I'll be honest, it took me six months to finish this book, not because I didn't love it, but because it was so beautifully and densely written that I needed to clear emotional time and space to actually sit down and give this book the undivided attention that it so deserves! From the very beginning of this novel, imagery is everything. Normally, I wouldn't want to read a book that takes three pages just to tell you it's raining, but this book is less of a high-speed chase from plot point to point, and more of a Sunday drive through some of the most beautiful language I have ever encountered in a novel. Things I specifically loved about it were how the characters were so rich and diverse in their mannerisms and traits, as well as Roth's elevation of the Yiddish dialect versus the harshness of when the characters were speaking English. Although the entire novel is prose, much of it is extremely poetic. By the time I was about 3/4 of the way done with it, I had given up hope that there was an actual plot and had come to terms with the idea that this was one of those more "true to life," kinds of books that was more about just making the reader feel something. But then! Some small details from the very beginning, like the first 20 pages, made their way back into the end, several hundred pages later. Boom! It all came together, and every single word was beautiful.