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ciaran_louise 's review for:
American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
I seem to be one of the few people not impressed with this novel. I found the framing of Nathan Zuckerman fictionalizing the story of his idol to weaken the point of the Swede's narrative (maybe it was too meta for me?). The discussions of how Newark changed over time also bothered me - a rising Black population with accompanying riots and neighborhood decay. Was this novel attempting to thoughtfully discuss white-flight or was it just scapegoating the Black residents that were bad workers and ruined the neighborhood of the Jewish and Italian (aka white) immigrants?
Finally, I did not like Roth's (Nathan's?) writing style of multi-page tangents in the middle of actual plot point. The 1997 Atlantic review said is perfectly: "And as we sit with him in the novel's most momentous moment, Roth launches into a long, dense digression on the history of Newark and the leather-glove industry -- a freight of exposition that, for one thing, we've had several times already, and that, occurring at this instant, leaves us dumbstruck."
Finally, I did not like Roth's (Nathan's?) writing style of multi-page tangents in the middle of actual plot point. The 1997 Atlantic review said is perfectly: "And as we sit with him in the novel's most momentous moment, Roth launches into a long, dense digression on the history of Newark and the leather-glove industry -- a freight of exposition that, for one thing, we've had several times already, and that, occurring at this instant, leaves us dumbstruck."