Customer Reviews

The Human Stain

5 star:		(85)
4 star:		(65)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

The Human Stain completes Philip Roth's thematic American trilogy, a meditation on the historical forces in the latter half of the twentieth century that have destroyed many innocent lives. In this trilogy, Roth takes devastating aim at the "American dream" and its empty promises of prosperity, freedom and everlasting happiness.

The trilogy began with American Pastoral, which some believe to be the high point in Roth's career. American Pastoral explored the effects of late-sixties radicalism on the idyllic life of Swede Levov and his family. I Married a Communist, the second book of the trilogy, was somewhat of a disappointment after the near-perfect American Pastoral, but it was still an engrossing story about the McCarthy era, a portrait of a country in which paranoia had displaced reason, allowing rumor and innuendo to run rampant and ruin lives.

The Human Stain closes the trilogy and brings us to the year 1998. The United States is awash in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and citizens feel the "ecstasy of sanctimony;" they are ready to accuse, blame and punish a very good president for what amounts to nothing more than the sexual peccadilloes almost every person becomes involved in at some time during his life.

On its surface, The Human Stain condemns the political correctness of McCarthyism that effectively turns college campuses away from creative thought and toward middle-aged, white, male oppression at any cost. Does this make The Human Stain a campus satire? Yes, but it is so much more and those who think it is not are simply missing the book's deepest level. It is, at its heart, a sad and poignant statement on the very essence of human nature, a statement that, in Roth's talented hands, becomes utterly convincing. It reminds us of our very unpraiseworthy proclivity to condemn, sully and even find some secret and voluptuous joy in ruining the name of others and delivering their lives into the hands of misery. The real truth, Roth tells us, is both "endless" and unknowable, no matter how much we may wish to label it with our petty accusations. Most of us, however, find this unknowability unacceptable, and so, we leave our own unmistakable "human stain" in our wake.

Coleman Silk, Roth's protagonist in The Human Stain, understands truth's unknowablility all too well. This seventy-one year old professor, who was once a beloved classicist of Athena College, now faces a scandal much like the one faced by President Clinton. And, like Clinton, Silk has done a very good job; his efforts as dean have left their mark of excellence. Athena College is all the better for his having been there, just as the United States is all the better for the Clinton years. Nevertheless, Silk finds himself accused of being both a racist and a misogynist.

Shamed publicly, Silk does exact revenge, but revenge for what? What exactly is the truth in this matter? While those in Silk's community want to see "truth" as a matter of black and white, the novel's narrator, Nathan Zuckerman tells us that "truth," at least in this case, if not in every case, is something that is more nuanced, more grey. And, in a delightfully ironic twist, we learn that Silk has a secret to share, one that makes his accusers turn beet-red with embarrassment rather than with exhilaration.

Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's own alter-ego, has appeared in eight of his novels, including the first two of this trilogy. He is the man in whom the reader must place his trust, or his mistrust. Zuckerman willingly admits that he knows only certain facts about his protagonists, that he must rely on his own innate gift for storytelling to convince us of the things that he, himself, sees so clearly, and that we are certainly free to accept or deny his version as we will.

Roth could have chosen to tell his story from the vantage point of an objective, omniscient narrator and thus allowed us access to the thoughts and feelings of all the characters involved. At first glance, this might seem to have been the wiser choice. A second glance, however, will show us it would have been a travesty, an audacious claim to actually know what the elusive and unknowable truth really is. Telling the story from the point-of-view of the highly subjective Zuckerman is tantamount to an admission of the elusiveness of truth; it is allowing us to form our own opinions without manipulation from either the author or from any of his characters. It is, genius.

If there is any blemish, however slight, in this wonderful literary achievement, it is the character of Les Farley. Les is the now-cliched Vietnam veteran; a man suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the weary, misunderstood and maligned soldier who has been abandoned by a country for whom he was willing to give up his very life. Roth uses Farley as a plot device only, and he is one that fails to convince in an otherwise overwhelmingly convincing book.

