American Pastoral ~ Philip Roth

This intriguing novel, in which the life of Jewish American Seymour Levov and his affluent middle-class family is painstakingly traced against the background of the American Dream and its unraveling during the social upheaval of the Vietnam War, takes the form of a story posthumously told to (and by) Nathan Zuckerman, Roth’s alter-ego, during a class reunion dominated by aging men plagued by the dread and the reality of prostate cancer. Levov’s unloving brother tells Zuckerman that ‘golden boy’ Seymour’s seemingly ideal life as sporting and military hero disintegrated into grief and horror and that, after re-marrying and having two sons, died of prostate cancer.

Seymour Levov, universally known as ‘Swede’ because of his blond and powerful body, was the son of a renowned glove manufacturer who duly passed the thriving and profitable business on to Swede; the Newark factory was a hallmark of quality American craftsmanship and ethical practice, and Swede and his family lived the Dream with a country estate, powerful social life etc.  His wife, former state beauty queen Dawn, was a devout Catholic who strove constantly to prove she was not just a pretty face, successfully breeding and showing cattle and being the perfect wife. Their only child, Merry, apparently lived the ideal childhood and wanted for nothing  - except that she had a bad stutter, which defied all parental efforts at curing. A therapist infuriated the parents by claiming that Merry’s stutter was the result of being stifled by her family environment.  Stifled, perhaps; but in her increasingly rebellious adolescence Merry became intensely involved in the anti-Vietnam war campaign. Her horrified parents eventually forbade her visits to New York City where they felt she was being badly influenced – so 16-year-old Merry stayed home in the rural idyll, and set off a bomb that wrecked the local Post Office and killed a well-known and loved local citizen. Afterwards she disappeared without trace and never could the police or her parents track her down.

These events and the resulting disintegration of the Levov family are powerfully told by Roth, in some of the most amazing prose I have read. It is a personalised account of the political and social civil war that rocked America in the 60’s as LBJ’s administration tried to bomb Vietnam and its neighbours into submission –families broken up as their children protested against the violence, and refused the authoritarianism of their parents, businesses destroyed by racial riots, and a bewildered older generation who could not cope –as Swede’s father despairs “I remember when kids went home and did homework, not out rioting and killing”.

Incredibly, the whole disintegration and alienation is reflected in a dinner party at the Levov’s home, where about 100 pages of the story takes place and old beliefs and friendships are shattered. It is searing stuff, if a bit wordy at times, and the ending is a despairing wonder at how such a good man could have suffered such traumas.

The format gets wearying at times (get to the point, please! I found myself thinking at times), and Roth as always paints a confronting and graphic view of sexual events, but altogether it is a powerful and memorable book. Not surprisingly, it won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and featured in “Time” magazines ‘All-time greatest novels’. It is not for the faint-hearted.

Helen