American Psycho, American Idiot, American Gods, Ame- wow, people really like using American as the first of two words in their titles. Anyway, American Pastoral is like a New Jerseyan Kundera’s autobiography about the struggles of parenting. It’s a story of emotion and little plot, as the back cover is entirely described in the first one hundred pages and the other three hundred are predominantly extensive self reflection- all of this may sound like an insult to the book. I assure you it’s not. I happen to really like books like that. It’s a book that while centered around pretty much one key event (the story mostly being a reaction to it), explores a lot of themes: deception, the corruption of the American Dream (which The Swede embodies), disappointment, loss, parenting, obsession. I didn’t really think too much of it felt shoved in, either, although I thought the themes of parenting were mostly strongly enforced on behalf of Roth. Ultimately, a slow and emotional story, not one that will bring you to tears, but one that IS hard to put down. The framing device and story itself reminds me of Stoner by John Williams. Overall, I expected The Corrections (I really like The Corrections, but not enough to immediately wanna read it again), but instead got The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
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