[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-330029-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-330029-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","american-pastoral-paradise-remembered","AMERICAN PASTORAL - Paradise Remembered","","AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth presents a remembered neighborhood and the formative myth built around Seymour Irving Levov, nicknamed “The Swede.” The narrative traces how wartime fear and communal anxieties elevate his athletic excellence into a sanctuary for the Weequahic Jewish community, shaping local hopes, rituals, and public devotion. Through sports achievements, cheers, and intimate perceptions, the text examines how love and reverence can both sustain and distort an individual’s inner life.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/","Literature",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/american-pastoral-paradise-remembered/330029/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/american-pastoral-paradise-remembered/330029.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Evangeline","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-28","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",11,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"Who is “The Swede” in the opening section?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"“The Swede” is Seymour Irving Levov, a blue-eyed blond Jewish athlete raised in the Newark neighborhood.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"Why did the neighborhood place such extraordinary reverence on Swede Levov?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The reverence is linked to wartime fears; his sports success created a sustaining fantasy and temporary relief from dread.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"How is Swede Levov’s public devotion expressed in the community?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It appears through distinctive cheers and the way parents and others address him with affectionate, respectful attention while he remains outwardly unmoved.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},330029,1790056061,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,91,95,100,105,110,115,120,123,127],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":122},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":126},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":128,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":130},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":132},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":133,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":26,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":145,"read_time":146},13056703019662,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253a8e92610077?_k=1778726343310543188","AMERICAN PASTORAL  \nPhilip Roth  \nVINTAGE INTERNATIONAL Vintage Books  \nA Division of Random House, Inc. New York To J. G.  \nFIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, FEBRUARY 1998 Copyright © 1997 by Philip Roth  \nAll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage  \nBooks, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, in 1997. \"Dream\" by Johnny Mercer. Copyright 1944 (renewed), WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, Florida, 33014. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Roth, Philip. / Philip Roth.--1st Vintage International [ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-375-70142-7](ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-375-70142-7) 1. United States--History--1961-1969--Fiction. I. Title. PS3568 .0855A77 1998 97-35623 813'.54--dc21 CIP Random House Web address: [http://www.randomhouse.com/](http://www.randomhouse.com/)[ ](http://www.randomhouse.com/)Printed in the United States of America 3579B864  \nDream when the day is thru, Dream and they might come true, Things never are as bad as they seem, so dream, dream, dream.  \n--Johnny Mercer, from \"Dream\" popular song of the 1940$ the rare occurrence of the expected ...--William Carlos Williams, from \"At Kenneth Burke's Place,\" 1946  \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 ot","cbCaivO8pHXL7tIl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivO8pHXL7tIl","pdf",1770056,385,"English","# Paradise Remembered","[{\"question\":\"Who is “The Swede” in the opening section?\",\"answer\":\"“The Swede” is Seymour Irving Levov, a blue-eyed blond Jewish athlete raised in the Newark neighborhood.\"},{\"question\":\"Why did the neighborhood place such extraordinary reverence on Swede Levov?\",\"answer\":\"The reverence is linked to wartime fears; his sports success created a sustaining fantasy and temporary relief from dread.\"},{\"question\":\"How is Swede Levov’s public devotion expressed in the community?\",\"answer\":\"It appears through distinctive cheers and the way parents and others address him with affectionate, respectful attention while he remains outwardly unmoved.\"}]","AMERICAN PASTORAL - Paradise Remembered | PDF",1789986598,593]