Roth's prose is, as always, without rival. His Jamesian sentences twist and turn with a vitality and energy that, at times, can seem almost frantic. But Roth never jeopardizes his lucidity; he is a linguistic master who can take us on the most tumultuous ride with an ease and smoothness that other authors can only dream about.

The Human Stain is Philip Roth at the top of his form. It is also American fiction at its very finest and a book that is definitely not to be missed.

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."

The Human Stain is not the best of recent Roth (but then there are few contemporary novels from whatever country as impressive as Sabbath's Theater or American Pastoral). However, it is confirmation that Roth is one of the most necessary of contemporary writers.

This concludes a trilogy of loosely related novels taking a personal examination of important events from post WWII American history. Each is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman (Roth's altar ego), and again Zuckerman is present, but - generally - not intrusive.

Set against the backdrop of the Lewinsky affair, Coleman's own fall from his position as Professor of Classics and dean of a department for a "racist" remark is a tragedy, and filled with anger, on behalf of his friend, Zuckerman traces Silk's life, and his final days (including an affair with a cleaner at the University).

Roth's writing has a passion. His prose may not be smooth and elegant, but there is real emotion underpinning it. Anger at the nature of modern society, the dumbing down, the compartmentalising of people.

Roth's characters are more rounded than in the first Zuckerman trilogy. His subjects now seem real. His writing about a writer, and his problems writing seems to be behind him.

This is a book about learning, about ignorance, about dignity, about shame.

It can be contrasted with the cool prose of JM Coetzee's Disgrace, winner of the Booker Prize in the UK. This novel looks at the fall of an academic after an affair with a student. It is a well written but cold novel. No-one can accuse Roth/Zuckerman of writing cold fiction.

The novel is uneven, but there is much that is poetic in the midst of the righteous anger. Also, in Les Farley, and Ernestine Silk Roth has created two of his most memorable characters.

Many years ago Roth wrote a hilarious baseball novel, The Great American Novel. Roth's recent work (beginning I feel with Deception) has been of an extremely high quality. And it is with this body of work, rather than in that thirty year old fiction, that Roth has finally caught that mythical beast. The cumulative work of the new Zuckerman trilogy and Sabbath's Theater truly are Great American Novels.

In a long writing career, Philip Roth has progressively deepened his themes and his understanding of human characteras well as his skill at the novelist's craft. His novel, "The Human Stain" is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It is a worthy addition to American fiction of the early 21st century.
The title of the book sets forth its primary theme. A major part of human life is tied to human sexuality and to physicality. People ignore or downplay this aspect at their peril. This theme is reflected througout the book. Roth, even more than John Updike and with a different perspective than Updike, writes with a passion about the central role of sexuality in human life.

The story unfolds agains a backdrop of the Clinton impeachment hearings. The chief protagonist of the book is Coleman Silk, a 71 year old former professor of Classics and Dean of a small New England College. Silk has resigned from the college as a result of an investigation over a classroom remark that some found racist. His wife of many years has died, and Silk has become romantically involved with a 34 year-old divorced woman with little education who works as a janitor in the college. Silk's former colleagues, his four children and his acquaintances are leery of his affair. Silk befriends Nathan Zukerman, an alter ego who appears in many Roth novels, who tells Silk's story.

Silk has become highly successful but has done so in part by denying important components of his life. He is of African-American ancestry but light enough to pass. (Many American novels utilize the theme of "passing" for white.) He callously walks away from his family at the age of 27 in order to marry a white woman for fear that she would reject him if she were aware of his ancestry. He never reveals the secret. Roth's book suggests in a poignant way how difficult it is for one person to claim to know another.

The theme of individual self-determination in life choices, as opposed to following the course of the group into which one was born, is another major theme of the book. Roth develops it well, with all its pain and ambiguity, in exploring the choices Zuckerman has made. Many people probably would assert that people need to stay and develop within their group. This isn't Roth. He seems to me more qunintesentially American by celebrating the room modern secular democracy gives people to change and follow their stars. But, very simply, this is a different matter from denying one's origins altogether.

