About this title: Nathan Zuckerman, now in his early 60s, agrees to write a tribute to the dead father of an old friend and, in researching the man's life, becomes intrigued with the mystery of why someone who seemed to have been blessed in every way--with a happy marriage, successful business, good health--turned into such an intensely bitter and unhappy man during the 1960s. The novel serves as Roth's assessment of the domestic casualties of the Vietnam War.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780375701429ISBN:0375701427
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Slight spine tilt, binding tight, no reader/remainder/library marks, covers/pgs flat w/sharp corners, mild shelf wear. 423 numbered pgs., Audience: General/trade. Photos or other information available by e-mail. Daily orders/e-mail responses. E-mail confirmation of shipment. Check our feedback. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780099771814ISBN:0099771810
Description: Fine. BP. Like new paperback! No spine crease. Appears unread. Text is clean, unmarked, tight. All items are carefully and securely packed to insure they arrive in the advertised condition. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Vintage International, New York, NY, USA
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780375701429ISBN:0375701427
Description: ACCEPTABLE. NOT ex-library. Highlighting thru-out (heaviest in the first chapter) along with some creased corners. Cover has a 1/2" tear at the front bottom left corner and a 1/4" tear at the back bottom right corner, along with considerable rub wear and corner creasing. One spine crease; all pages fully intact. 061309 (pva41) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1998-02-03
ISBN-13:9780375701429ISBN:0375701427
Description: Very Good in None as issued. jacket. Clean & tight with light shelf wear. We ship 6 days a week, generally within 24 hours; single CDs and DVDs upgraded to 1st class! read more
Description: Very good. Different cover-same publisher-minor dog earring-very minor wear to cover-otherwise binding like new contents clean-enjoy. read more
Description: Used; Acceptable. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; some soiling and written "ARC" on bottom. Award winning author ("Goodbye, Columbus", "Patrimony", and others) writes a novel about a father and daughter, and how historical events in America impacted their relationship and their lives. read more
Description: Used; Very Good. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; some soiling and written "ARC" on bottom. Award winning author ("Goodbye, Columbus", "Patrimony", and others) writes a novel about a father and daughter, and how historical events in America impacted their relationship and their lives. read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: VINTAGE Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780099771814ISBN:0099771810
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 432 pages. (432 pages) seymour levov, a devoted family man and inheritor of his father's factory, comes of age in thriving post-war america. his daughter merry is the apple of his eye until america begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s, and merry grows up to be a terrorist bent on destroying her father's paradise. edition new ed (Paperback) read more
Binding: wraps
Publisher: Vintage International, New York
Date Published: 1998
Description: Very Good+ with no dust jacket. 423 pages. ARC. VERY slight edgewear on head and tail of spine and lower front corner prevent this from looking brand new. read more
Edition: Advanced Readers Copy
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage International, New York
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780676538694ISBN:067653869X
Description: Very Good/Wraps. Trade PB 067653869x Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) slight crease on back panel, very small creases on front panel, wrinkles on binding, slight creases on some pages. Warm-hearted novel about a father, a daughter, and how large historical forces at work in America ultimately affected their relationship and their lives. Won the PulitzerPrize for literature. read more
"I was near tears for so much of this book. It begins innocuously enough, the author Zuckerman recounting his remembrances of the Swede, a high school hero, some chance encounters and a conversation with the Swedes brother that destroys his idol status a little bit.
What follows is an account of one of the best men that has ever lived. He is flawed, he takes for granted, he is not faithful, he is slow to act, but he is good. He is the last of an older generation, even if he has been tainted, and he stands for what must fall. America has changed and in the 1960s that change was explosive. This explosion is literal, but more significantly it is metaphorical.
American Pastoral shines when it is setting up a golden age, it excels in telling us about the character of the Swede through his description of glove making and it gloriously presents a happy life. What lifts this book is the tragedy that it explores and the frustration and impotence and terror and confusion that follows the explosion. It painfully details the realization--too late to properly deal with it--that life is not good if you work hard enough. It is not that all is a lie, it is not that all is bad or terrible, but merely of the imperfection of the world as we see it. Seymour Levov is the idea of the America we thought we knew coming to grips with the America that really is. Too late in realizing, too slow in acting, too powerless to stop the change.
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. It is truly a wonder."
"This is a tough novel to get through in some senses and one many women find laughably misogynist. I'd argue that while, not unproblematic, the book's treatment of women is very much an effect of the fact that it is a story about men and in particular the anxieties of the sort of men who with some good reason saw themselves as the embodiment of the immigrant's American dream. Naturally these historically important, good-hearted dudes had a somewhat inflated sense of importance and a low opinion of those who didn't really understand what they'd accomplished and seemed to want simply to knock them from their pedestals. Recommended to those who love New Jersey or who have a father who never thinks he's wrong or are interested in the manufacturing of leather gloves."
"In its way, "American Pastoral" (and the entire America Trilogy) is Roth's true Bellow novel, an old left response to "Mr. Sammler's Planet." "Pastoral" is also the best novel about terrorism written by an American novelist, but one concerned with the human ramifications, not the ideology of motivation. Properly speaking, it is not really political at all, it is social, but a society at its most basic unit. This is not "The Wire," there is no nihilistic attack on the system. Instead, it is people learning to accommodate, or not accommodate, themself to the culture at large, and those who are bounded to them."
"I recently finished an outstandingly beautiful novel (THE MASTER PLANETS), and immediately went into one of those "I'll-Never-Find-Anything-As-Good-Again" funks. Then I found this book, which is not only a brilliant piece of literature (it's by Roth, after all), but also deals with some fascinating issues similar to those in PLANETS--issues I wanted to read more about.
As just one example: I am not Jewish, but have noticed in certain writings something uniquely poignant in the Jewish love for America immediately after World War II. This was the country that had taken in many Jews' parents and grandparents in a way never before experienced, I believe. For the first time they were not outsiders, but simply immigrants in a land full of immigrants. And for the first time, every opportunity--in this nation of bounteous opportunities--was open to them. It is not surprising that the name "America" would become almost a hymn on the lips of many American Jews in this period, that they would develop an unparalleled love for their country. As all of America basked in a cornucopian economy and the righteous sense that our own good works had entitled us to it, American Jews were, perhaps, "Ultimate Americans." So it is also not surprising that, like everyone else, they also gave little thought to the idea that the richness of life here was too well fed by our military industrial complex and exploitation of Third World nations.
The protagonist, Seymour "Swede" Levov, certainly does not think about these things, and therein lies his downfall. As Amazon reviewer Ian Muldoon so aptly notes, the central question of the book is whether it is acceptable for Levov to to accept that he is one of the lucky ones and simply enjoy his place in time and history, or whether his good luck also carries an obligation. An inherently decent man, Levov does not look beyond his own life to wonder if it impinges on the lives of others. But his daughter cannot feel so sanguine. Merry has not had the good fortune of Seymour and his wife to be thought "perfect": She grew up with a terrible stutter, over which her beautiful parents agonized. Is this what gave her the ability (willingness? determination?) to see the fissures in the edifice they revere? In any event, she sees the fissures yawning, and her answer is to place sticks of dynamite in them. And later to withdraw so far from the world that she scarcely eats so as not to "destroy plant life," and will not even wash for fear of "harming the water." She has started by demolishing the world around her, and is now obliterating herself. Miraculously, the stutter that at one time "terrified" Levov is gone... as she herself soon will be.
AMERICAN PASTORAL is the story of a beautiful nation that, about 40 years ago, let some part of its best self slip away. As the "Ultimate American," Levov is the perfect symbol. As he thinks, so thought we."
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