The Plot Against America - Philip Roth

[Freewheeling Andy]

America, 1939. The war in Europe has started, and the US has kept out for the time being. But will they support the efforts of the British or head for isolationism.

 

A genuine political battle raged, although a lot of the isolationists had anti-semitic tendencies and were sympathisers with Hitlers. Charles Lindbergh, famous aviator, was one of the most famous and vocal of the isolationists.

 

It's 1940, and on a wave of populist support, Linbdergh ousts Franklin Roosevelt in the Presidential election.

 

This, then, is the basis for Philip Roth's alternative history novel. The narrator is a 7 year old boy, called Philip Roth. The narrator is the 7 year old Philip Roth, in fact, combining his own boyhood into the alternative reality that is the US trying to stay out of the war but ever more sympathetic to Nazi Germany, and the struggles of a Jewish family in a poor Jewish New Jersey neighbourhood against the frictions and paranoias.

 

The novel is superficially quite dark, about how easily people are fooled, and how weak the American public might have been and quickly turned to fascism, with just one or two more gentle pushes. But all the way through, the people who are often perceived to be the bad guys are shown to be human - perhaps Lindbergh isn't as bad as implied. Perhaps the Kentucky rednecks are, in fact, good, normal, friendly decent people.

 

What is fascinating about this book is that, combined with the very human struggles of 7 year old Philip, there are a load of political metaphors and allegory, there are a load of pointers to how a not-too-sharp good old boy in the Whitehouse might be used as a popular face for much more insidious behaviour; about how the "enemy within" argument can lead to more and more pressures from government.

 

It is as much a book about the Bush administration, I think, as about World War II.

 

There are ironies in this, though, as in this book the desperation to not get involved in foreign conflicts is the driver of the problem : the complete obverse of the current administration. And, as so often happens in books and films and TV portrayals of US politics, you find that the President may be a dupe, but he may well basically be a good guy at heart. There's something holding American fiction writers back from suggesting that the office of the Presidency could, in fact, be spectacularly flawed. As always, it's the people surrounding the President, particularly the vice-President, who is the really bad guy (see 24, Day After Tomorrow, etc etc as nauseum).

 

Anyway, the book is beautifully written, a fantastic study of history and remade history, and also fascinating in the modern allegories.

 

I loved reading it.

 

Despite it having one of the most off-putting, worst, titles I can imagine.

[NiceguyEddie]

It is a very good book.

 

I've also read Human Stain which deals with similar themes. It's the story of a university professor (might be lecturer, I read it a while ago) who is black, but very light skinned who lives the life of a white person. This is only a part of the plot. The other being the main character's affair with a woman half his age and the reaction of her ex-husband.

 

Supposedly, American Pastoral is his masterpiece. I must get hold of a copy!

[Oblomov]

Good review FA. I have put this down as the best book that I have read in 2007. As a piece of alternative history, it does not match Robert Harris' masterpiece Fatherland but is nevertheless a great read. I particularly liked the excellent characterisation of the Roth brothers.

 

I often have wondered about the apparently awful title for such a literary work. I discussed this in my "What's in a title?" thread last month. I think Roth named the book in that way because of some parallels with a possible inspiration - The Diary of Anne Frank. Since the entire book is written from a 7 going on 8 year old boy's perspective, Roth must have delibrately given it that immature sounding title.

[Philip Stein]

I think it's a great title! I haven't read it yet, but I love Philip Roth and have enjoyed half a dozen of his books in the last year. It's got to the stage where I don't want to read them too quickly because I like to know I still have some 'in hand' to look forward to! Not that the old boy looks like slowing up any time soon.