The book is full of great scenes, particularly of Coleman Silk's early fascination with boxing, and of literary allusions. There are allusions to Homer and Euripides, as befitting a professor of classics. Euripides, with his naturalism and recognition of the power of sexuality, is an excellent choice for emphasis in this book. There are also fine passages emphasizing the power of music, including a lovely description of Coleman's 19-year old lover, when he was young, dancing in his college flat. Mahler's music, with its feel for the earth, also figures prominently as does the powerhouse pianist, Yefim Bronfman.

Coleman's 34 year old lover is well described. She helps teach Coleman, very late in his life, the importance of sexuality and of human contact, to try to see and accept things for what they are, and to understand the inevitability of change.

Readers who enjoy this book might also enjoy Saul Bellow's novel, "Ravelstein" which raises many of the same issues. Bellow's novel tells the story of a philosophy professor who, like Silk, specializes in the ancient Greeks -- Plato rather than Euripides. Both books are narrated by a friends of the protagonists who are novelists and who request them to write narratives to remember their lives. Both involve stories of sexual passion and speak of the promises and difficulties offered in the United States where people can, in a real sense, become who they are. Roth's novel and Bellow's novel, the products of two of our finest writers in their old age, present good pictures of the potential of American life in our modern day.

I am unfortunately not as familiar with Roth's earlier works and previous reviewers, though I have read him, knew of him, and respected him as one of America's great writers. I was nonetheless excited to discover this motherlode of observation, perception and wisdom that deigns touch upon such complicated and socially sensitive matters as race, academic culture, contemporary social pyrotechnics, vietnam, and simply surviving the murk of daily living. As an African American, it was a very pleasant surprise to discover the implicit wisdom of Roth's dissection of what it must be like, or entail, to cross the color line. Roth explores the subject matter with a wisdom and sensitivity and, more importantly, and insigtfulness that is rather staggering. Should I add, for an outsider? But perhaps that is the implicit lesson of the book; that though we may be positioned as outsiders in viewing arcane matters dealing with other races, cultures and societal segments, we may not be at all--that the human stain that brushes against all of us, gives us insight into the plight, the problems, and the possiblilities of the rest of us. Roth's novel is excellent, entertaining and rewarding reading.

Philip Roth's serious indictment of late twentieth-century America, "The Human Stain," is much more than a novel. On one level, Roth examines the devastating impact of a false accusation on an exemplary man's character; in this regard, "Stain" is little less than brilliant. Serious and compassionate, angry and vituperative, despondent and triumphant, the novel traces the shattered remnants of the life of an intellectual whose existence disintegrated as the result of a malicious and spurious charge. Professor Coleman Silk emerges as a fully developed protagonist, and his sufferings are genuine and wrenching. Yet, Roth spends considerable time weighing in on other compelling issues of this era: race, Vietnam, feminism, sexual expression and identity. When the author treats these issues, "The Human Stain" reads less like a novel and more like a series of extended essays on the condition of American culture at the turn of the twenty-first century. Therein lies the sole weakness of an otherwise essential, absorbing and necessary novel.

I can attest from the depthless sadness of my own heart that Roth's descriptions of what happens when a good man's reputation is trashed as a result of a patently bogus accusation is not only accurate, but unflinchingly profound. When Roth asserts that "there is something fascinating about what moral suffering can do to someone who is in no obvious way a weak or feeble person," he wisely acknowledges its "insidious" nature. So profound is the sense of outrage, guilt, anger, frustration and spiritual isolation on the victim, "its raw realism is like nothing else."

As I know from personal experience, once an accusation sticks, the truthfulness of the charge becomes irrelevant. Its stench and stigma invade and consume your life. We'd like to believe that our friends and colleagues have learned the horrific lessons of McCarthyism; the reality is that victimizers and perpetrators have only refined the techniques of guilt by accusation. Friends abandon you and link hands with foes in an alliance of expedience, indifference and feigned innocence and ignorance. Silk is "humiliated and humbled and destroyed...over an issue everyone knew was [expletive deleted]." Yearning for a voice of solidarity, hoping for a link with an ally, wishing for someone to take a stand with him -- Silk instead is left "to nurse the crushing sense of abandonment that festered into the wound" that would come to absorb his life.

