Synopsis: Philip Roth's 22nd book takes a life-long view of the American experience in this thoughtful investigation of the century's most divisive and explosive of decades, the '60s. Returning again to the voice of his literary alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, Roth is at the top of his form. His prose is carefully controlled yet always fresh and intellectually subtle as he reconstructs the halcyon days, circa World War II, of Seymour "the Swede" Levov, a high school sports hero and all-around Great Guy who wants nothing more than to live in tranquillity. But as the Swede grows older and America crazier, history sweeps his family inexorably into its grip: His own daughter, Merry, commits an unpardonable act of "protest" against the Vietnam war that ultimately severs the Swede from any hope of happiness, family, or spiritual coherence.
I'm so glad this wasn't my 2nd attempt at Philip Roth's work, it would have put me off him forever. It must be a generational thing because I didn't get it in the way I'm sure someone my parent's age or my grandparent's age would have. This is not to say I didn't understand it; I did, but the way it was presented was comical and trying in the extreme. It made me feel pity for that generation in their locked in state; unable to flow or to grow with change, wanting everything the same for ever and ever.
Waaahh, my daughter didn't turn out exactly like me. Waaahh, the American Dream is dead. Waaah, politicians are unscrupulous. Waaahhh, war isn't fun. Waaahh, why can't everyone just love and respect 'the greatest generation' and not make us responsible for anything? Waaahh, why can't I be a Jewish WASP? Waaahhh. Ugh. What a horrible follow up read for me on the heels of The Human Stain. I won't give up on Mr. Roth, but this novel was so long, drawn out and simultaneously self-pitying and self-congratulatory that I had to force myself to finish it.
I also found the use of Zuckerman as narrator kind of sloppy. Unless I missed something, Nathan didn't know any of what was told to us until AFTER the Swede's death. How could he have gotten such intimate, firsthand detail from a corpse? Is he a medium? Did he channel the Swede? It's as if Roth forgot the circumstances and just wrote it regardless of continuity problems. Strange.
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