Familiarity Breeds Contempt

I found this book more and more difficult to read as it progressed. Too much time spent inside the Swede's head sharing his doubts and questions. At about the 3/4 mark, I was finding myself becoming impatient and annoyed with the main character. So much so, that when his brother unleashes a verbal tirade on him about his lack of a backbone, I was in total agreement. I was hoping that exchange was going to lead to some kind of action by the Swede, but he just chalked it up to jealousy on his brothers part, because everybody loves the Swede. He even began to repeat himself and it became like listening to a relative telling a story you've heard before.

Highly recommend the audio version

This is the intense, profound, almost unbearably sad story of Swede Levov, brought to life in the audio version by a mind-blowing performance by Ron Silver.

Vicious Cycle

I found this book to be fascinating and frustrating to read at the same time. Fascinating in that Seymour Levov--the Swede--is such a robust, fully realized character. Frustrating in that the first hundred pages are dedicated to Philip Roth (ie, Nathan Zuckerman) and his class reunion and his prostate cancer and his admiration of the Swede. Frustrating too in that this is a novel that doesn't go from point A to point B directly but instead swoops around in endless circles so that in the end we find there's not much more we know about the plot than we did at the start.