Philip Roth chooses, however, a more ambitious goal than a mere character study, and his novel suffers for that decision. Roth sacrifices narrative drive for extended soliloquies; in some instances single paragraphs consume four pages of print. Despite the enormous intellectual integrity and emotional impact of his novel, Roth's prose can leave the reader's eyes glazed with his seeminly interminable disquisitions on race, feminism, Vietnam or identity.

"The Human Stain" is brutally painful, profoundly disquieting and intellectually challenging. It is also frustratingly unfocused and excessive in verbiage and length. Ignore the weaknesses of this novel. It is one of the few novels I consider to be absolutely essential to undertand what we have become as a people. Roth's chastening lessons will provide little comfort, but they must be heard and understood.

This book sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I decided to pick it up and read it. I had only read Roths Portnoys Complaint and wasnt too impressed with it. But, when I found out that there was a movie adaptation of the book I wanted to make sure that I read the book before seeing the movie (books are typically far superior to the film adaptation). It didnt take long before I was floored. The Human Stain is an exceptional novel and has completely turned around my opinion of Philip Roth. Without question this is one of the best novels I have read this year.

The Human Stain is the story of Coleman Silk, a retired college professor from Athena College. Coleman retired from his position in the midst of a scandal. He was accused of making a racist remark in one of his classes towards two students. The accusation is patently untrue but Coleman was not the most popular man on campus and things began to steamroll out of control until he left the school. The joke inherent in this accusation is that while Coleman may look like a 71 year old white man, he is actually a black man. Coleman has spent his professional (and private) life denying who (and what) he is. In case this concept sounds too fantastic (a black man who looks white trying to hide the fact that he is black), there is a real life corollary in Anatole Broyard, a New York Times book critic.

This is the Coleman that we are first introduced to. He is in a sexual (and not much more) relationship with 34 year old Faunia Farley. She is illiterate and works as a cleaning lady at Athena College. This too, is a scandal waiting to happen. It is this relationship with Faunia that instigates the telling of the story and we are told very early in the novel that Coleman and Faunia do not live for many more months (by early, I mean within 20 pages). The story is told by writer Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman was told most of what he knows by Coleman. For quite some time Coleman tried to get Zuckerman to write a book about the events following the alleged racist remark. The Human Stain (the title of Roths novel as well as Zuckermans book) is not quite the book that Coleman wanted written, but it was a story that Zuckerman felt compelled to tell. We must remember that everything is shaded by what Zuckerman knows and what he believes.

There is a long section in the middle of the book dealing with a young Coleman Silk. We see him in High School and get glimpses of how he became a black man hiding behind his white skin and denying his family and why he would have done such a thing. This section deals with Coleman being a young boxer and the relationships with women that he engaged in. For all the power of this book, the section on the young Coleman is the most powerful. I first expected it to break the rhythm of the story, but it fits perfectly and is one of the best passages in the novel.

After being somewhat put off Roth from reading Portnoys Complaint, this book impressed me so much Im looking forward to reading American Pastoral. I have a hard time imagining that Roth wrote a better book than The Human Stain, but a different novel won the Pulitzer. Awards aside, The Human Stain is one of the best books I have read all year and is simply exceptional work. After finishing the book, the best I can say is: wow. The book really is that good. I would highly recommend The Human Stain.

Let me just start with the silliest comment: the only way to find out whether you like this book or not, is by reading it. Most reviews here and on Amazon.uk reflect ambivalent feelings. After turning the last page, mine was not altogether negative, but not entirely positive either. This was also my first book by Philip Roth.

Ageing but vigorous professor Coleman Silk is accused of racism in the classroom and forcefully rejecting it (in vain), he chooses to retire after a long, fulfilling and esteemed teaching career. His tale is told by his friend, writer Nathan Zuckerman. Hardly acknowledging each other for years, a friendship begins and Zuckerman tries to understand the multiple facets defining Silk's personality. Unbeknownst to him, he will later discover a secret that Silk has kept for decades, a secret which his life had been, and still is, based on.

