The Plot Against America

[muninnhuginn]

This was one I bought for M, either for his birthday or Xmas (can't recall which), since he tends to enjoy alternative histories. I tend not to. Although the alternative occupations and fates of various well-known figures in Allen Steele's The Tranquillity Alternative amused me no end, it was not this element that kept me reading, merely a sideshow for a fast-paced thriller.

On with the list:

1. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
2. Ulrich von Liechtenstein, The Service of Ladies
3. Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
   Much more interesting than I'd expected. I have quibbles: the ending's a let down, the potted biographies Anne Morrow Lindbergh to a part of her husband's entry when lesser male figures got their own entries and her part in the outcome of the novel is pivotal. I was both convinced and annoyed by the digressive nature of the narrative and I think this is where the novel's main weakness lies. Structurally it's a bit baggy and inconclusive. The wider results of the events described can only be inferred: the fact that the narrator survives to produce his narrative as an adult could imply no more than he was a lucky one and that much of the program might have continued. It's also a cold novel. I found it hard to warm to any of the characters, but this may be deliberate on the author's part.
   Roth's been on my meaning to read sometime list for somewhere near 25 years, so I'm glad I've got there at last. I may seek some more of his stuff out.