Unpleasant History
The Plot Against America: A Novel by Philip Roth
Quick Review
I'm torn on this book. It's strange because it's a novel that manages to be interesting on two almost fundamentally different levels, but the tension between the levels leaves you, as a reader, in an awkward predicament.
Roth's alternate history deals with a world where Lindbergh runs for President in 1940 and wins, keeping the US out of World War II and launching a slow, frightening lurch towards fascism...
The novel does a fine job on the micro level narrative focused on, predictably, "Philip Roth", the novel's narrator looking back on his childhood through the prism of these trying times. Where much of the tension comes in is Roth's jumping from personal narrative to historical narrative. For long sections the book will jump to breathless accounts by the narrator of the alternate history, then back and forth through the surrounding personal history of the narrator's family.
As a reader, this means there is almost always something interesting in the forefront. Roth, however, pushes this to a point where there is palpable suspense in both narratives due to the dual narrative structure. We'll jump away from the Roth family for 20 pages to learn history, then back to the family for 50 more. The structure isn't rigid, so you're never sure how much more trauma, on a societal scale, may suddenly fall down upon the Roths and their ersatz America.
For the most part, this works, but it does play a bit on a reader's patience and expectation. Overall I'd view it as a positive, but there were more than a few moments where I felt a bit stranded by Roth's decisions.
On a final note, this is a fairly chilling novel. Roth's alternate 1940's narrative plays on many contemporary issues facing our reaction to threats in the world today. I'll probably do a post on the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the books critique of American culture over on Morsecode in the near future...
Quick Review
I'm torn on this book. It's strange because it's a novel that manages to be interesting on two almost fundamentally different levels, but the tension between the levels leaves you, as a reader, in an awkward predicament.
Roth's alternate history deals with a world where Lindbergh runs for President in 1940 and wins, keeping the US out of World War II and launching a slow, frightening lurch towards fascism...
The novel does a fine job on the micro level narrative focused on, predictably, "Philip Roth", the novel's narrator looking back on his childhood through the prism of these trying times. Where much of the tension comes in is Roth's jumping from personal narrative to historical narrative. For long sections the book will jump to breathless accounts by the narrator of the alternate history, then back and forth through the surrounding personal history of the narrator's family.
As a reader, this means there is almost always something interesting in the forefront. Roth, however, pushes this to a point where there is palpable suspense in both narratives due to the dual narrative structure. We'll jump away from the Roth family for 20 pages to learn history, then back to the family for 50 more. The structure isn't rigid, so you're never sure how much more trauma, on a societal scale, may suddenly fall down upon the Roths and their ersatz America.
For the most part, this works, but it does play a bit on a reader's patience and expectation. Overall I'd view it as a positive, but there were more than a few moments where I felt a bit stranded by Roth's decisions.
On a final note, this is a fairly chilling novel. Roth's alternate 1940's narrative plays on many contemporary issues facing our reaction to threats in the world today. I'll probably do a post on the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the books critique of American culture over on Morsecode in the near future...
posted by Brad @ 5:57 PM
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