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John

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American Pastoral

by Philip Roth

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in October 2016

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John said:

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" Wow, what a stunning tour de force this is. Shocking, terrifying and furious, the depiction of Swede Levov's uncomprehending despair as he attempts to cope with what his daughter does with her life, and what becomes of her as a result, is truly heart Wow, what a stunning tour de force this is. Shocking, terrifying and furious, the depiction of Swede Levov's uncomprehending despair as he attempts to cope with what his daughter does with her life, and what becomes of her as a result, is truly heart-breaking. His well-meaning, liberal attempts to pay due attention to the girl's increasingly extreme views while desperately trying to keep her from losing herself in them completely, are tragically ineffectual. Yet what can a parent really do? The sections describing his daughter's calm and implacable insistence on destroying herself (and by implication the beautiful, kind parents who did nothing but love her with all that they had) left me aching for the Swede and his wife. Dawn. But the lesson is that some people are just too far gone - her insane hatred of the mum and dad she previously adored, and all that she assumes they stand for, is consistently met by their love, but it is not enough. Her eventual insanity is still touted by her acolytes as 'holiness', real commitment to the cause. The novel is a scream of rage and horror at the intellectual arrogance of some political extremists, who are deaf to voices of reason, sanity and humanity and who simply cannot be defeated by logic and appeals to the sanctity of human life. The young female terrorist who contacts Levov is a truly inhuman monster, effortlessly staving off appeals to rationality by deploying an endless number of vacuous cliches, and content to see people destroyed because, in the end, the revolution is worth it. And this is not ISIS - these are normal, American kids, who a year before were going to church and high school proms. Roth exposes the poisonous narcissism, the essentially personal nature, of such thinking. The sheer devilish delight in burning the whole fucking thing down. For political activists like myself, who have been consistently critical of American policies in Central America and the Middle East, for examples, and who have always regarded themselves as sympathetic to the whole counter-cultural, anti-war movement, the novel offers a reminder that we must always put a premium on humanity. Humility, and a determination to always face the truth even when it does not suit us, should characterise us. And most importantly, love - simple, human love - should always be the ground from which our striving for peace and justice grows. Loving our enemies while we protest against them may be the most difficult, and the most necessary, thing we ever do, and I think it is to that task that this novel calls us. ...more "

Oct 19, 2016 08:40AM · see review