Philip Roth/aid to constipation

I am reading Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. To be more exact I’m reading it on the loo and finding it beneficial to the mild constipation from which I suffer.

It’s a mighty tome and like many of Roth’s novels about his upbringing in Newark, New Jersey.

The story  is of a magnificent athlete who grew up with Philip Roth. Roth calls him the Swede though his name is Seymour Levov.

The Swede’s father is a rich glove manufacturer. In the first 50 pages there are references to a domestic tragedy. The next 100 pages reveal that the Swede’s daughter Merry is an anti-Vietnam activist and blows up the local post office.

The question of why an adolescent turns against  his/her parents must vex both sides.

The writing is of a high order. However it’s a tough read.

I don’t want to give it up.

By way of example there is a twenty five page description in which the reader is spared no detail of how a glove is manufactured.

At the present rate coronavirus will long be gone before I have finished it.