Woah. This book is a 400 page locomotive. I’ve read a lot of Philip Roth’s books and they’re all starting to blur. They are all, basically, the same. It’s all just one long gush of the most eloquently phrased rage imaginable. Rage against politicians, against women who won’t sleep with you, against women who will sleep with you, against gentiles, against jews, against parents, against children. Philip Roth is a very angry man — but, and this is key — he is an extremely funny man. It’s a different kind of “we’re all miserable so let’s be caricatures”-type funny like, say, “Confederacy of Dunces.” But it is in the same ballpark. I think the difference is that Roth tackles real themes, deals with real heavy emotions and is constantly pounding you with regret so there is a genuine heft to his scenes of outlandish awfulness. Also — a miraculous eye for detail. As a Jew from New Jersey (and all of his books eventually go to this place) I can vouch for the accuracy of the specifics. “American Pastoral” won him the Pulitzer; I don’t know if I particularly place this one higher than any others, but it is indeed marvelous.
