American Pastoral by Philip Roth is an all-American tale.
Seymour Levov grew up in a Jewish section of 1940s Newark, New Jersey. Nicknamed “The Swede” for his blond hair and huge stature, The Swede was the star of his baseball, basketball, and football teams, often leading the school to city and state finals. The Swede was the envy of his high school and a legend throughout greater Newark.
The context of The Swede's fame is important to the story. In Roth's own words:
“Let's remember the energy. Americans were governing not only themselves but some two hundred million people in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Japan … Atomic power was ours alone … And playing Sunday morning softball on the Chancellor Avenue field and pickup basketball on the asphalt courts behind the school were all the boys who had come back alive, neighbors, cousins, older brothers, their pockets full of separation pay, the GI Bill inviting them to break out in ways they could not have imagined possible before the war. Our class started high school six months after the unconditional surrender of the Japanese, during the greatest moment of collective inebriation in American history. And the upsurge of energy was contagious … Sacrifice and constraint were over. The Depression had disappeared. Everything was in motion ...”
Tom Wolfe described America's golden days in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:
“cruising in the neon glories of the new American night … with all this Straight-8 and V-8 power underneath and all this neon glamour overhead, which somehow tied in with the technological superheroics of the jet, TV, atomic subs, ultrasonics--Postwar American suburbs--glorious world! … ”
Kick-ass Detroit cars, Hollywood movies, huge houses in the burbs with yards and fences. The American Dream. Happy days. Granted, the Soviet Union was a superpower as well, but we had Chevrolets and John Wayne and blue jeans and cheeseburgers and rock-n-roll. We were the center of the universe. We beat the Nazis and the Japs at the same time. We won that war. It's our world, bitches.
Also important to the context is The Swede's all-Jewish neighborhood of Newark. He's the grandson of immigrants. The third-generation often identifies more with the new country. This was not only true with The Swede, but his classmates and the entire neighborhood. His community was on the verge of assimilation and wanted in on this American glory, their own place in the American Dream.
The Swede embodied their dreams and aspirations. He was big and blond and dominating all these American sports – a Jew beating the natives at baseball, basketball, and football. Fittingly, The Swede's best sport was baseball, America's past-time. Jewish South Newark was melting into the pot and The Swede was leading the way.
The Swede was a humble man. A conformist, he wanted to do the right thing, to play by the rules, to get ahead through hard work and perserverance. He wanted everybody to be happy. He approached life with a win-win mentality. The American way.
The Swede got an offer to play ball with a farm team for the Giants, but his father wanted him to take over the family business. The Swede obliged. The one time The Swede stood up to his father was in marrying an Irish Catholic girl – Dawn Dwyer from Elizabeth, New Jersey – who was the 1949 Miss New Jersey. Could there be a more all-American union? The all-state athlete / US Marine / 3rd generation Jew married Miss New Jersey / 3rd generation Irish girl. God bless America!
According to The Swede's unsympathetic brother Jerry:
“He was very stoical. He was a very nice, simple, stoical guy … Just a sweetheart … In one way he could be conceived as completely banal and conventional. An absence of negative values and nothing more. Bred to be dumb, built for convention, and so on. That ordinary decent life that they all want to live, and that's it.”
The Swede's family is an inspiring, upwardly-mobile immigrant story. His grandfather, a working man, came to the States and worked in a leather tannery making gloves. Lou Levov, The Swede's father, dropped out of school at 13 to work in the tanneries as well. Lou Levov, a tough old man, built a respectable glove business called Newark Maid. The Swede took over the business and ran with it, growing ever more and ascending into the bona fide upper-middle class.
For their American Dream, Seymour “The Swede” Levov and 1949 Miss New Jersey Dawn Dwyer Levov moved out to Old Rimrock, New Jersey, a fictional town in rural, Republican New Jersey. In portraying its American-ness, Roth places Old Rimrock near Morristown, New Jersey, which was General George Washington's choice of a strategic camp during the Revolutionary War. The Swede's favorite American hero was Johnny Appleseed, and imagined himself as Johnny Appleseed conquering the countryside.
The happy couple had a daughter named Merry – a daughter not as beautiful as her Miss New Jersey mother or all-state athlete father, but they managed to love her anyway. Merry had a stutter that they tried like hell to remedy. Then she got fat. Then, during the turbulent 60s and Vietnam War, Merry adopted a radical ideology known at the time as the New Left. Fervently anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-bourgeois, anti-Johnson, and every other kind of anti- those people are. Then “she went out one day and blew up the post office, destroying right along with it Dr. Fred Conlon and the village's general store …”
16 year-old Merry detonated a bomb in the town's general store that killed a well-regarded local. She went into hiding forever. The Swede's American Dream was shattered. His daugher was a murderer. He and Dawn were known as the parents of the hometown murderer. The rest of the novel details The Swede's trainwreck life, and how it all stems from his terrorist daughter.
