Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat boring
Review: Read the Catalan translation (by Xavier Pàmies).Good idea, but long book. Cut 50 pages, and it would be really better. It's slow, very slow. Once you know what was this man hidding from its past, the book becomes more boring every page.
Rating: 
Summary: Roth's Report on America, pre-9/11
Review: Philip Roth has done it again ' made a novel of the time that will speak to many generations. The Human Stain is a novel about America pre-9/11. It deals with the major forces that shape that world ' sex, race, politics and angst. It is a world dominated by people who demand perfection in others, yet cannot see themselves for what they really are.
The opening pages are probably the best summary of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal written by an American. The self-righteous feeling that dominates the landscape is more than just a temporary storm; it is a national warming of fevers that will come to destroy the body politic.
Roth captures the dizzying contradictions of the times in the person of Coleman Silk, a college professor and former Dean whose fall from power and prestige is as maddening as any in all literature. Coleman turns out to be less and more than he seems ' unfairly accused of making a racial remark, in fact, he turns out to be the worst kind of racist.
This novel owes much to Faulkner's Light in August. In both, the author deals with the effect of racism on society and the American dream of transforming oneself into another person merely by force of will. Moving on into another part of the country ' physically or socially ' an American can make him or herself into anyone. The re-birth is painful and the new person has just as many problems as the old.
Read this book and discover what you have been thinking for the past few years about our society, but have not been able to put into the right words. Roth has the right words.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is awful!
Review: I don't know what is wrong with everyone reviewing here. I found this book to be boring and contrived. I never felt absorbed in the characters or the plot because--and this is hard to articulate--it felt like Roth was TRYING too hard to make something political and symbolic and in the process the whole thing comes off as fake and as an exercise.
The main problem with the book is that the whole plot hinges on an event that is TOTALLY FAKE and not believeable. A professor would not be fired for such a ridiculous incident; I don't care how PC the school is. He DIDN'T KNOW that the students were black--he never had seen them before. Case closed. And what about the woman who was 27 yrs old and the head of a dept.--yeah right! Even with my belief suspended the rest of the book is boring. I didn't care about any of the characters because he was all over the place. The Viet Nam guy--whatever! There was no focus, no energy in this book.
I was really disappointed. It's so depressing that this guy has been writing for so many years and is so acclaimed. Yuck. I just finished reading Rabbit is Rich by John Updike. Now THAT was phenominal. Beautiful, deep, symbolic, and yet totally entertaining as well.
Rating:
Summary: A Well Written, Superbly Plotted Tragicomedy By Zuckerman..
Review: ...via Roth, Roth via Zuckerman.
... Or, subtitled, "I wonder how Roth resisted titling this 'The Professor of Desire Revisited' or 'Zuckerman Rewind', but, that's a subject for another review." ...you are gonna soak in all 350 plus pages of this great novel. It is about Coleman "Silky" Silk, a Dean and Professor of Classical Literature at Athena College, displaced by an unfortunate turning of a phrase while he took the roll for a class he was teaching. In 1998 it seems that political correctness is akin to the Salem witch hunts in the colonial northeast USA...except for in 1998, of course, the USA had to deal with the comedy of a reelected president who dropped trou
once too often in the Oral...uh...OVAL Office. Roth takes you on a journey thru his literary alter ego, Zuckerman, who finds humanity and horror in his associate's life and times. This is also the story of The Fauleys who seem to represent something
Silk needs in his life (...freedom? To be white in America? Is it a perfection of life that all Americans seem to be reaching for but can't seem to get?). Whatever. Whatever it is he reaches for, makes him stunningly reject his past, his childhood, his family, his heritage...in one heartbreaking passage, his mother realizes what he wants to do and also realizes that she may never see him again, or touch her grandchildren from Coleman. And there are lines of pure brilliance, pure magnificance that to speak of will be belittling and disrepectful of the great Roth. But, I will give a small example. On page 76, as Coleman attempts to get his lawyer to get a restraining order against Mr. Fauley for harrassing he and the estranged Mrs. Fauley in their love nest,(this is a wild novel, I tell ya) the lawyer tells him to break it off with the lady because "what you started out with is going to bear no resemblance to the malevolent puritanism with which you will be tarred and feathered." Indeed. I'm always looking for great novels and good reading material that feeds that pleasure center--or whatever one could call it--just right. This does it well for me, and I know it will for you, also. Get this book and savor it.
Rating:
Summary: A Well Written, Superbly Plotted Tragicomedy By Zuckerman..
