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A review by william_gwynne
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
3.0
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American Pastoral is set in America, as you could have guessed, from the period of the 1940s up until the 1990s.
It centres around the story of a character nicknamed "The Swede". A boy who has always been worshipped by his peers, initially for his incredible skill in sports. But this continues throughout his life, and he is changed because of it. It results in catastrophic consequences. A life of incredible peaks and despairing troughs.
"He had learned the worst lesson that life could teach - that it made no sense."
I enjoyed the first half of the novel, with its alluring and interesting tangential tone and intriguing plot. But beyond this point, Roth seemed to step up the extent to how slowly it could progress, and constantly enforced his view, somewhat distracting me from what was going on. The plot became disjointed and just did not make sense, as if the author just added things purely to shake the reader up.
The last 250 pages or so were a slog, so I would not have read to the end if it was not a requirement for my studies. I hoped it would pick up, but in my opinion it did not.
Roth is known as one of the greatest American writers of the modern age, but his style just did not click with me. I soon tired and the plot frustrated me, as it did not make sense and was too cliche, arguably.
I had high expectations, but sadly this just was not a novel for me.
3/5 STARS
American Pastoral is set in America, as you could have guessed, from the period of the 1940s up until the 1990s.
It centres around the story of a character nicknamed "The Swede". A boy who has always been worshipped by his peers, initially for his incredible skill in sports. But this continues throughout his life, and he is changed because of it. It results in catastrophic consequences. A life of incredible peaks and despairing troughs.
"He had learned the worst lesson that life could teach - that it made no sense."
I enjoyed the first half of the novel, with its alluring and interesting tangential tone and intriguing plot. But beyond this point, Roth seemed to step up the extent to how slowly it could progress, and constantly enforced his view, somewhat distracting me from what was going on. The plot became disjointed and just did not make sense, as if the author just added things purely to shake the reader up.
The last 250 pages or so were a slog, so I would not have read to the end if it was not a requirement for my studies. I hoped it would pick up, but in my opinion it did not.
Roth is known as one of the greatest American writers of the modern age, but his style just did not click with me. I soon tired and the plot frustrated me, as it did not make sense and was too cliche, arguably.
I had high expectations, but sadly this just was not a novel for me.
3/5 STARS