Study Guide

American Pastoral Part 3, Chapter 8

By Philip Roth

Part 3, Chapter 8

It's dinnertime, and it's getting dark really slowly. It seems to him that the evening will never end.
Like he's crawled into it to die.
They are on the terrace.
Marcia and Barry Umanoff, and Sheila and Shelly Salzman are also at the dinner.
Sheila was Merry's speech therapist.
On this same day, just hours ago, the Swede learns from Merry that Sheila had hidden her for two days after the bombing.
The Salzmans have never breathed a word of this to the Swede.
How different everything could be if they had only called him when she arrived at their place.
But he can't see quite exactly how things would have been different.
He sits there paralyzed at dinner, trying not to think of Merry.
And trying not to think of Dawn.
But these are the only things he can think about.
And he'll have to do this forever; stay here at dinner trying not to think about those things.
"Otherwise the world would explode" (8.1).
Barry Umanoff was in high school with the Swede, and he's the Swede's closest friend from those days.
Barry teaches law at Columbia University and is the son of a Jewish tailor.
Lou loves Barry and whenever he and Sylvia are in from Florida, Barry and Marcia come to dinner.
When Merry had begun spending time in New York, she'd stayed with the Umanoffs a few times.
(Flashback alert!)
After the bombing, the Swede goes to Barry for legal advice.
Barry takes him to Schevitz, another lawyer.
Schevitz says that the worst thing that could happen to Merry is seven to ten years in jail.
But, he tells the Swede, they don't even know if Merry is guilty, or if she acted alone.
Maybe it was an accident.
She could get a lighter sentence if it was done "in the passion of the antiwar movement" (8.3).
They don't know anything. They don't have any details.
If they treat Merry as a juvenile, the worst she could get is about three years in jail.
That talk with Schevitz used to give the Swede some hope, but now he's heard the truth from Merry herself.
Marcia Umanoff is "a militant nonconformist," and she knows just how to make the people around her feel uncomfortable.
She teaches literature in New York.
A big woman, messy, not that attractive, very outspoken.
Barry loves her.
The Swede could understand all of this if Merry was the daughter of Marcia.
Marcia who has been in jail several times for protesting the war.
It's hard to understand how Barry married her.
She's an intellectual who likes to act superior and antagonize people.
The Swede tolerates her, but Dawn despises her; she knows Marcia doesn't like her because she was once Miss New Jersey.
Dawn had explained that she'd entered the pageant to win money to help pay for her brother's college education after her father had a heart attack.
But Marcia still makes fun of it.
Marcia doesn't hide her disdain for Dawn.
Dawn doesn't even want Marcia in the house, but the Swede says they can't invite Barry and not Marcia.
Dawn thinks Marcia was the one hiding Merry, the person who is helping her live underground.
The Swede doesn't ever buy that it was Marcia.
He was right; it wasn't Marcia.
It was Merry's pretty speech therapist, Sheila Salzman, the only mistress the Swede has had.
They had an affair for the first four months after Merry disappeared.
Dinner conversation centers around Watergate and Deep Throat, an X rated movie that was very controversial at the time.
Lou keeps getting on the topic of gloves, too, and Sylvia tries to stop him. Lou is still sitting next to Jessie Orcutt but he's mostly talking to Bill.
Bill doesn't think there's anything wrong with X-rated movies.
Lou says that kids are going to see those movies.
Shelly Salzman, husband of Sheila, says that he thinks it's "adolescents" (8.46), not kids.
The Swede can't believe Salzman helped hide his daughter from him, and from the FBI; Shelly is always so nice.
Shelly is the person the Swede went to when Dawn wanted the face lift.
He'd advised the Swede to do it if that's what Dawn wanted and had told him the doctor in Switzerland was safe.
This was after the Swede's affair with Sheila, and the Swede had had an urge to confess.
Shelly is telling Lou that it doesn't really matter if he, Shelly, approves of Deep Throat.
Sylvia tells Lou to stop "monopolizing the conversation" (8.54), and then Dawn and Marcia start fighting a bit, and Dawn walks out.
Marcia is on one side of Lou, and Jessie is on the other.
Lou has moved Jessie's drink to where she can't reach it and is trying to make her eat.
The Swede is thinking about Sheila.
He just can't understand how she kept it from him.
Is everybody as easily fooled as he is?
He thinks Sheila's an "icy b****" (8.70).
Suddenly, he's asking Lou if he wants more steak.
Lou does want steak, so he can try to make Jessie eat it.
Then the Swede's trying to help his father see that Shelly just doesn't take Deep Throat very seriously.
With all that's happened today, he can't believe he's playing the middle man between his father and Shelly.
Marcia is making fun of Lou's concern.
Orcutt takes Lou's side, saying, "And what is wrong with decency?" (8.82).
Not able to look at Orcutt, the Swede wonders what it is Dawn finds attractive in him.
Now, he can't stop thinking of Merry being raped and of Dawn having sex with Orcutt.
The argument about Deep Throat and decency is still going on.
Marcia and Dawn are antagonizing each other. Marcia is antagonizing Lou.
Orcutt is talking about "morality" (8.135)—Orcutt, the guy who puts the finishing touches on destroying the Swede's family.
Now, the Swede understands that the face lift was for Orcutt.
The new house is for Dawn and Orcutt to live in, together, abandoning the Swede and Jessie.
The Swede thinks that Dawn and Orcutt are "predators" (8.139).

American Pastoral Part 3, Chapter 8

By Philip Roth

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