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Title: Polemic, the 1950's and the loss of trust
Review: My interest waxed and waned whilst reading this novel which I would describe as a novel of ideas rather than one driven by the interest one has in the fortune of the characters. I did not find it near as enthralling as American Pastoral. It is generally pretty coruscating about all the characters, their motives, delusions, illusions, - but some of its set pieces are rivetting stuff including Nathan's teacher Leo's defence of literature (p218) And the summation of the antagonism between communism (read "politics) and literature (p.223). Because it is a novel of ideas, that makes it to me, an example of what the novel is railing against - the absence of thought in media generally or as the narrator Uncle Murray tells Nathan "American unthinking that is now everywhere."(p284). Don't not read it.
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