Looping around the main theme, there are other characters who are connected with Silk and bear relevance. In the background, Coleman's parents and siblings. Their beginnings, the struggles to send all their children to proper schools for the best education possible. We then have his wife, a strong, independent personality who died during the `racism ordeal', and their four adult children (it's 1998 by then). Silk's bursting rage and pain towards these two -to him- related events (the accusations and his wife's death), find a degree of comfort through the acquaintance -later developing into something much more- of Faunia, a janitor in the Athena college where he used to teach. Faunia, a tormented soul herself, does not seem to be left alone by her ex-husband, Les, who keeps stalking her after a terrible tragedy struck at their home some years previously. Some other characters from the past who are irretrievably connected with Coleman, pop into the picture. His former girlfriend, Steena, met and loved in his twenties. The young French dean at Athena, Dolphine Roux, who supported the racism accusations. Zuckerman himself finds a niche for some of his personal details.

So many people, so many different personalities, so many tragedies. This book explores a variety of themes -race, rape, depression, death, loneliness- which make it certainly for a substantial, full-of-texture read. It also speaks of love, love for a profession, for a person, for life in general, but the intricacy with which the author interpolates this concept is open to debate. This is why I cannot define in full its identifying quality, or, for that matter, what exactly I did not like about this book. Perhaps a certain dislike for the structure of some of the chapters: sentences which do not see a full stop, a pause, for an entire page for example. This rendered the read a bit tedious. Also, I found the numerous references to the Clinton/Lewinski's `interlude' somewhat irrelevant to the core of the story and if the purpose was to pinpoint that Silk's own story began to unfold back then, in 1998, well, it was clear enough already. Not to mention the final paragraphs -and this is not a spoiler- when an incredible and unrealistic conversation ensues in a cemetery. I mean, was that to supply the reader with some final `answers' -which could not have been `real' anyway since it was all a mental image?- .

And yet. Coleman Silk is a personage. And his secret, the secret from which we are often distracted due to a number of superimposed, unnecessary (to me) details, is the central theme of this book. Like it or not, mixed feelings or not, I've never written such a long review before. There must be a reason, although I myself am not sure what that is. What I am sure about is that this tale is so imbued with wrenching issues that it cannot fail to dazzle, provoke and stimulate conversations.

"The Human Stain" is a glimpse into the life of a man who has lost everything: his job, his wife, his colleagues. Faced with having to redefine himself in totally unfamiliar ways, he abandons the prior structure and inhibitions of his life and allows himself to explore territory which many consider "off limits." Though he picks rather dangerous routes to explore, we watch him, through the course of the novel, rebuild his friendships, sense of self, and expectations for his life.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the novel is the accuracy with which it keys into human insecurities as well as human habits. We see the story not through the eyes of the protagonist, but through the perspective of his friends and associates who are quick to judge the way he rebuilds his life. "The Human Stain" forces the reader to examine her own responses to a number of astonishing moments where we uncover, piece by piece, the entire life of a man who we are meeting in his "twilight years" following his greatest tragedy.

This is a terrific book. The rants on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair are enough to have you gasping for breath in the aisle, and that's before his brilliant comic creation, the pretentious, Ecole-educated Delphine Roux. Having spent many years in higher ed., I can attest to the fact that Roth is so on the mark that it's a bit frightening. He nails the entire feminist-marxist-elite on the head. For me, Roux's panic as she desperately looks for a mate in the New York Review of Books personals and by accident sends the email to her department is the highlight of the book. I have MET her before, I'm sure of it. My favorite pages of the book were the Roux monologues as she rationalizes her whole existence and her snobby education.

I'm a longtime fan of Roth and have read almost all of his books, even the old ones, but this is one of his very best. He is just so "on." His portraits of academia, politics, race-relations, plus his electrifying writing make this thrilling from start to finish. Previous to reading this book, I had read two "light" novels. After one page of Roth, I felt the power of words again.

Not only is this one of Roth's best books, it's one of the best contemporary books period as it lampoons many areas of our lives. The whole "spook" incident was so lifelike (the black students the professor was supposedly insulting had never actually shown up in class and he had no idea that they were black since he'd never seen them) that I bet colleges everywhere are shaking in their own hypocrotical shoes. Roth emerges as one of the best 20th century chroniclers.