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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Roth's prose was good enough to sustain me through the bits of this that were tragically boring or massively uncomfortable. There is a certain amount of grim satisfaction reading this through the lens of an unreliable narrator chronicling the downfall of the false image of wholesome 50's America, though I don't think that was exactly the authorial intent. Hate the regular infantilization of women and of any politics which dare to be left of LBJ. Really would prefer to give 2.5 stars but for me personally it leans more towards a 3 than a straight 2.
time to be real with myself and admit i’m not gonna return to this anytime soon …. i WILL … but i just wasn’t feeling him.. there’s some incredible bits here and then some of the most self-aggrandising narcissistic bullshit i’ve ever seen. it’s also (as expected from Roth) actually unbelievably misogynistic in points; this is a contemporary novel! how could this get past an editor !!?? feel like there is a reality where i can at least finish this book and engage with it more critically, but at the tail end of a holiday in Spain it was a slog and a chore and I haven’t felt the need once to return so…
So I read this here book... It's not in my usual genre but normally that doesn't have an affect on me...however while the story line was great and the characters were mildly interesting...this book was not good. Roth rambled on continuously for pointless information and while detail is an excellent thing to have...this was grueling. I barely finished and do hope that I was just having an inpatient spell through out my reading of this novel.
I really didn't get along with this book; for me a repetitive drag that easily could have been a novella with what it had to say. Firstly, it starts oddly: most of the book is from the perspective of the protagonist Swede Levov, but for some reason the first large part is from the perspective of an unnamed narrator. It tells you very little and just serves to confuse the reader. My main gripe is that it switches around so much that it took a considerable amount of time to get back into the mindset of the book everytime i picked it up to read. It was also really repetitive and constantly circled around the same thoughts and events. Also, I dont need to know the exact intricacies of how fucking gloves are made. Surely there's nobody in the world who liked that part? So why have it in? To piss off the reader? My favourite part was the final part, in which a great depiction of spiralling mental health is presented, slightly marred by the sudden non-ending. However, this didn't do enough to lift up the first 3/4 to a respectable score.