Review: ...via Roth, Roth via Zuckerman. ... Or, subtitled, "I wonder how Roth resisted titling this 'The Professor of Desire Revisited' or 'Zuckerman Rewind', but, that's obviously a subject for another review." ...you are gonna soak in all 350 plus pages of this great novel. It is about Coleman "Silky" Silk, a Dean and Professor of Classical Literature at Athena College, displaced by an unfortunate turning of a phrase while he took the roll for a class he was teaching. In 1998 it seems that political correctness is akin to the Salem witch hunts in the 'colonial' northeast USA...except for in 1998, of course, the USA also had to deal with the comedy of a reelected president who dropped trou once too often in the Oral...uh...OVAL Office. Roth takes you on a journey thru his literary alter ego, Zuckerman, who finds humanity and horror in his associate's life and times. This is also the story of The Farleys--Faunia, product of an abusive stepfather and subsequent abusive relationships and Les, a Vietnam War vet who is a step from short circuiting big time. The Farleys seem to represent something Silk needs in his life (...freedom? To be white in America? Is it a perfection of life that all Americans seem to be reaching for but can't seem to get?). Whatever. Whatever it is he reaches for, makes him stunningly reject his past, his childhood, his family, his heritage...in one heartbreaking passage, his mother realizes what he wants to do and also realizes that she may never see him again, or touch her grandchildren from Coleman. And there are lines of pure brilliance, pure magnificance that to speak of will be belittling and disrepectful of the great Roth. But, I will give a small example. On page 76, as Coleman attempts to get his lawyer to get a restraining order against Mr. Farley for harrassing he and the estranged Mrs. Farley in their love nest,(this is a wild novel, I tell ya) the lawyer tells him to break it off with the lady because "what you started out with is going to bear no resemblance to the malevolent puritanism with which you will be tarred and feathered." Indeed. Of the passages of pure writing genius which are also simply superb I would mention Faunia's visit to see the crow in the Audubon Society after she hit an emotional time she probably wasn't ready for when she stays longer than expected with Coleman and Coleman's penchant for dancing in spite of all he's faced with. I'm always looking for great novels and good reading material that feeds that pleasure center--or whatever one could call it--just right. This does it well for me, and I know it will for you, also. Get this book and savor it.
Rating: 
Summary: Philip Roth: Wondrous storyteller but needs good Editor
Review: No one can dispute that Philip Roth tells wonderful, provocative stories and weaves intricate webs of descriptions when detailing his characters. However, I kept wishing thoughout this book that he would get a good editor for the following problems: he overuses metaphors, albeit cleverly doing so. In describing Coleman's wife's hair, three or four comparisons would do it. However, Roth seems to be the overachiever and in thesaurus-type detail, goes on for paragraphs, describing the hair feature. He does this often when observing some unusual detail of a character, but it becomes repetitive and I want to say, "OK, enough already, I get it!" It sometimes comes across that he is trying to impress his reader with his cleverness and erudition. Another area Mr. Roth needs an editor on: long sentences that can go on for 10-12 lines or more. Now I am of a mature age and perhaps my memory is not as good as years ago, but I often find myself having to go back to the beginning of the sentence to see what he started talking about, before all the hypens, commas, etc. A good editor could take care of this. Having said all this, I would recommend this book to anyone. I also listened to it on tape and enjoyed that experience. He's a wonderful American storyteller, who just needs a good editor, or a smaller ego.
Rating:
Summary: Customarily Philip Roth
Review: Philip Roth is a modern master of the English language. His fluid prose style is in full bloom as he tells this story about modern cultural relationships. Coleman Silk is at the center of the storm Roth has developed at Athena College. Here is a man devoid of a past, except that which he hides in his own mind. None who know him at Athena College would ever guess the secrets held within Coleman's mind; secrets of the past and secrets of the present. It is Roth's mastery of story-telling that brings Coleman Silk into focus. All of Coleman's secrets and motivations are brilliantly drawn by the relationships and depth of character development that Roth presents. Yes, Coleman is a black man living as a white man. But that is a thousand stories in America. Coleman's story is one, and Roth makes you want to believe in Coleman Silk and empathize with the decisions - good or bad - Coleman has made. Of course, Coleman is not the only character that draws the focus of the reader. Faunia Farley is the central female character in the novel. Her's is a good story in and of itself, a character not to be missed or dismissed. Unfortunately, perhaps customarily, Roth delves into the sexual relationships of these characters. Such meanderings may have been appropriate in "American Pastoral" or "I Married A Communist," but Roth treads in this theme too long for a novel that delivers such a powerful social theme.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging conclusion to an ambitious trilogy
Review: Four-and-a-half stars. Not only is "The Human Stain" one of the cleverest titles for a novel in years, it is also a marvelous bookend to Roth's well-received cycle of "Novels Americana". Roth's story operates on many levels: it is at once a scathing critique of American political and intellectual (and emotional) life at the turn of the millenium, a fascinating exploration of the human impact of race and religion (and what effects a repudiation of race and religion can have on a person), a deep meditation on the human condition and our inability to escape our shared and individual pasts (the enduring "stain" on us all), and a parable about love, freedom and forgiveness. I have by no means been a big fan of Roth in the past. I found some of his bawdier novels ("Portnoy's" and "Sabbath's" come to mind) mildly amusing and frequently nauseating, and "American Pastoral," while a solid novel, did not impress me nearly as much as it did the critics. (I found it way too one-dimensionally melodramatic.) But "The Human Stain" (and to some degree its predecessor, "I Married a Communist") have revived my interest; they are proof positive that Roth does not need to rely on mere shock value to pen a moving, profound novel. That's not to say that some of the events are not "shocking"; they are, but they transcend mere plot devices and thoroughly illuminate Roth's idiosyncratic (but intriguing and often appealing) view of the world, and America in particular. I withhold five stars only for the somewhat clumsy, clubfooted beginning. Once the novel's momentum kicks in, it's a great ride. An extremely moving, thought-provoking work. I will definitely be going back to read Roth's earlier work.
