American Pastoral : A Pulitzer Prize Winner

{ Sept 2020 - epub revisions. Verified ebook for complete book description, cover, table of contents, content separation, and epub format error checking. } Paperback, 432 pages Published 1998 Pulitzer Prize Winner (1998) 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. In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Seymour 'Swede' Levov - a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory - comes of age in thriving, triumphant post-war America. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him. For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager - a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth's masterpiece. In his latest novel, Roth shows his age. Not that his writing is any less vigorous and supple. But in this autumnal tome, he is definitely in a reflective mood, looking backward. As the book opens, Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, recalls an innocent time when golden boy Seymour "the Swede" Levov was the pride of his Jewish neighborhood. Then, in precise, painful, perfectly rendered detail, he shows how the Swede's life did not turn out as gloriously as expected?how it was, in fact, devastated by a child's violent act. When Merry Levov blew up her quaint little town's post office to protest the Viet Nam war, she didn't just kill passing physician Fred Conlon, she shattered the ties that bound her to her worshipful father. Merry disappears, then eventually reappears as a stick-thin Jain living in sacred povery in Newark, having killed three more people for the cause. Roth doesn't tell the whole story blow by blow but gives us the essentials in luminous, overlapping bits. In the end, the book positively resonates with the anguish of a father who has utterly lost his daughter. Highly recommended. "From the beginning of his long and celebrated career, Philip Roth's fiction has often explored the human need to demolish, to challenge, to oppose, to pull apart. Now, writing with deep understanding, with enormous power and scope and great storytelling energy, he focusses on the counterforce: the longing for an ordinary life. Seymour "Swede"Levov --a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory-- comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America . But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even the most private, wellintentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall --of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful inside the beloved hundred-and-seventy-year-old stone farmhouse, in rural Old Rimrock, where he lives with his pretty wife --the college sweetheart who was Miss New Jersey of 1949-- and the lively, precocious daughter who is the apple of his eye. The apple of his eye, that is, until she grows up to be a revoluyionary terrorist bent on destroying her father's paradise. With vigorous realism, one of America's most esteemed writers takes us back to the conflicts and violent transitions of the 1960s. This is a book about loving --and hating-- America. It's a book about wanting to belong --and refusing to belong-- to America. It sets the desire for an American pastoral --a respectable life of space, calm, order, optimism, and achievement-- against the indigenous American berserk. American Pastoral presents a vivid portraits of how the innocence of Swede Levov is swept away by the times --of how everything industriously created by his family in America over three generations is left in a shambles by the explosion of a bomb in his own bucolic backyard." --On the flaps In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Seymour 'Swede' Levo — a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, and the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory — who comes of age in thriving, triumphant post-war America. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him. For Swede's adored daughter, Merry has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager — a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk."The novel has the spaciousness and weight of an epic, a staggeringly successful one... But Roth’s greater triumph here, in what is possibly the finest work of his career, is the thoroughness and intensity with which he plumbs the souls of his characters. One senses he’s not so much writing about them as feeling them, probing every inch of their pain. And yet despite the compassion in his characterizations... Roth’s theme about the fundamental mysteriousness of people is achingly clear. ...It’s breathtaking to witness an author at the height of his very considerable powers writing, as Roth does here, with so much humility and generosity and sorrow.” - Donna Rifkind, The Washington PostPhilip Milton Roth gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus (winner of 1960's National Book Award), cemented it with his 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint and has continued to write critically-acclaimed works, many of which feature his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman which began with The Ghost Writer in 1979, and include American Pastoral (1997) (winner of the Pulitzer Prize). In May 2011, he won the Man Booker International Seymour "Swede" Levov - a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory - comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even the most private, well-intentioned citizens, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall - of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. For the Swede is not allowed to stay forever blissful inside the beloved hundred-and-seventy-year-old stone farmhouse, in rural Old Rimrock, where he lives with his pretty wife - the college sweetheart who was Miss New Jersey of 1949 - and the lively, precocious daughter who is the apple of his eye. The apple of his eye, that is, until she grows up to be a revolutionary terrorist bent on destroying her father's paradise. American Pastoral presents a vivid portrait of how the innocence of Swede Levov is swept away by the times - of how everything industriously created by his family in America over three generations is left in a shambles by the explosion of a bomb in his own bucolic backyard. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall—of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. Seymour'Swede'Levov—a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory—comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even the most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. With vigorous realism, Roth takes us back to the conflicts and violent transitions of the 1960s. This is a book about loving—and hating—America. It's a book about wanting to belong—and refusing to belong—to America. It sets the desire for an American pastoral—a respectable life of space, calm, order, optimism, and achievement—against the indigenous American Berserk. American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel published in 1997 concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which in the novel is described as a manifestation of the "indigenous American berserk". American Pastoral won the **Pulitzer Prize** in 1998. Seven years later, the novel was included in **Time's List of the 100 Best Novels**, a list covering the period between 1923 and 2005. In 2006, it was one of the runners-up to Toni Morrison's Beloved, in the "**What is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years**?" contest held by the New York Times Book Review. ---------- Also contained in: [American Trilogy 1997-2000](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17489174W) Ameriška pastorala je del trilogije, skupaj z romanoma Človeški madež in Poročila sem se s komunistom. Pripovedovalec zgodbe je avtorjev literarni dvojnik, Nathan Zuckerman. Nathan je v mladosti velik občudovalec Seymourja Irvinga Levova, ki so ga zaradi njegove, za Žida netipične "vikinške" zunanjosti, poimenovali Šved. Šved Levov, gimnazijska nogometna, bejzbolska in košarkarska legenda, je športni idol malone celotne judovske četrti Newarka. Pooseblja ideale ameriškega srednjega sloja: potrpežljivost, dostojnost, red, spoštljive medčloveške odnose, predanost idealom. Po blesteči športni karieri Šved Levov prevzame očetovo tovarno, postane uspešen poslovnež, se poroči z lepotico, rodi se mu hči in družina se kmalu preseli iz bučnega mestnega vrveža na idilično podeželje. Veliko pozneje usodno zboli, življenje se mu izneveri ali pa je morda celo obratno .. This novel follows Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful Jewish American businessman and former high school star athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which in the novel is described as a manifestation of the "indigenous American berserk"; the author investigates the century's most divisive and explosive of decades, the 1960s. As the Swede grows older and America grows 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 The Tragic Impact Of The Vietnam War On A Relationship Between Father And Daughter. The Father Is An Upstanding Individual Who Believes In The American Dream, But His Daughter Has A Different Dream, To Get America Out Of Vietnam And She Kills Innocent People To Achieve It. For The Father It Is The End Of The World, He Has Lost His Daughter. By The Author Of Sabbath's Theater. Philip Roth. THE SWEDE. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city's old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete. Roth succeeds in illuminating the American dream through the vision of those who love it and those who hate it. The novel examines the contrast between a successful businessman and his revolutionary terrorist daughter