The Finch at the Feeder

OK, confession. I have been trying for over a month to finish American Pastoral, the book that won Phillip Roth a Pulitzer Prize, was named one of the greatest novels of all time by TIME, and took a runner-up spot in the "greatest work of American fiction in the last 25 years" contest that NYT Book review did a few years back. I have picked it up and put it down two pages later a dozen times, but I've also done full-chapter trudges (Phillip Roth chapters are about 290 pages long) that have left me with not much more than tired eyes and a thin layer of mild depression.

There are quite a few good things about the novel. The character of Swede Levov is great, well-developed, someone the reader can really see. The plot is compelling, the narrator is exactly the right person to tell the story, and the device used to deliver the story from a close third-person perspective is genius. There are scenes that I felt--really felt--in a visceral, stinging way. But Phillip Roth stops every few paragraphs to pontificate, to masturbate literary-style, in a way that makes the whole thing feel like riding a badly-designed theme park ride. The dull parts are too long and too numerous, and the exciting parts are too short to feel like they were worth the wait.

I also think that we should care a little more about Mary, Swede's daughter, before she goes where she goes/does what she does. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm not a father yet, but my inclination throughout most of the story has been "tell her to screw off, Swede!"

This whole rambling academic vibe must be Roth's shtick. I read The Dying Animal first, (library was out of American Pastoral) not realizing that I'd already seen the movie they adapted from it. I admit, I didn't figure out that it was the same story until I was halfway through, mostly because I was too busy wading through Roth's diatribes. We spend the whole of this novella in the narrator's head as he details his affair/obsession with his (much) younger student, so it ends up reading like an extra-long Wordpress entry. I think I got through this one because it was both shorter (under 200 pages) and sexier (possible alternate title=Boobs and Death: One Man's Thoughts), but it was no easy battle. I've always preferred authors that didn't do all the thinking for me.

The decision is, do I keep reading American Pastoral so that I can say I gave it my all (and so I can raise my hand if I'm ever in a book club and someone asks)? Or should I spend my energies elsewhere, with one of the many books I've got on deck that I'll actually enjoy? I can't decide. I think that people that give up on books too quickly cheat themselves, but just writing about the possibility of reading another chapter is making me yawn. Plus, I bet I can figure out the end (everyone is unhappy, lives that seem perfect aren't, anyone?)

Considering Elegy (The Dying Animal adaptation) was one of the few movies that was better than the book, maybe I'll stop now and hold out for the American Pastoral movie due out in '11. Considering it has a good director and great cast going for it, I can't imagine it being anything but an improvement.