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Amazon.co.uk Review
The McCarthy era has faded, eerily, into nostalgia, just as Capitol Hill produces its own 90s version of witch- hunt and communal obsession with enemies of the state, and perversions of justice perpetrated in democracy's name. Roth avoids nostalgia by making his narrator an active, if unwitting participant in the original drama, caught up in political currents and counter-currents he did not comprehend at the time. --Lisa Jardine
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One reservation: Roth is occasionally carried away by his own writing skill. Result: his otherwise excellent dialogue sometimes goes on at excessive length: the book would be more readable edited down by 30 pages.
Conclusion: excellent heavyweight literary fiction with a few dull patches.
"I Married A Communist", the second in the author's trilogy about the huge political movements shaping post-WWII American history (Vietnam, McCarthyism and, with his latest, "The Human Stain", the Clinton era and p.c.-ness), is a very, very good book. However, "American Pastoral" it ain't.
In this second volume, Roth tells the story of Iron Rinn, a militantly naiive political figure of the post-war generation. The themes are typically Rothian: definitions of success, alienation, what it means to belong, what it means to separate. And, while the plot is fascinating and there are portions of the book that are written so magnificently you'll want to weep, there is a remote quality --- a third-person-ness and therefore an aloofness --- that detracts from the overall effectiveness.
Still, the book deserves four stars because it's part of the Roth canon. He's always worth reading and always astounding and delightful and depressing and devastating. Even when he's merely being a bit more mortal than we've come to expect of a writer with his gifts.
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