the age of reason (jean paul sartre)

this novel charts the attempts of a philosophy professor to deal with the consequences of the pregnancy of his mistress: unsurprisingly it's more of a philosophical tract then a ripping yarn, as our hero (or not)mathieu struggles with the concepts of free choice and personal agency in the traverse of his existence. the problem with existentialist novels is that you find it hard to empathise with, or even like, any of the characters, whose concerns are so abstract they are oblivious to the pain and inconvenience they cause to all around them in their quest for ideological resolution. more surprisingly though, i got quite hooked on this towards the end: you want to know what happens, whether mathieu steps towards normativity, whether there is any such thing to aim towards. good stuff, probably the result of sartre munching many a tasty post modern baguette.

american pastoral (phillip roth)

i only picked this book up because it was lying around my guesthouse, but it wasn't a bad read. it's meant to be a deconstruction of the american, immigrant, dream, and roth tries this through his admirably thorough characterisation of the principle character, swede. swede starts off as the all american immigrant wonderboy, a facade that he carries throughout his life, but which is in fact something of a front. the problem with this critique of good ol' american country living is the reason for swede's disillusionment: his daughter happens to be a revolutionary communist who blows people up. honestly.
that's the problem, all the questioning of the dream is punctuated by stories of merry, the psycho daughter... this slice of fancy means that the accompanying queries on american living and utopia are slightly undermined. it's like derrida delivering a monologue, but wearing a clown suit: the ideas are interesting, but it's hard to take fully seriously.