Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen
|
|
2 von 2 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
5.0 von 5 Sternen
AS THE WORLD TURNS..., 29. Juni 2009
I loved this book, as it was a wonderful melding of two genres, that of alternate history to that of family drama. Understandably, this book was touted as a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year. It is as gripping as it is moving, and the best book that I have read by this author, no doubt influenced by his own experiences growing up. The narrator, through whose eyes we see events in the book unfold, even bears the author's name.
This is a look at an America from 1940 to 1942 through the memories of young Philip Roth who lives with his working class family in a Jewish enclave in Newark, New Jersey. All is well with the world, and his childhood seems to be otherwise unremarkable until Charles A. Lindbergh, `aviator extraordinaire and suspected Nazi sympathizer, decides to run for President against a bellicose Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Promising to keep the nation out of war, while FDR sees war as an eventuality, Lindbergh seizes the moment. His platform is simply that one has two choices. Vote for Lindbergh or vote for war. Given that choice, Americans vote overwhelmingly for Lindbergh. Once he becomes president, Lindbergh keeps his promise and keeps America out of war, reaching a detente with Hitler that allows Hitler to continue his world wide conquest without fear of reprisal from America.
For Philip Roth, however, the election of Lindbergh irrevocably changes his world, as there are signs that Lindbergh thinks that Jews are not quite American enough, and nation wide programs are established to begin a sort of resettlement of Jews in order to help integrate them into mainstream America. The Lindbergh presidency would have a great affect on Philip and his family, with collaboration and resistance taking place all around him. What happened in America under Lindbergh would parallel in small part what was going on with the Jews of Europe. In this alternate history, Walter Winchell would rise up on behalf of the Jews as a voice that would be heard and would not be silenced. Moreover, as to why Lindbergh would take America in this direction is explained in a surprising and astonishing ending
This is an interesting and though provoking cautionary tale that will keep the reader turning the pages. Well-written with memorable, well drawn characters and a plot that is riveting, it is a bold, brash book that simply demands to be read.
Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen
War diese Rezension für Sie hilfreich?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 von 3 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
A Moving Metaphor for the European Jewish Experience , 22. Februar 2007
The Plot Against America is a fictional device that provides American readers with a mental exercise to help understand what it was like to be a Jew during the rise of the Nazis in Europe. It's one of the most powerful novels that I have read in many years.
The story develops brilliantly in the context of one family, Philip Roth's, and their connections to a few friends and neighbors. The Roths are a surrogate for the entire Jewish community. As such, the characters and surroundings have a strong non-fiction resonance that provides an edge over most novels.
To make way for the metaphor, Mr. Roth has to move history around in improbable ways . . . by eliminating FDR as president in 1940 and replacing FDR with a remote and Nazi-cooperating Charles Lindbergh. Those aspects of the novel are so contrived that it's hard to take them seriously . . . except that you will feel the chill of threat into your very bone marrow from this story.
If you are thinking about reading the story to think about "what if", I think you are making a mistake. The "what if" isn't all that intriguing.
If you want to read the story as a horror tale, that's the right reason for this book.
A reader can learn a lot from this novel. Place yourself in the shoes of each of the major characters and ask yourself what you would have done. If you are honest, you'll recognize how easily we are alternatively swayed and cowed by events and people around us. It's an important lesson that Mr. Roth provides very well.
As usual for a Philip Roth book, the sentences and descriptions are powerful and effective. He also keeps you off balance with his plotting. Although some "what nexts" are pretty easy to anticipate, others aren't . . . and that makes you more and more interested in what happens to these fictional Roths.
Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen
War diese Rezension für Sie hilfreich?
|
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 von 5 Sternen
Roth at his Best, 27. Dezember 2009
After ploughing through this book - Roth's prose in Plot is some of the clearest, cleanest, most to the point I have read by him - I would definitely start by saying I was highly impressed by the major feat of condensing this segment of imagined history into a novel as compact and yet as thoroughly revealing as this.
Roth's greatest achievement is the way he interweaves the fictional poltical anti-semitic storm that engulfs America with the real lives of his alernative family in Newark. But the discussions that revolve and shoot across the family dining table, in the car, the living room, etc. also feed back into the chain of events unfolding, providing a calm balance of macro and microperspectives of the chain of events Roth plots.
However, and there is a however, while the resolution to the family crisis is entirely plausible, all be it slightly stumped [readers of the book might pick up on the pun], the resolution to Lindbergh's biography - both in terms of the historical ramifications that led to his actions and the [ATTENTION: SPOILER] end of his term as president - does push the limits of credibility.
Slightly.
It also seems Roth lets the man a little too much of the hook. Something the novel in no way tries to do with the rest of the mob/population so drawn in by the rhetoric and calls to action. Roth obviously purposely leaves out any mention for the reasons that motivated the mobs braying for Jewish blood to act the way they do, proving the point that pogroms are rarely incited on an intellectual basis.
Which, at the end of the day, and as we today see everso vividly in the anti-Islamic, anti-Israel and any other "anti-" paranoia gripping Europe and the United States nowadays.
As Roth vividly illustrates to believe things like the events depicted in his book "can't happen here" not only reeks of complacency, but of downright naivete. It can - and periodically does - happen everywhere and anywhere. And only our vigilance can stop it happening.
Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen
War diese Rezension für Sie hilfreich?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
von Philip Roth
von Philip Roth
von Philip Roth
von Philip Roth
von Michael Chabon
