Rating: 
Summary: The emperor has no clothes
Review: My first Roth in many years, and this slack, scattered narrative won't bring me back to his work for many more. The breathless ranting that substitutes for exposition accomplishes nothing new stylistically; in fact, the entire novel feels unedited and its jump-cut points of view unexamined. In other words, as Gertrude Stein said, there is no there there.Wish folks had the independence to lionize far better and less well-known writers instead: Patricia Henley, Will Self, Jim Crace, for starters.
Rating: 
Summary: Has anyone seen Phil?
Review: I've spent more than a few whole days blissfully detained by Roth novels, but his last few offerings, especially this one, have left me slightly embarrassed for him. What happened to the guy who once so masterfully coiled the absurd in electric prose? Gone. Reading contemporary Roth is like watching Brian Boitano skate professionally. He just kind of glides around his story, making a show of grace without doing anthing interesting at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Audiobook review
Review: The audiobook version of this book is not without flaws, but the majority of the reading done by Arliss Howard is excellent. Deborah Winger's reading, though only a small part of the audiotext, is not up to the level demanded by such a wonderful book. This is especially the case when contrasted with the powerful and effective reading by Arliss Howard. For example, the portrayal of one of the more important secondary characters in the book, a French woman whose self-centered and self-righteous rantings are critical to the story's plot, is crucified by Winger's awkward and completely uneducated pronunciation of the French vocabulary used in the text. Although I am not familiar enough with how audiobooks are produced to know what kinds of editing goes on behind the scenes, I still find it hard to believe that no one on the production end supervised the narration or had someone with some knowledge or understanding of French to provide "tutoring" or pronunciation assistance in order to make Winger's efforts at French somewhat less grotesque and mangled. For a listener, hearing every important French word mispronounced (and by this I do not refer to an American accent on correct vowels and consonants, but to complete misreading of a significant proportion of all of the French vocabulary which is attributed to Delphine Roux--who is supposed to be a French native--and a highly educated and accomplished professor)robs that characterization of much of its impact. Given the importance of Delphine Roux's role in the story, that loss is particularly regrettable. THe power of Philip Roth's story is otherwise faithfully transmitted in this unabridged reading, and carries the listener along remarkably well. The novel is one of the most powerful American books I have read in recent years and confirm's Roth's stature as one of the few "great" living novelists, if not the greatest in the U.S.
Rating:
Summary: Roth's Stain exposes the stain in all of us
Review: Wow! I have nothing but praise for this exceptional novel. Roth's characters are honest. Human longings and needs are explored in a beautifully written and entertaining fashion. As always, Roth delivers a book that raises questions of the human condition, and exposes us to ourselves. Chalk full of great insights, truth, and humor. One that you'll want to own and will have trouble putting down. Philip Roth has created yet another masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: More schtick from Roth
Review: Philip Roth is the Woody Allen of American literature. He's found his public's hot buttons & pushes them incessantly with tiresome adolescent obsessiveness:...men recounting their erections, lusty bad-mouthed (usually angry) women, topical commentary (Clinton & Lewinsky here) & off-the-press contextuality (campus & race politics in this case). His characters seem totally manufactured to meet the ends of the book & his style is a thick brocade of almost total impenetrability. On the other hand, this is America & if your product sells, hey, you're a success!
Rating:
Summary: A powerful, densely written Great American Novel
Review: In this dense, sometimes difficult, but extraordinarily insightful novel Philip Roth has woven a captivating, tragic, ironic, and distinctively American tale in which among other things he skewers the excesses of contemporary political correctness, the foibles of post-feminist academic posturing, and the pompous and petty dreariness of academia generally. But above all else Roth deals sensitively and skillfully here with historically troubling matters related to racial identity and the ways in which the tragic legacy of American racism forced some individuals to sacrifice family and heritage for the sake of personal advancement. In telling the fascinating but sad tale of Coleman Silk, Roth also shows a commendable ability to "put himself inside the heads" of various American character types, including the post-traumatically stressed Viet Nam veteran and the scarred and jaded female victim of childhood molestation. All in all, Roth has created a densely woven novelistic tapestry in which lives that have been shaped by variously dark, troubling, and yet irresistibly potent American cultural and political forces intersect in fascinating and sometimes surprising ways. Some readers surely will find the book too densely written for their taste, as Roth tends regularly here toward a manic, unrelenting, stream-of-consciousness style in which sentences can seem never-ending and paragraphs can extend over pages. To appreciate this book requires immersion, concentration, and a willingness to surrender to the prose, to go along for the sometimes wild ride on which Roth takes the reader. There are some sections that seem a bit slow-moving, especially portions of the chapter which delves ever more deeply into Coleman's Silk family background in East Orange, New Jersey. Overall, however, I found the book absorbing, edifying, and sometimes ever exhilarating, and certainly brilliantly written by one of America's master novelists.
Rating:
Summary: The Crisis of Identity
Review: While most of the characters in Roth's book are suffering the pains of becoming what they are, rueing what they've become, or losing grip on what they *think* they've become, Roth's voice is crystal clear. He's more angry, clearer, more tolerant (and intolerant) than ever. "The Human Stain" is rife with character and teeming with life, messy thing that it is. What a wonderful and multi-faceted effort this novel is. I get a strong whiff of "The Lion in Winter" in all this: Roth still roars. Of special enjoyment were Roth's references to other art and artists whom, one suspects, he greatly admires: Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice"; Mahler ("Well, you can't listen to Mahler sometimes. When he picks you up to shake you, he doesn't stop."); Kundera's "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting"; Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt"; the piano performance of which he notes, "Whatever's in there is going to come out, and come out with its hands in the air". Indeed. *Life* comes out of "The Human Stain"---with its hands in the air. For that, thank you, Mr. Roth, most sincerely.
Rating: 
Summary: Depressingly Ironic
Review: Not much makes this novel stand out in the world of 'new fiction', but it is a good read, and a fast one at that. The first fifty pages read like a comedy, a professor gets fired from his job for making a (mistakenly) racist comment, and he becomes somewhat of a recluse, avoiding people from his town because of their mistaken impression of him. It is only after his wife dies that a more disturbing truth is revealed-- and why being fired for making a racist comment is that much more ironic. All in all, a very enjoyable read, but not a very unique one.
Rating:
Summary: Disapointing
Review: I had to read this book for a class assignment. If you don't need to read it, I wouldn't recommend it. There were a lot of run-on sentences and a lot of stream of consciousness spots as well. Plus then ending was very weak. But, there are some spots where it is an interesting book to read. All in all I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely wonderful
Review: I have to admit that I read this book because I heard that a film was in production starring Nicole Kidman as Faunia. While I was familiar with Goodbye Columbus and Letting Go, Philip Roth was never an author that I raved about. That has changed and I have been asking family members to read it. I am not going to engage in a literary monologue to prove that I "get" the novel. You can read the others for that. I am just a person who lived through a very bizarre time in American history. This novel helped me find some (excuse the cliche that I am about to use) closure to the insanity that played such a big part of my young adult life. Confronting the frustration that I felt in the summer of 1998 through the frustration of Coleman Silk was a wonderful experience.
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