schroederius 's review for:

American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Philip Roth

3.0

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I read this book because Stephen King praised it. And I can certainly see that it influenced his writing. Roth's in-depth descriptions of his characters' hopes and histories and values are impressive. I still prefer King, but Roth is definitely interesting. He either has an encyclopedic knowledge of thinks like glovemaking, or else is adept at convincing fiction and everything I learned from him about gloves was garbage. I'm not quite interested enough to figure out which. It took me a long time to read this. Right now, my sense is that one Roth book was enough; maybe a Saul Bellow would be good to read next, after the 3 interesting books coming out this month for me (including Holly from Stephen King, yay!)