I think I need to read it again.

I finished American Pastoral by Philip Roth. And it was a great book. But there is a "but."

Before I get to that... I think I said before that Roth is an amazing crafter of words, and I have a friend who, every year, curses the Nobel committee for not awarding him the literature prize. I happily join her, even though, until now, I'd never completed one of his books, and I haven't read any of the other literature prize-winners.

But now, I'm confused.

I've read several books along the way that I hate at the time and learn to appreciate later. Heart of Darkness. Anything Dickens wrote. I struggled through Oliver Twist in seventh grade, and that was the last time I chose a book based solely on Accelerated Reader points and accolades. Now, I appreciate those. And I appreciate Great Expectations, even though when I first read it, I cried halfway through because I was only halfway through.

I think American Pastoral will be one of those books I appreciate as it sinks in. And reading it was a very humbling experience.

After graduating from college but not continuing to work with literature, I promised myself that my literature courses wouldn't be the end of my reading classic (and just plain good) work. American Pastoral was one of those books that it would have been nice to have a professor and classmates to help me flesh it out.

It's a very long book. Not so much long in pages, but very, very long in detail. Because of Roth's writing style, everything seems important. Every chapter or story that doesn't exactly fit seems like something I should remember later. Instead of a point A to point B story line, he includes flashbacks, multiple storytellers, and a host of other techniques that make you feel like you're inside Seymour Levov's mind. When Seymour's mind races, so does the text.

The best example I can think of is the dinner party at the end of the book. Seymour has seen his fugitive daughter, who confirmed that she has killed four people, and he has just found out his wife is having an affair. The conversation of the dinner party is interspersed with Seymour's earlier conversation with his daughter, his thoughts about what she might be doing right then, memories of his father meeting his wife for the first time, his wife's experiences as Miss New Jersey, his parents' interactions with her parents, and tons of other details that tell you so much about the characters you're almost done reading about.

The dinner party brings in characters we've discussed but not really met, and the end left me pretty confused.

I think if I go back and read the book again, I'll recognize the names earlier. I'll know to expect intellectual snobbery from the professor couple, and I'll remember more clearly their part in Merry's downward spiral. (Merry is Seymour's daughter.)

There probably are those that would argue Merry didn't spiral out of control, but when I finally met her after hearing her father's stories about her for most of the book, she seemed like a very lonely, very confused young woman.

I'm having trouble piecing together all my thoughts about the book because of the way it was written. A piece of information about Seymour's upbringing here, newspaper clippings of Merry's crime there, Seymour's brother's high school reunion, the friend of Seymour's brother who ultimately tells the story but really didn't know Seymour very well. Thoughts or understandings I had about characters or events had to be pushed aside to read about different characters and events and ultimately, often, were overturned.

It's going to take at least another read to feel like I've digested the book properly -- probably more than one rereading. I'm sure part of that is the length of time it took me to read the book. And part of it is the complexity of Roth's writing.

It was a refreshing kick in the stomach for a book to challenge me as much as this one did. Because of the challenge, I can't form an opinion yet.

All I know is that the tone of the book is heartbreakingly sad, a father second-guessing every conversation and interaction with his daughter, questioning whether he could have helped her turn out differently from who  she ended up. That's the easy part.

Symbolism, allusions, and all the other literary concepts I don't even remember are beyond my grasp right now. I definitely need to read it again.