On history and aging writers

I'm about 80 pages into American Pastoral. A couple of thoughts. I don't know if you remember, but he finished the Counterlife with letters between Nathan and Maria about him creating her as a character, and her writing to him that 'pastoral' settings don't suit him (Zuckerman, at least) as a writer and he turned the characters in England into open anti-Semites because he needs the controversy and conflict that it produces. I find it funny that Roth finished one novel describing pastoral settings in literature as unsuitable for himself and then uses that as the title in his next one. It's pretty clear where AP is heading - I mean, the title of the first section is 'Paradise remembered' - and the way he's establishing Swede Levov and then introduces the story about Merry throwing the bomb, it'll be something along the lines of 'pastoralism lost'. But I like the thematic continuity. Says a lot about him as a writer, as if finishing with those thoughts in The Counterlife developed into the plot for American Pastoral.

Using the school reunion as a story-telling device works well too, and it's also kind of funny (for me, at least) because it makes me think of Skvorecky. His last novel (Ordinary Lives) uses 2 school reunions (25 & 50 years, I think) to frame the flashbacks and kind of tie together old stories told in his previous novels. It's interesting to see 2 aging writers, whose works I'm fairly familiar with, and who use recurring characters with loosely continuous storylines from novel to novel, use school reunions so prominently in their later novels. You start to get the feeling that nostalgia is an inevitable part of growing old, and for a writer, that means you're not just going to think about high school, but write stories about it too. I wouldn't be surprised if reading I Married a Communist and The Human Stain changes my perspective on this, but that's at least my impression for now.

The conversations Zuckerman has with his former schoolmates - it's really similar to what Skvorecky did, though I have to say Roth pulls it off a little more successfully. Maybe that's just because of the story he's telling, about America in the 60's, has more continuity and relevance for America today than when Skvorecky talks about Communist coups and exile. The Czech Republic today doesn't seem to lean on that past as much as its exiles do, or as much as the United States does, and conversations about Communist theories and political oppression really sound dated, like they're coming out of an isolated past. Of course, the reasons for the differences are obvious - the US didn't have the same clean break that came from the radical political changes as the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, so there's a more direct line from the 60's to today. And as for the exiles, even if they've gone back to the Czech Republic since 1989, having lived in North America for 30-40 years, they still remember the country they left more strongly than the one they visit. It's just a shame that Skvorecky (like his fellow Czechs here) hasn't moved beyond that more in his writing.

Anyway, my original intention was to point out the similar outlook of two aging writers and comment on how aging affects the way we look at life, and I didn't necessarily set out intending to compare Roth and Skvorecky, but I suppose it's not entirely a waste of time. For both of them, 20th century history plays such a huge role in their characters' lives, even with some cross-over in setting (Prague Orgy), so it can definitely be an interesting and worthwhile exercise.