Rating:
Summary: Angry indictment on contemporary society
Review: The sheer brilliance of Roth's prose is a pleasure in itself. It rolls lightly and naturally. There is nothing forced and viscous about the flow and none of the I'm-consciously-trying-to-(over)describe-things-as-a-writer syndrome. The disgraced former college dean Coleman Silk is the protagonist of the novel. He is an incognito escapee from his original African American background and its defining forces. He has been living for decades as his own creation, a white Jew of Russian origin, and has had a highly successful academic career. In achieving his goals he has been single-minded to the point of unscrupulousness. His wife and children are unaware of his true identity. His career has ended in ignominy following false accusations of racism. Only Silk can appreciate the cruel irony of this. His wife dies of a stroke due to resulting stress. He starts an affair with a poor (apparently) illiterate woman half his age and begins a life alienated from his hitherto self-made one. Silk had steamrollered numerous colleagues in order to achieve what he wanted as a dean of faculty and so they jump on the bandwagon when the opportunity presents itself to avenge themselves on him. The newly-established virtues of the age are reduced to instruments of politicking in the process. His new relationship becomes the focus of yet another inquisition. Roth lashes out at the falseness of the new conventions and political correctness. Everything ends as an ironic tragedy. The theme seems to be the ultimate futility of striving for the real thing. There is a multitude of characters and some remain somewhat underdeveloped. Maybe this itself is part of the message i.e. a person's knowledge of himself/herself and others is destined to be incomplete and superficial and can be based only on the 'evidence' presented. Les Farley, for example, is like something cobbled together in a DIY store. Overall though the book is highly recommendable.
Rating:
Summary: Clever and entertaining
Review: Coleman Silk (known as the boxing champion "Silky Silk" in his youth) age 71, works as a professor at the Athena College. He has been accused of racism. His remark was made in class, about two students who never showed up for his lectures. "Do they exist or are they spooks?" he asked his class. It turned out that these two non-performing students were African-Americans, and (I didn't know) "spooks" were (still are?) considered racial slur. Coleman Silk had until then, run the college with a firm hand. He is respected amongst his colleagues, but I guess, not much liked. So for his enemies at the college this racial slur incident was a "too good to be missed" opportunity. A formal complaint is handed in. Silk is a proud man, and he refuses to defend himself. He choose to step down from his position. Nathan Zuckerman, a friend of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, narrates "The Human Silk". Zuckerman's narration is interesting albeit at times a bit confusing. He alternates between present and past time, and swaps between "being inside someone's head" and then reports just from a spectators perspective. This is one of the few novels that I have read where I felt that all characters were very well developed. As I was reading this book, I felt as if I was a part of the story, and at the end I felt as if I knew them all very well. The characters were not always likable, in fact more often were they unsympathetic and despicable than sympathetic, but indeed very well developed. Actually, the characters worked often as independent stories within the story. Silk is having a romantic affair with Faunia Farley (34). An (supposedly) illiterate, cleaning lady at the college. Via her, we are introduced to her nutty ex-husband Lesley Farley. He is a Vietnam Vet, still struggling with post-war traumas. We meet Delphine Roux, an arrogant French woman, and member of the staff whom Silk hired years ago. And of course, Nathan Zukerman, the narrator, and friend of Silk. But the best independent story is that it turns out that for his entire adult life, Coleman Silk has been covering up the fact that he is a black (!) man. Silk is light skinned enough to pass for white. And it was after the WWII war that he decided to reinvent himself as a Jew, so he could have his dream fulfilled, to have a career as a professor. Each page I read I waited for Silk to be "caught", convinced that he couldn't possibly "pull that off", but it never happened... Quite ironic that he fifty years after "going white" is being charged with a racial complaint, hm?? This was my first Philip Roth novel, and I enjoyed it very much. I will definitely read more of Roth's novels. Anyway, like I said, this was a great read. "The Human Stain" fully deserves its' PEN/Faulkner award.
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