Plot against America
- Thread starter birdy
- Start date
I found it rather implausible that things would revert themselves to OTL...I mean, first of all, America will be even more left-wing than in OTL, you won't see any Jews (sane, at least) voting Republican....and in an interesting butterfly, more American Jews might move to Israel (or any Israel analogue) after the war ends, after the dark days of Lindbergh and Wheeler.
I also agree that World War II would change quite a bit. Other than that, I found Plot Against America very well written and very horrifying.
I also agree that World War II would change quite a bit. Other than that, I found Plot Against America very well written and very horrifying.
I liked how America reacted to everything. Sure the US sided with Hitler and Japan but they stayed out of the war. What I found funny was the cousin who fought and was part of the failed Canadian landing only to come back to the US and be followed by the Fed's.
The Jewish kids going to farms was a interesting idea.
The Jewish kids going to farms was a interesting idea.
It's tough for me to buy a second-order counterfactual unless it's made plausible, which this really wasn't.
what botherd me was how no lend lease doesnt affect the British and Soviet war effort with Canada seeming to magically supplement everything.
i still cant fully grasp the ending- so the lindbergh baby was taken to germany and raised as an aryan so the germans could blackmail lindbergh into becoming a US President with fasicist sympathies
did i miss anything.
i still cant fully grasp the ending- so the lindbergh baby was taken to germany and raised as an aryan so the germans could blackmail lindbergh into becoming a US President with fasicist sympathies
did i miss anything.There are a lot of problems with this book, and I don't mean the stylistic ones (such as Roth's hatred for the Jewish family).
He has Lindbergh making his successful campaign by flying around the country in the Spirit of St. Louis, like he did in 1928. Sorry, it was in the Smithsonian Institution by 1940. Somehow I can't see them letting him borrow it back.
Lindbergh sweeps the states, including the south. Sorry, the South by then was solidly Democratic and not particularly isolationist. One could say they didn't care much for the prospect of being occupied again.
President Lindbergh meets with Hitler in Iceland. Sorry, that was occupied by the British. I'm sure they would have just loved to have had Hitler come there.
President Lindbergh makes an agreement with the Japanese government for hands-off in China. Henry Luce would have all the Time in the world to make President Lindy's Life unpleasant for this betrayal of Brave Little China, and he wouldn't have been the only one.
President Lindbergh pulls an SA, making the Ku Klux Klan an auxiliary police. Sorry, by then, it was far past its glory days of the twenties. Moreover, he referrs to the "Grand Wizard" -- that was Bedford Forrest's title. The head of the Klan then was Imperial Wizard James A. Colescott.
President Lindbergh also names the "American Nazi Party" as another auxilary. Would it have killed Roth to explain why the German-American Bund would have done a thing like that, or why he wouldn't have been censured if not impeached for such an outrageous act?
And one wonders why Japan would even attack Pearl Harbor in this scenario. By 1943 (after the climax of the book) I would think they would have attained control of China; no need to suffer under an oil embargo.
There is indeed a paucity of background, so to speak. The America First Committee had a large and varied cast of characters; from hidebound reactionaries to outright socialists. There were those who argued for a country armed (defensively) to the teeth; there were those who argued that any armaments whatsoever were corrupting and harbingers of fascism. How would President Lindy put together a government from the likes of Barton K. Wheeler and Norman Thomas? Never mind the outright nutcases like John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes, the intellectual backbone of the movement. (With James Colescott as a power player, it somehow seems odd that people like Flynn and Barnes were not involved.) Then too, the Communists would have turned savagely on the isolationists after the invasion of the Soviet Union.
When Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can't Happen Here, he had an American fascist leader based mostly on Huey P. Long (and others), and fortunately for his plot Long had died by then. He also had his fascist being supported by a man based on Father Charles Coughlin, and had to have the original stepping aside. Roth doesn''t even go to that trouble in using the historical background.
(Roth seems to have it in for Louisville; he has Lindbergh <spoiler> and says that the airport was "five miles out of town". Bowman Field, the only airport then, was then at the city limits if not within them.)
I wasn't surprised when the book won the Sidewise Award.
He has Lindbergh making his successful campaign by flying around the country in the Spirit of St. Louis, like he did in 1928. Sorry, it was in the Smithsonian Institution by 1940. Somehow I can't see them letting him borrow it back.
Lindbergh sweeps the states, including the south. Sorry, the South by then was solidly Democratic and not particularly isolationist. One could say they didn't care much for the prospect of being occupied again.
President Lindbergh meets with Hitler in Iceland. Sorry, that was occupied by the British. I'm sure they would have just loved to have had Hitler come there.
President Lindbergh makes an agreement with the Japanese government for hands-off in China. Henry Luce would have all the Time in the world to make President Lindy's Life unpleasant for this betrayal of Brave Little China, and he wouldn't have been the only one.
