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Title: let's be honest, utterly brutal
Review: Let's cut to the chase: this novel is grindingly tedious, despite disappearing Reviewer Maitland's protestations to the contrary. By page 150, you'll have a headache. I liked The Plot Against America a lot, and came to American Pastoral curious and highly receptive. But I'm sorry, this novel, after opening promisingly, came thudding to a near halt. (Reviewer PS, June 28. 2005, on this point, is required reading.) My wife needed to revive me with smelling salts about a third of the way through, and I promised her I'd give the book up despite a masochistic compulsion to complete it. Reviewer Maitland excoriated me in a prior, condescending review (since withdrawn, suspicously) for calling Roth "prolix," but Roth is "prolix," he needs an editor, but not as desperately as Reviewer Maitland does.
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