Rating: 
Summary: Poetic text, mesmerizing characters, unreal portrayals
Review: When I first starting reading this book, I initially thought I made a terrible mistake in purchasing this book. Roth writes a sort of superfluous, wordy way to get the plot moving. While at first it seems like an attempt to fill pages with useless descriptions, it's actually an in-depth portrayal into a person's history, their characteristics, and their mental state.Roth describes the life of Coleman Silk, a college dean who was forced to resign because he used the word "Spooks", a word though normally harmless but could be construed as a racial slur. Through the eyes of a friend and author, Silk starts a relationship with a broken down woman half his age after this incident. What this amounts to is an interesting dichotomy between the two lovers. Later, through Roth's insights, there characteristics and psyche are portrayed more similar than different. The way Roth describes and unfolds this relationship is a great joy. Roth, unfortunately, delves in Coleman Silk's past life too much at what amounts to a typical oppressed person, black and white story. For about one third of the Book, Coleman Silk's past is described in what is nothing more than a boring epilogue. There is also the story of a the woman's ex husband. Even though it is pretty obvious and self evident overall as he is an enraged Vietnam Veteran, the part where he has to venture into a Chinese restaurant and overcome his hatred for East Asians is both intense and impressive. While the characteristics are sometimes gripping, there are without a doubt unreal. I can't imagine some of the characters in this book, especially the young French professor, to be taken seriously. Not a typical plot driven novel, this book is well worth the read though.
Rating: 
Summary: YAWN! WAKE ME UP!
Review: I hate this book. Talk about a writer being a windbag. Jeez, cut out the additionall gazillion extra words and get to the point for God's sake!
Rating: 
Summary: True to the rotten core of academia
Review: Mr. Roth writes a readable and eloquent novel of the masks we each wear and how these masks leave their 'human stain' as a track or trail that we use to hunt or be hunted throughout life. The book centers on a leading academic, Coleman Silk, who is teaching an English seminar. For much of the semester, two students haven't attended the class and Professor Silk innocently asks if the students are real or are they spooks. The students happen to be black and Professor Silk is harrassed to the point of quitting his job because of the derogatory meaning that 'spooks' has for black Americans. It just so happens, however, the Professor Silk is himself a black man who has spent his life living as a white man. The mediocrity and acrimony of academia is brilliantly protrayed, along with the misbegotten searching in one's life. This book also provides one of the most accurate and compelling descriptions of post-traumatic stress syndrome that I have ever read. The hideously hateful Delphine Roux is the classic professor with power in today's academic institutions.
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Summary: The Human Stain--a present-day masterpiece!
Review: I do hope the potential readers of this book (and those who plan to see the movie) won't take "countesscocca" too seriously in her one-star, mean-spirited review! Trust your gut instincts about all the intricate weaving of this story-telling by Roth...and enjoy the ride with the characters all the way to the end. You won't be sorry. And, DO see the movie as well. Naturally, some novels don't translate well or fully to the screen, but this one was handled with care in the script adaptation and by the genius of director Robert Benton.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes fiction can tell the truth better than non-fiction
Review: This book is fictional, but true to life. Only the characters have been changed. It tells quite clearly the story of the thought-control that white male professors are subjected to in American colleges. White males are the only ones who have to worry about being falsely accused, judged without being given the benefit of defending themselves, sent to reeducation camps, and summarily fired. Until the public becomes aware of this, extremist feminists will control all aspects of university life and subject white males to a hell on earth.
Rating:
Summary: terrible book by a terrible writer
Review: like john updike, saul bellow, joyce carol oates, and norman mailer, phillip roth is a veritable crap factory. this book is one of the most tedious novels i've ever subjected myself to. this guy just needs to stop writing altogether, along with the other old geezers i listed above. all of these literary dinosaurs are flushing american literature down the drain with every new release. my loathing of these people knows no bounds.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully crafted stimulating novel
Review: The novel has an apparently simple story line. A flinty Professor is disgraced by making an offhand remark interpreted as racist. He has an affair with a much younger woman of apparently very different intellect and social class and as a result, receives the unwelcome attention of her psychotic Vietnam veteran husband. There is however much more here. With a twist in the plot, and a stunning command of vocabulary and sentence construction, Roth examines race, identity and the human stains of skin colour, abuse, cruelty and destruction of self and others. A wonderful read.
Rating: 
Summary: The Movie is MUCH BETTER than the Book!!!
Review: I wrote a review of the book, The Human Stain, in which I detailed all of its faults, including FAR TOO MUCH interior monologue. I'm writing this second review to say that the film is FAAAAAAAAAAR better than the book. I do think, though, that Anthony Hopkins is a bit farfetched to play the older Coleman Silk. By contrast, the actor playing the younger Coleman Silk is TOTALLY BELIEVABLE as a light skinned African American choosing to pass for Jewish. Why couldn't someone such as Ben Kingsley be cast as the older Silk, or a very very light-skinned African American? The other thing I wish to point out. In the book Roth makes the huge mistake of perpetuating a fallacy about the fate of Dr. Charles Drew: that he died in 1950 after an auto accident in North Carolina because a hospital wouldn't admit him due to his skin color. Drew was, in fact, admitted to the hospital, only to die because his injuries were too extensive. Thankfully, we didn't have to hear this myth perpetuated in the film. The film, "The Human Stain," is far better than movie reviewers are giving it credit to be. Nicole Kidman deserves a Best Actress Oscar for playing Faunia Farley. Ed Harris deserves a Best Supporting Actor nod. If you have to read the book, good luck slogging through analysis that is far too tiresome and finely parsed for its own good. See the film instead.
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Summary: racial identity placed under the microscope...
Review: 'The Human Stain' is a somewhat difficult book to review. It attempts to dig into the American pysche on race identification and discrimination by presenting a somewhat hard to believe story of a professor scandalized by (allegedly) racial remarks made in class. The author has seemingly taken on too broad of a subject, then attempts to tie it together with some very over-cooked prose ... at times it gets very pretentious. Yet Philip Roth succeeds with characterizations which are most memorable; the book does have its moments. I suppose my biggest disappointment with 'The Human Stain' is when it is compared to vastly superior works by the likes of James Baldwin. The author doesn't quite get the sense of ... (despair? frustration?) of being an African-American in post-war America. He throws in convoluted sentences, has his characters shrieking in angst, and it all just gets out of control. Bottom line: a complex yet unsatisfying book. Not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking work of fiction and nothing else!
Review: Most of the other reviews pretty much nailed this extraordinary novel because the reviewers understand that this is a work of fiction, so I don't have anything else to add about The Human Stain itself. Less than useful is the disjointed screed of one individual who seems to have an ax to grind about racial definitions, not only here, but in other reviews on Amazon. I urge those who might be put off by this reviewer to read his or her other "editorials" before you decide not to read The Human Stain. I think you'll get what I'm talking about.
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