President Lindbergh pulls an SA, making the Ku Klux Klan an auxiliary police. Sorry, by then, it was far past its glory days of the twenties. Moreover, he referrs to the "Grand Wizard" -- that was Bedford Forrest's title. The head of the Klan then was Imperial Wizard James A. Colescott.
President Lindbergh also names the "American Nazi Party" as another auxilary. Would it have killed Roth to explain why the German-American Bund would have done a thing like that, or why he wouldn't have been censured if not impeached for such an outrageous act?
And one wonders why Japan would even attack Pearl Harbor in this scenario. By 1943 (after the climax of the book) I would think they would have attained control of China; no need to suffer under an oil embargo.
There is indeed a paucity of background, so to speak. The America First Committee had a large and varied cast of characters; from hidebound reactionaries to outright socialists. There were those who argued for a country armed (defensively) to the teeth; there were those who argued that any armaments whatsoever were corrupting and harbingers of fascism. How would President Lindy put together a government from the likes of Barton K. Wheeler and Norman Thomas? Never mind the outright nutcases like John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes, the intellectual backbone of the movement. (With James Colescott as a power player, it somehow seems odd that people like Flynn and Barnes were not involved.) Then too, the Communists would have turned savagely on the isolationists after the invasion of the Soviet Union.
When Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can't Happen Here, he had an American fascist leader based mostly on Huey P. Long (and others), and fortunately for his plot Long had died by then. He also had his fascist being supported by a man based on Father Charles Coughlin, and had to have the original stepping aside. Roth doesn''t even go to that trouble in using the historical background.
(Roth seems to have it in for Louisville; he has Lindbergh <spoiler> and says that the airport was "five miles out of town". Bowman Field, the only airport then, was then at the city limits if not within them.)
I wasn't surprised when the book won the Sidewise Award.
Yes, Roth did have a certain one-dimensionality about it all.
Reading a sympathetic biography of John T. Flynn, one theme that he and others repeated was that the New Deal was itself fascist, and participation in the war would make America even more fascist. I can't see Roth letting his Bad Guys utter such themes.
Grey Wolf
Donor
I found it very hard to read, and managed only a few pages at a time before I got annoyed and went to do something else. Thus its taken me almost a month to read
I didn't find the perspective of a 9 year old Jewish boy as the main character one I could get into, though am not entirely sure why. I think part of it was the train of thought style which was annoying, part the jumping around bit which left me wondering why I'd just read an anecdote in the middle of an event only to go back to the event itself. Background, I suppose, or colour, but it was irritating
Then, the whole fact that butterflies are clearly an extinct species in this book. A whole year passes with no US Lend Lease, either to the USSR or one assumes to Britain. Nazi Germany should have made massive gains against the Soviets in this period, but by 1943 everything is able to revert to OTL timescale in time for a Spring 1945 denouement in Berlin ?
Add to that Bormann and Wallenberg STILL disappearing exactly as per OTL, and RFK still being assassinated exactly as OTL ?!
And why does Japan attack the USA ? If its gone an additional year (1941-1942) without needing to do so, then US policy presumably has been to help it with oil supplies (as part of the Lindbergh-Axis agreements). Hasn't it made use of this ?
It was an irritating read, with an unsympathetic character, and implausible events other than inside the actual plot itself. Maybe its simply American-centric and thinks the rest of the world doesn't do anything if the USA isn't involved ? Has to be some reason...
IMVHO of course, and of course it HAS to be said that I DID read it and am struggling on to the end...
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
I didn't find the perspective of a 9 year old Jewish boy as the main character one I could get into, though am not entirely sure why. I think part of it was the train of thought style which was annoying, part the jumping around bit which left me wondering why I'd just read an anecdote in the middle of an event only to go back to the event itself. Background, I suppose, or colour, but it was irritating
Then, the whole fact that butterflies are clearly an extinct species in this book. A whole year passes with no US Lend Lease, either to the USSR or one assumes to Britain. Nazi Germany should have made massive gains against the Soviets in this period, but by 1943 everything is able to revert to OTL timescale in time for a Spring 1945 denouement in Berlin ?
Add to that Bormann and Wallenberg STILL disappearing exactly as per OTL, and RFK still being assassinated exactly as OTL ?!
And why does Japan attack the USA ? If its gone an additional year (1941-1942) without needing to do so, then US policy presumably has been to help it with oil supplies (as part of the Lindbergh-Axis agreements). Hasn't it made use of this ?
It was an irritating read, with an unsympathetic character, and implausible events other than inside the actual plot itself. Maybe its simply American-centric and thinks the rest of the world doesn't do anything if the USA isn't involved ? Has to be some reason...
IMVHO of course, and of course it HAS to be said that I DID read it and am struggling on to the end...
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf
Donor
Just not my type of book, I guess
The lack of focus in the main character just exhausts me, and I can only manage a handful of pages at a time
As a comparison I read a James Patterson novel in one night, and a John Sandford novel in two nights, whilst at the same time plodding on with this book for almost a month...
Best Regards
Grey Wolf