[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-143218-en":3,"doc-seo-143218-105":31,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":92},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":28,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":29,"read_time":30},143218,16904993612988,"Olivia Brown","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd",2,"Literature","AMERICAN PASTORAL - Paradise Remembered - The Swede","American Pastoral by Philip Roth opens with the community legend of Seymour Irving Levov, nicknamed “the Swede,” a Jewish athlete whose success—across football, basketball, and baseball—turns sports into a comforting fantasy for Weequahic families living under war-fueled dread. The narrative explores how collective adoration both sanctifies his performances and seems to numb his feelings, shaping his stoic demeanor. Within the school and neighborhood, a distinctive cheer reflects adoration, rivalry, and suppressed anxiety around history and survival.","AMERICAN PASTORAL  \nPhilip Roth  \nI  \nParadise Remembered  \nThe Swede. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city's old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a highschool athlete. The name was magical; so was the anomalous face. Of the few fair-complexioned Jewish students in our preponderantly Jewish public high school, none possessed anything remotely like the steep-jawed, insentient Viking mask of this blue-eyed blond born into our tribe as Seymour Irving Levov.  \nThe Swede starred as end in football, center in basketball, and first baseman in baseball. Only the basketball team was ever any good--twice winning the city championship while he was its leading scorer--but as long as the Swede excelled, the fate of our sports teams didn't matter much to a student body whose elders, largely undereducated and overburdened, venerated academic achievement above all else. Physical aggression, even camouflaged by athletic uniforms and official rules and intended to do no harm to Jews, was not a traditional source of pleasure in our community--advanced degrees were. Nonetheless, through the Swede, the neighborhood entered into a fantasy about itself and about the world, the fantasy of sports fans everywhere: almost like Gentiles (as they imagined Gentiles), our families could forget the way things actually work and make an athletic performance the repository of all their hopes. Primarily, they could forget the war.  \nThe elevation of Swede Levov into the household Apollo of the Weequahic Jews can best be explained, I think, by the war against the Germans and the Japanese and the fears that it fostered. With the Swede indomitable on the playing field, the meaningless surface of life provided a bizarre, delusionary kind of sustenance, the happy release into a Swedian innocence, for those who lived in dread of never seeing their sons or their brothers or their husbands again.  \nAnd how did this affect him--the glorification, the sanctification, of every hook shot he sank, every pass he leaped up and caught, every line drive he  \nrifled for a double down the left-field line? Is this what made him that staid and stone-faced boy? Or was the mature-seeming sobriety the outward manifestation of an arduous inward struggle to keep in check the narcissism that an entire community was ladling with love? The high school cheerleaders had a cheer for the Swede. Unlike the other cheers, meant to inspire the whole team or to galvanize the spectators, this was a rhythmic, foot-stomping tribute to the Swede alone, enthusiasm for his perfection undiluted and unabashed. The cheer rocked the gym at basketball games every time he took a rebound or scored a point, swept through our side of City Stadium at football games any time he gained a yard or intercepted a pass. Even at the sparsely attended home baseball games up at Irvington Park, where there was no cheerleading squad eagerly kneeling at the sidelines, you could hear it thinly chanted by the handful of Weequahic stalwarts in the wooden stands not only when the Swede came up to bat but when he made no more than a routine putout at first base. It was a cheer that consisted of eight syllables, three of them his name, and it went, Bah bahbah! Bah bah bah . . . bah-fraW and the tempo, at football games particularly, accelerated with each repetition until, at the peak of frenzied adoration, an explosion of skirt-billowing cartwheels was ecstatically discharged and the orange gym bloomers often sturdy little cheerleaders flickered like fireworks before our marveling eyes . . . and not for love of... you or me but of the wonderful Swede. \"Swede Levov! It rhymes with The Love'!... Swede Levov! It rhymes with . . . 'The Love'! . . . Swede'\"!' Levov! It rhymes with ... 'The Love  \nYes, everywhere he looked, people were in love with","cbCainCZqOlpKe1k","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainCZqOlpKe1k","pdf",982692,6,1,384,"English","en",105,"# Paradise Remembered\n## The Swede","[{\"question\":\"Seymour Levov（“the Swede”）在社区里为何被视为传奇？\",\"answer\":\"他在橄榄球、篮球和棒球等运动中表现突出，而在战时的恐惧背景下，他的成功被视为希望与逃避现实的象征。\"},{\"question\":\"“the Swede”的崇拜如何影响了他本人？\",\"answer\":\"周围人的爱与膜拜似乎剥夺了他的感受，让他看起来对一切都若无其事、冷峻克制。\"},{\"question\":\"学校里的球迷欢呼和特定口号在叙事中扮演什么作用？\",\"answer\":\"欢呼不仅为他个人加冕，也把体育比赛变成社区情绪的集中出口，反映他们对完美与胜利的渴望。\"}]","AMERICAN PASTORAL - Paradise Remembered - The Swede | PDF",1787693729,591,{"code":4,"msg":32,"data":33},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":34,"title":13,"keywords":35,"description":14,"schema_data":36,"social_meta":87,"head_meta":89,"extra_data":91,"updated_unix":29},"american-pastoral-paradise-remembered-the-swede","",{"@graph":37,"@context":86},[38,54,69],{"@type":39,"itemListElement":40},"BreadcrumbList",[41,45,48,51],{"item":42,"name":43,"@type":44,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":46,"name":47,"@type":44,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":44,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":44,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/american-pastoral-paradise-remembered-the-swede/143218/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":63,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":64,"interactionStatistic":65},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":42,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-04","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":66,"interactionType":67,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":68},"ViewAction",{"@type":70,"mainEntity":71},"FAQPage",[72,78,82],{"name":73,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":75},"Seymour Levov（“the Swede”）在社区里为何被视为传奇？","Question",{"text":76,"@type":77},"他在橄榄球、篮球和棒球等运动中表现突出，而在战时的恐惧背景下，他的成功被视为希望与逃避现实的象征。","Answer",{"name":79,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":80},"“the Swede”的崇拜如何影响了他本人？",{"text":81,"@type":77},"周围人的爱与膜拜似乎剥夺了他的感受，让他看起来对一切都若无其事、冷峻克制。",{"name":83,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":84},"学校里的球迷欢呼和特定口号在叙事中扮演什么作用？",{"text":85,"@type":77},"欢呼不仅为他个人加冕，也把体育比赛变成社区情绪的集中出口，反映他们对完美与胜利的渴望。","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":88,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":90,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":93},[94,98,101,105,110,114,119,124,129,132,136],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":95,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":97},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":47,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]