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Summary: An explosive broadside against the "ecstasy of sanctimony"
Review: More than an attack on the all-too-familiar topic of political correctness, Roth's new novel manages to encompass the entire culture of self-righteousness and MORAL correctness (which always assumes a more insidious form than the political). While some of the character developments are often less than compelling, the central story of Coleman Silk always remains strong and utterly fascinating. A key point, and often overlooked in reviews, is Roth's revelation (still unknown to many at this late date) of the ambiguity and arbitrary nature of racial classification. If Silk is to be considered black despite being as light as any white man, what does that do to our sense of "innate" and "immutable" racial features? As with morality, holding rigid ideological beliefs about race does little but lead to tragic misunderstandings and a failure to perceive complexity. Despite some detours, Roth is an exceptional writer, always insightful and willing to tackle contemporary controversies without fear. Some might be distracted by the allusions to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, but it does serve its purpose: intelligent, important men are often brought down by their sexual impulses, but such acts should never outweigh other aspects of character and achievement. That we need to be reminded of this time after time is quite sad, but Roth would rather we not forget it. Overall, neither "liberal" nor "conservative" in the conventional sense, but an indictment of a hypocritical society bent on using obfuscation and euphemism to create an environment where, to paraphrase Roth, "what is being said is not what is really going on."
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Summary: Roth's Visible Man
Review: The Human Stain is a satisfying, if disturbing, endcap to Roth's latest Zuckerman triolgy. Through the eyes of aging writer Nathan Zuckerman, Roth removes layer after layer of Coleman Silk's identity and while doing so provides his own critque and eulogy for the "American Century." Silk feels like a modern adaptation/response to Ellison's unnamed narrator of Invisible man, except that Silk's invisbility is a product of choice and fortune in contrast to the invisible man's racial banishment. Like Saul Bellow's most recent effort, Ravelstein, Roth attempts to capture an ethos through literary portraiture in an ultimately intriguing, if unconventional, undressing of our conceptions of race, class, identity, and history.
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Summary: Another Roth Chronicle
Review: I do not believe there is anyone writing novels today who chronicles the last fifty years better than Philip Roth. In his last three books he covered evey politcal touchstone of importance from the Red Scare to the radical scare to the Black Scare. To understand our world you must read Roth's world and there is none better than The Human Stain.
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Summary: The Human Stain
Review: Following the masterly "American Pastoral" and the schematic "I Married a Communist," Roth's latest installment of what appears to be a new series of Zuckerman books--in which Roth's alter ego Nathan is this time creating speculative portraits of others rather than writing about himself--falls between the two in terms of quality. I won't spoil your reading experience by giving away too many details of the plot, but suffice it to say that Coleman Silk, like Swede Levov and Ira Ringold in the two preceding books, is a prototypical American success story who meets his Waterloo at the hands of a particularly American extremism--this time, the political correctness of contemporary academia. What makes "The Human Stain" less powerful than "American Pastoral" is its sense that Silk is doomed from the start, not in novelistically interesting ways but rather in overdetermined ways seemingly intended to establish his victimization as nothing less than an indictment of American society. What makes it an improvement on "I Married a Communist" is its wealth of often moving portraits of minor characters. Time with Roth's work is always time well spent, but if you are unfamiliar with his work there are perhaps better places to start than here.
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Summary: Fascinating and well-written
Review: On a par with "American Pastoral" and others of Roth's previous works, "The Human Stain" is a fascinating and absorbing look at the perils and paranoias of political correctness. The characters are expertly drawn and eminently human, and the story is as timeless and it is topical. Really worth reading.
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Summary: Deeply relevant
Review: In short, but expansive descriptions, Roth takes us inside the psyche of his characters and reveals in the process much about our American selves.Read it if you dare.
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Summary: disregard bengagirl
Review: This is a beautiful, wrenching novel; just what you'd expect of Roth. I think it also might be his most accessible work. I've reccommended it to several people who previously had shied away from Roth after works like "My Life as a Man" and "American Pastoral." The characters are so real, it seems like you could bump into them in a restaurant. And bengalgirl, the reviewer below who panned it with such spite, just look a little deeper. Sjhe gave five stars to a Star Trek book. That's right, a novel about TV characters. So, um. I guess if you're so deeply into cheesy TV sci-fi shows that you read novels with the same characters (and, no doubt, the same depth) this might not be the book for you. Maybe you'd like some Buck Rodgers books. Or Battlestar Gallactica.
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Summary: Exceptional Book on That which Ensnairs Us
Review: Phillip Roth's The Human Stain deserves a lot more than 500 words. It details the unraveling of a college professor's life and reputation over an utterly absurd misunderstanding. More than that, it is an exquisite contemplation of the razor-edge between free will and destiny.
First, a criticism. Roth is clearly an insightful writer. His characters are detailed and believable, each one's motivations and actions entirely plausible within their own context and that of the larger story. Unfortunately, I have a nasty streak of evangelical Puritanism, and the vulgarity bandied about created a high hurdle for me to clear.
I'm not so self-deprecating as to fault myself for being off-put by F-words and such. An author as capable as Roth might have made this book more accessible by putting his intellect to work crafting a better way to serve the theme. Roth richly and accurately describes academia's politics and attitudes of empowerment and sensitivity, and the fashionable sensibilities toward sexual propriety found in such enlightened circles have clearly informed both his descriptions and attitude. The novel's themes and author's skill is worth a great deal of discussion, but I don't know how many of the intelligent faithful friends I have can (or should) clear that barrier.
Seeing past this does have a payoff. Humanity is irreducibly complex, and Roth weaves well a tale of the bewildering interplay between who his characters want to be, who they were born to be, and who they are expected to be. He snapshots through excellent stream-of-consciousness the furious turmoil of humans as they grapple with the reality that even though the tiger they ride has bit and bridle, it isn't really quite as in their control as they might hope. Abuse from society, abuse from family, abuse from colleagues and just plain bad luck conspire to thwart those ambitious enough to try and transcend their fate. The conspiracy manifests in every stage of life, in nearly every character. A good natured farm boy is brutalized by war. Intelligent black men brutalized by bigotry. A wealthy French aristocrat is brutalized by privilege. Roth allows the players their complexity and utterly refuses to make them paper targets.
As I said, this book deserves to be noshed upon over many pots of good coffee. Other reviewers have focused on racial determinism and escaping it as a key focus of the book, but that is but one theme of many that Roth exposes as the characters live out their parts in the narrative. It is a shame that my Christian brothers and sisters would, understandably (and perhaps quite properly), be repulsed by the flaw I mentioned. We believers function in a bubble that accepts both free will and the will of God not as a contradiction, but as mysteriously complimentary. Faith like ours surrenders to God the complexities that drive our lives, finding peace in that surrender. In my reading, the decision to straddle free-will and destiny is affirmed by the completely plausible unfolding of Roth's tale.
Yours
Tim McNabb
www.fivehundredwords.com
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Summary: Roth's not so bad, when he's not talking about sex
Review: The same way that The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible help us understand witch-hunts, The Human Stain is Philip Roth's way of making sense of the absurdity of the Clinton impeachment. So that no one misses the point, he sets the novel in 1998. His story is one of a distinguished, soon-to-retire college professor who is unjustly accused of racism. A novel like this reminds us that the motivations and the life histories of the accused and the accusers are always more complicated than we want to believe.
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Summary: Huh?
Review: Why are there so many reviews here giving away the novel's major plot point? Don't spoil the book for those of us who haven't read it!
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