1949 Miss New Jersey Dawn Levov went into depression. She was in a mental hospital for a short time. When she got out, The Swede bought her a facelift. Then she started having an affair with Bill Orcutt, Old Rimrock's super-WASP all-American of Ivy League heritage going back to the Revolutionary War. We learn there was a divorce. In a second marriage, The Swede had three athletic sons, all assumed not to be terrorists.
“Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food. 'Pastoral' also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly idealised manner.” -- Wikipedia definition
The Swede, the shepherd / sheep, was a nice guy who got shit on. This book does not depict his shepherd life in a 'highly idealised manner'.
This review interprets the book as being about: “a very good man who perhaps must be destroyed because he is not a very good Jew. 'By virtue of his isomorphism to the Wasp world,' Seymour 'Swede' Levov escapes the pain and self-consciousness of being a Jew in America; he passes for a WASP, and he apparently cannot be allowed to get away with that. In the end, the Swede's charmed escape from Jewishness – his simple possession of his own DNA – seems to be American Pastoral's essential subject and the explanation for the terrible punishment …”
This argument could be supported by various passages from the book. Here's the unsympathetic brother Jerry:
“You wanted Miss America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance – she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else in the United States of America? … The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the shit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok!”
The Swede's father may be the main assimilation character in the book, and he's stabbed in the eye with a fork by the 'Gentile' wife of Bill Orcutt, the Gentile neighbor who is banging The Swede's wife.
However, Roth doesn't talk much about Jewishness in the book. Who would be the Jewish ideal to follow? The brother Jerry? The guy becomes a leading heart surgeon in Miami, taking a half dozen wives and having a dozen or so kids. And nobody likes him much.
Plus, Roth's denunciation of the Newark race riots (through The Swede's old man) seems much too sincere to be arguing against the good old American way. If assimilation were the point of the book, Roth would have created more contrast between Jewishness and American-ness.
No, this book isn't a rebuke of assimilation or a warning to those not keepin' it real. Rather, it's a rebuke of the American Dream. The American Dream isn't all rosy. The Swede did everything he was supposed to and did it well. And he got shit on. America may shit on you too. That's the message.
The high that America felt in the 40s and 50s – the time when Roth grew up – was an illusion. The wake-up call came in the 60s. The big hangover from the big high – that's the story Roth is telling. It's a clarification of history. Merry wasn't rebelling against Gentilism, she was rebelling against The Swede's Happy Days idea of America.
I think Roth wrote this book to set the record straight on the 60s. I grew up in the 90s, when the book was written and published. It was a time when the 60s were cool again. Grateful Dead was one of the most popular bands and white kids wore those hideous tie-dye t-shirts. Some corporate ass-clowns put on a second Woodstock festival in 1997. The 60s were remembered as peace, love, long hair, good music, drugs, etc. I think Roth saw the 60s being remembered like that and wrote a book to set the record straight. The 60s were not how we Gen-Xers and -Yers imagined them.
I was one of about a dozen people to read Tom Daschle's book, Like No Other Time. I'll never forget a sentence he wrote in explaining the 60s. He said that if you weren't there, you just don't understand how unsure the country was that we'd get through the times. Not sure they'd get through? He's right, I didn't understand.
The country wasn't sure they'd survive people like The Swede's daughter Merry. The Weathermen. The Black Panther Party. The 60s were not all peace and love. “Are you down with the revolution?” wasn't a cheesy pickup line. It was for real.
When it came to light during the 2008 presidential election that Barack Obama had ties to Weathermen founder Bill Ayers, most dumb-asses like you and me thought, “Who the hell are the Weathermen?” The Weather Underground Organization (WUO) was a radical socialist organization that aimed to overthrow the government of the United States. To overthrow the government of the United States. In the words of Weathermen co-founder John Jacobs: “We're against everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers' nightmares.”
Here's a picture of John Jacobs at the 1969 Weathermen-organized Chicago protests / riots, Days of Rage (the slogan for the protest-riot was “Bring the War Home”). Your eyes don't deceive you; he is wearing a football helmet. Others in his crowd are also wearing helmets. This was not peace and love.
The Weathermen carried out bombings across the country. Merry's bombing of the general store wasn't the brainchild of Roth's creative genius – it was from the daily news. Her going into hiding wasn't his imagination either – most of the Weathermen went into hiding in the 70s. Bill Ayers was one of those who re-emerged and got involved in Chicago politics. He is now an esteemed professor at the University of Illinois – Chicago.
Aside from the Vietnam War, race relations were hot. The Civil Rights Act had recently passed, and blacks were realizing how shitty of a hand they had. Race riots broke out in Newark, Detroit, and Los Angeles. The Black Panther party and other black power organizations sprang up.
Ever seen the movie, Dead Presidents? In that movie, black veterans rob a Brinks armored truck. That wasn't creative fiction either. Many leaders of the black power movement went on to rob armored trucks or kill police officers, or both. Briefly mentioned in the book is Angela Davis, an radical activist who was tried and acquitted for the murder of a California judge. She went on to be an esteemed professor at the University of California.
Sidenote: do prestigious universities compete for these ambiguously criminal revolutionaries? Like top high school athletes?
