Science fiction writers begin with “what if…” and then spin a tale of life in a future age or a distant place. What if a writer starts with “what if” and then rewrites history? That is exactly what Philip Roth has done in The Plot Against America.
What if American isolationism of the 1930s produced a candidate to oppose Roosevelt and argue against the United States entering the “European War”? What if the noted aviator, Charles Lindbergh, was elected president in 1940? What if the incipient anti Semitism became national policy? And what if the United States became an ally of Nazi Germany instead of its antagonist?
To enumerate a list of “what if” scenarios like this strains credibility, especially since the history and chronology of the development of World War II is so well known today. On the other hand, perhaps the new “millennials” really do not know much about how the European War began and about the vacillation of the United States regarding the role this nation should play in that war. After all, in the current age we hear increasingly from Holocaust deniers, as if there is anything conjectural about the nature of the Holocaust. Perhaps in fact time has erased the national debates about keeping the United States out of foreign conflicts and there is little understanding of the dialogue that raged before the bombing of Pearl Harbor left no doubt that the United States was at war.
Roth does in The Plot Against America what he has done so well before—to show events through the eyes of a young boy, in this case, young Philip Roth. The novel follows the plight of the Roth family in Newark, New Jersey as well as the lives of the large Jewish community of Newark as they are harassed and humiliated by the Lindbergh administration. Philip’s father knows what is happening, but young Philip is much more concerned with his stamp collection than with national events.
Roth makes many of the “facts” of his what if history believable, and the novel is compelling even when the reader knows it is fantasy. Roth adds a factual chronology at the end of the novel to bring the reader back to reality. He adds factual details about the many historical personages who figure so prominently in the book—Franklin Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Walter Winchell, Fiorello La Guardia. He also adds the text of a speech actually given by Lindbergh at an America First rally in Des Moines in 1941. There Lindbergh stated that the three agitators for the United States to enter the European War were Roosevelt, the British, and the Jews, [whose] “greatest danger to this country lies in their huge ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Perhaps the novel is not so fantastic after all.
What if American isolationism of the 1930s produced a candidate to oppose Roosevelt and argue against the United States entering the “European War”? What if the noted aviator, Charles Lindbergh, was elected president in 1940? What if the incipient anti Semitism became national policy? And what if the United States became an ally of Nazi Germany instead of its antagonist?
To enumerate a list of “what if” scenarios like this strains credibility, especially since the history and chronology of the development of World War II is so well known today. On the other hand, perhaps the new “millennials” really do not know much about how the European War began and about the vacillation of the United States regarding the role this nation should play in that war. After all, in the current age we hear increasingly from Holocaust deniers, as if there is anything conjectural about the nature of the Holocaust. Perhaps in fact time has erased the national debates about keeping the United States out of foreign conflicts and there is little understanding of the dialogue that raged before the bombing of Pearl Harbor left no doubt that the United States was at war.
Roth does in The Plot Against America what he has done so well before—to show events through the eyes of a young boy, in this case, young Philip Roth. The novel follows the plight of the Roth family in Newark, New Jersey as well as the lives of the large Jewish community of Newark as they are harassed and humiliated by the Lindbergh administration. Philip’s father knows what is happening, but young Philip is much more concerned with his stamp collection than with national events.
Roth makes many of the “facts” of his what if history believable, and the novel is compelling even when the reader knows it is fantasy. Roth adds a factual chronology at the end of the novel to bring the reader back to reality. He adds factual details about the many historical personages who figure so prominently in the book—Franklin Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Walter Winchell, Fiorello La Guardia. He also adds the text of a speech actually given by Lindbergh at an America First rally in Des Moines in 1941. There Lindbergh stated that the three agitators for the United States to enter the European War were Roosevelt, the British, and the Jews, [whose] “greatest danger to this country lies in their huge ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Perhaps the novel is not so fantastic after all.
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