From the Garret: Archives

Review #2: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

As visitors to my website last month will remember, I am attempting to read my way through the New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2004" and reporting on my reading.

Here's the list of books:
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson,
The Master by Colm Toibin, (just started this one)
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, (see below)
Runaway by Alice Munro,
Snow by Orhan Pamuk,
War Trash by Ha Jin,
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, (this baby is lo-o-ong)
Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan, (no interest-skipping this one)
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer, and
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt (reviewed previously-loved it!).

The premise of The Plot Against America sounds fascinating: what if Charles Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite, had beaten Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election? Philip Roth paints a chilling picture of how swift, terrifying and ultimately unstoppable government-sanctioned pogroms could be. Even as you're thinking, "This couldn't happen in the United States," Mr. Roth demonstrates just how it could.

The drama is played out in two theaters: the public arena filled with speeches and political maneuvering and the private life of the Roth family of Newark, New Jersey. Mr. Roth cuts back and forth between the two, showing how the public arena has a devastating effect on young Philip and his brother, their parents, extended family and neighbors. The Jewish families of Newark are bewildered and disbelieving as the campaign to "re-educate" and relocate the Jews rolls inexorably over them, leaving disaster and death in its wake.

My favorite plot device is when Mr. Roth has the two worlds intersect in the person of Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, an uncle by marriage, who becomes the Jewish advisor and spokesperson for President Lindbergh. (As cousin Alvin says, he's "koshering Lindberg for the goyim.") Seduced by Lindbergh's glamour and power, Bengelsdorf visits the Roths to offer explanations and rationalizations for the president's policies, becoming a collaborator of the worst kind.

The author's attempt to rewrite a small part of American history is ambitious but not quite successful. While the book tries to convince us that Lindbergh could have defeated the enormously popular F.D.R. based on a platform of staying out of World War II, I found that "event" hard to swallow. Once I simply allowed Mr. Roth this assumption, the book became intriguing but never emotionally gripping. The public events too often overshadow the saga of the Roths which is where the heart of the book should lie. The personal price paid for government-sponsored persecution is what twists the gut of decent human beings.

All in all, The Plot Against America did not live up to its premise. I'd take this one off the Top 10 list.