Roth set the record straight on the 60s. It was an ugly time. And much of the American Dream is illusion. You can play by all the rules and do the right thing, like the Swede, and still get shit on by America.
The other story in this book is the parenting angle.
The Swede raised Merry with all the progressive sensibilities of the day. In his unsympathetic brother's words:
“He understood that something was going wrong, but he was no Ho-Chi-Minhite like his darling fat girl. Just a liberal sweetheart of a father. The philosopher-king of ordinary life. Brought her up with all the modern ideas of being rational with your children. Everything permissable, everything forgivable, and she hated it. People don't admit how much they resent other people's children, but this kid made it easy for you. She was miserable, self-righteous – little shit was no good from the time she was born … But it's one thing to let your hair grow long, it's one thing to listen to rock-and-roll music too loud, but it's another to jump the line and throw the bomb. That crime could never be made right. There was no way back for my brother from that bomb. That bomb detonated his life. His perfect life was over. Just what she had in mind.”
Merry enjoyed a happy childhood, and she was always closer to her father. There was always the stutter, and then the fatness. And then she adopted the radical ideology. She became scathingly critical of not just the war. She criticized her parents' American Dream as being bougeois and selfish. Dawn sometimes couldn't be around Merry because of the things she said. Dawn's words:
“'The Democratic Republic of Vietnam' – if I hear that from her one more time, Seymour, I swear, I'll go out of my mind!”
At first The Swede considered it a phase. Merry's ideas would eventually moderate. However, he started to lightly engage her when she posted the Weathermen's motto on her wall (one more time for effect): “We're against everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers' nightmares.”
The Swede emphasized to her that he was also against the war, that everybody in the family was against the war. He argued that the proper course of action is to contact their representatives and express their opinion respectfully. She would rebut his arguments with vile condemnations of the political process, New Jersey, and their bougeois life.
The Swede tried to learn about her mysterious friends in New York. These were the people who gave her the disturbing literature he found in the house. The Swede tried to curb her visits to New York by making deals and reasoning with her in a saga of conversations.
In “Conversation #67 about New York,” The Swede finally restricted his daughter from going to the city. He told her to make a difference at home in Old Rimrock, New Jersey, so she bombed the general store and post office, killing Dr. Fred Conlon.
Some critics believe Roth is condemning The Swede's progressive parenting style – another claim with ample support. The Swede's unsympathetic brother:
“You're the one who always comes off looking good. And look where it's got you. Refusing to give offense. Blaming yourself. Tolerant respect for every position. Sure, it's 'liberal' – I know, a liberal father … And look where the fuck it's got you! … No, you didn't make the war. You made the angriest kid in America. Ever since she was a kid, every word she spoke was a bomb.”
Also:
“Look, are you going to break with appearances and pit your will against your daughter's or aren't you? … for Christ's sake go in there and get her. I'll go in and get her … I'll clear out the office and get on a plane and I'll come. And I'll go in there, and, I assure you, I'll get her off the McCarter Highway, the little shit, the selfish little fucking shit, playing her fucking games with you! She won't play them with me, I assure you … ”
Regardless of Roth's intent on this point, I've known good and bad kids that were raised by both old-school and modern parental methods. I'm not sure it makes a difference. What I took away from this book is that, no matter how much you plan the perfect upbringing, it could go horribly wrong.
I was raised in relatively old-school fashion. Lots of rules. I got spanked, slapped, etc. Nothing too bad, but definitely not a liberal upbringing. And I turned out a mess. The worst thing a son can turn into is a drug-addict or -dealer – and for a while in high school, it seemed probable that I'd be at least one of the two.
What happens when you just can't control your kid? What happens when you do all the right things and the shit still hits the fan? The book hammers home a feeling of no control, of helplessness.
I want to raise my kid in a more progressive fashion (my old man says this will change when I actually have kids). I'll spank and slap him, but I'm going to be honest about things most parents don't talk about. It wasn't until after most of my troubles that I learned my old man was wild in high school too. Drugs, jail, the works. And he never told me. Maybe if I'm honest with my kids, they'll steer clear of all that. I'll tell them how fat and ugly all the smokers and hard-partiers are now. And of course they'll know what jail's like.
But what if your plan doesn't work? The kid still goes rotten. Does the plan even matter? I was bad from the beginning. I was always the worst kid in all my classes – starting with pre-school and kindergarten. My old man tells his friends something like this: 'You know how they tell you about peer pressure? They tell you to keep your kid away from bad influences? One day I realized, there's no bad kid that's going to corrupt my kid. Because my kid is that bad kid! It's my kid! They don't tell you what to do when it's your kid.'
By that point, there wasn't anything anybody could have said to me. I wasn't listening. Any plan would / parental strategy would have been futile.
This book scared me a little regarding children. I think it's a good idea to aim for quantity, because quality is a long shot.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and was listed by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.
Some studio is supposed to be making a film of American Pastoral, here it is(n't) on IMBD.
A documentary on the Weather Underground (a puff piece in my opinion), here.
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