick Payne’s Constellations, Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie, or Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea. Roth’s writing here, in general but more specifically the characterization and structure, feels lazy, aimlessly, and purposeless.
Lastly… I am personally but thoroughly annoyed with Roth as a writer. His depiction of women is little more than either “ugly = bad” or boobs with fine legs attached. How he describes Jews feels self-degrading and one-dimensional. This story and his writing reads like he thinks he’s super clever when actually he just comes across with sleazy, juvenile self-glorification. I do not understand why this book is considered a great of American literature when I walked away from it feeling like American literature is being mocked.
What is stupidly frustrating about this book is that it feels like Roth’s storytelling decisions are mocking the potential the plot and characters could have had. It is almost like he painted a beautiful landscape with a haunting image at its center… and then chopped it all up with a serrated knife, pieced it back together using scotch tape and colorful yarn, and then arbitrarily drew cartoon stick figures on varying pieces using an 8-Colors set of sharpies. Instead of trusting his story and his characters, he messes it all up for no reason that I can glean.
The book is in three parts, and I need to talk about each one because the structure of this book kills this story.
Part one: the entirety of this part is our narrator describing why the main character means so much to him. This would be interesting exposition and an introduction to a character we’re about to follow closely for the rest of the book… if the POV remained with this narrator in the other two parts (which it doesn’t), if this exposition was built upon and utilized to craft the emotional world of the Swede (it is not, and it is at best just repeated later), and if it wasn’t so boring! Roth in general really focuses on the most useless, boring details that don’t serve the story at all: cows, gloves, leather working, gloves, baseball, gloves, Marsha’s unattractiveness, GLOVES!! These repetitive, never-ending diatribes are a majority of the book as a whole, but some of the longest ones are in this part (and we’re talking five plus pages of nonsense).
Part two: this is the meat of the story, but at best, the plot points to the core of the story are sidelined by Roth’s stupid diatribes. And when we finally do get to a point where the Swede has to interact with plot, he just sits there and pontificates about his existence that lead to Mary doing what she did. What makes part two all the more frustrating is that if part one and three were removed, part two would have been a far more effective story than this mess as a whole. Of this 400-page book, really only about a hundred pages has relation to the plot or characters. It’s so frustrating that I could have not only saved time but enjoyed a better story.
Part three: utterly useless, monotonous, and a massive waste of time. There is a sliver of this part that should be planted at the end of part two, and the rest should have been left on the chopping floor. Also, while not as long as they were in part one, the diatribes are the most prevalent and infuriating in this part than anywhere else. It genuinely reads like two or three paragraphs of relevant character or plot related prose here and there, and then the rest is just wasted on fixating on details that do not serve the story.
Additionally, there is a lot of characterization that would have better served the emotional world of the story and the message Roth was trying to render if it hadn’t been given to us after it was relevant for that character. The delivery of characterization is just as all over the place as the timeline and structure of this story. Imagine part two renders the burgeoning of Mary’s extreme views and then halfway through part three it is revealed that during that time, her father was having an affair. Instead of building the world of that moment, it’s added literally hundreds of pages later as an afterthought… but an extrapolated afterthought. All of the characterization is like that: what would have best served the story in a given moment is given to us later when it no longer has gravitas or importance. I know the pushback on this critique is that a story doesn’t have to be chronologically told, and I agree! But every good story is the careful, intentional leak of necessary information that serves the its elements and final message. Great stories that have effectively leaked important information non-chronologically for an effective impact include: Nick Payne’s Constellations, Paul Tremblay’s Horror Movie, or Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea. Roth’s writing here, in general but more specifically the characterization and structure, feels lazy, aimlessly, and purposeless.
Lastly… I am personally but thoroughly annoyed with Roth as a writer. His depiction of women is little more than either “ugly = bad” or boobs with fine legs attached. How he describes Jews feels self-degrading and one-dimensional. This story and his writing reads like he thinks he’s super clever when actually he just comes across with sleazy, juvenile self-glorification. I do not understand why this book is considered a great of American literature when I walked away from it feeling like American literature is being mocked.
Wherein the Swede has a head-on crash with entropy as regards the nation, its politics and wars, its cities, business, family, and friends.
There were times I lost interest only to be yanked back to the point that I could barely wait to pick it up again. Roth managed to peel the onion in such a masterful way, using long digressions to slowly reveal the depths of the Swede’s tragedy. The moment when it becomes so overwhelming that he goes into emotional shock and ceases to care was especially powerful.
One star withheld for the repetitiveness. A certain amount is fine, but it often got out of hand, and, worse, boring.
There were times I lost interest only to be yanked back to the point that I could barely wait to pick it up again. Roth managed to peel the onion in such a masterful way, using long digressions to slowly reveal the depths of the Swede’s tragedy. The moment when it becomes so overwhelming that he goes into emotional shock and ceases to care was especially powerful.
One star withheld for the repetitiveness. A certain amount is fine, but it often got out of hand, and, worse, boring.