I wonder if anyone would object if I called Philip Roth’s American Pastoral something of an Everyman novel. It is a book that almost any book lover can read and enjoy. It is a story that most of us can identify with: the tragedy that befell the Levov family, the horror that happened and the baffling lack of an identifiable cause. Seymour “The Swede” Levov can almost be heard saying, “But I didn’t do anything.”

We may not have had a daughter go publicly over the edge and bring horror and shame to the family. But we can each feel the real possibility of devastating things happening to us despite our lack of exceptionalism. We were just living out a normal American life and things hit the fan.

Our group could also call it an Everyman Novel because throughout the entire Athenaeum conversation, not a single complaint or criticism was raised until the closing remarks in which I first said, and John echoed, that Roth “can talk.” You get the feeling that he could just go on talking about the glove factory, or Newark’s socio-economic troubles, or Merry’s mental state, or Swede’s athletic prowess, or Dawn’s attitude about becoming Miss New Jersey, forever.

Nevertheless, Roth’s Pulitzer-winning novel had the power to keep the reader completely engaged even with subject matter that is fairly ordinary. We all liked the immediate family, as well as Swede’s father Lou, most of their friends, and even daughter Merry herself. Even Rita Cohen was an exquisite villain.

Structured in 3 sections – Paradise Remembered, The Fall, and Paradise Lost – we see the wistful tragedy that resulted in, not the demise of the family, or even in anyone’s untimely death, but simply the wreckage, the despair, the bewilderment that an unexplained horror brings, accompanied by shame, self-doubt, humiliation, loss of all self-confidence and ultimately divorce.

And from the For What It’s Worth department, a film version of the book begins filming in March and will star Ewan MacGregor.

And a Jacq’s lovely in abstentia essay can be found in the left column.

This month we had our annual book exchange and a photo of the evening you can see here.

Click to see a larger picture

The book for January is Don Delillo’s White Noise, and after great perseverance, Noah’s steadfast proposal got the vote for February: The Disposessed by Ursula K. Leguin.

We also settled on a design and color scheme for the next commemorative t-shirt: gray shirt with black text.

James Fenimore Cooper published The Last of the Mohicans in 1826, just 6 years after Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. The first observation repeated throughout the evening is that Cooper’s book fit squarely in the same category as Scott’s book, that is, early 19th c. romanticism.

After Jordan’s winsome opening essay, the conversation quickly went into a passionate fracas about whether the book should be called racist, sexist, and/or ethnocentric. William seemed to give the winning discourse about which culture was presented in the best light: the Indians clearly were. Any talk of ‘barbarism’ or ‘savages’ must be understood in light of the fact that all of the white characters were presented as saps, buffoons, naive, or otherwise deficient. The Indian characters, even the villainous Magua, were presented with greater dimension and richness.

Credit is due to the book for establishing a literary vocabulary and tradition of Indian lore, making words like tomahawk, happy hunting ground, and Great Spirit familiar terms in the American conscience.

There were some who found considerable enjoyment in the book, usually after a period of adjusting to the high prose style of the 1820’s. However, a majority of the group expressed overall distaste, not only with the excessively florid narrative but with the flatness of most characters and outlandish details that stretched the limits of the suspension of disbelief. Yet again, these aspects are explained by the popular-level, American romantic style in which Cooper was writing.

To his credit, Cooper was doing what all great writers do in that he was challenging and pressing many assumptions and prejudices of his day. Having the beautiful Cora to be a mulatto, and showing the courage and honor of Ungas and Chingwichgook, and even suggesting a kind of spiritual Universalism in which white and Indian would be coinhabitants of the same eternal estate, were examples of this.

Everyone came expecting the discussion to run out of steam fairly quickly, but that was not the case. And as usual, every man found new appreciation for the book, and a respect for its place in American fiction.

The book for December, is Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. And don’t forget the book exchange.

The book for January will be Don Delillo’s White Noise.

Somewhat predictably, much of the conversation about The Grapes of Wrath dwelt on political issues. Many wise, insightful and clarifying things were said this night, but I’ve forgotten all of them and now they are lost. I do remember saying that the book made me angry. Sorry, everyone else.

Favorite characters: all of them. Rose of Sharon got high marks, and the waitress at the roadside restaurant. But most of our group agreed that all of the Joad family and those who traveled with them had their own endearing aspects with only one or two exceptions.

Interestingly, I saw recently that there is a new documentary coming out with a present day Grapes of Wrath situation going on, only this time in North Dakota. You remember a few years ago with they announced the new oil development? Hiring exploded, cities were built up over night, local economies boomed. Thousands migrated, but now the jobs are all taken and thousand are homeless.

Anyway, if someone wants to take on the role of secretary at the meetings and hand me their notes, I might make these entries a little more interesting. But I’m already acting as web guy for free, so nut up, Eli.

If whoever did the essay will send it to me (Jeffrey) I will post it in the column on the left with the other essays.

BY THE WAY, in case you hadn’t heard, The Dog and Duck is closing down before our next meeting. The new venue will be Gourmands. (Map here.) They have a nice beer selection and decent food. They will reserve a table for us, though it is not covered. In the event of rain, go to Opal Divines on S. Congress (Map).

Next book is The Last of the Mohicans. December’s book is American Pastoral by Philip Roth.

For the two of you who look at this blog, I’ll try to keep something here, though I confess it is hard to find motivation when almost nobody reads it.

Last month we read A Handful of Dust. John M. nominated the book, so he wrote the essay. You can find it in the left hand column.

For July/August, the book is The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.

For Aug/Sept, the book is Life is a Miracle, by Wendel Berry

It seemed to me that never before has it taken so long to get warmed up in the discussion of a book as it did with this one. Discussion centered on minutia and the fairly straight-forward plot that was somewhat cobbled together from two separate short stories.

But about 2/3 of the way in, we started to discover that Salinger seemed to have much more going on that we gave him credit for.

Turns out Zooey’s reflection in his brother’s old room caused him to grow as a character so that he was able to be kind to Frannie on the phone.

If you did not come to the meeting because you didn’t like the book, then you are a sackless loser. Everyone concluded, as you well know, that the book had great merit that required the interaction of the group to fully appreciate.

We are now reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. The book for December will the Homer’s Odyssey. Better get on it.

Here’s a nice little post I found. A 22-year-old young man hitch hiked across the country to visit Hemingway in Key West. During the interesting visit, EH gave him a list of books that every writer should read.