A Pastoral Americana tells us about the life of a young woman in an upper-middle-class family, her fears, desires, and distractions. Her parents dream and expect perfection from their daughter without understanding who she really is. They create in their minds a daughter who doesn't exist. The daughter feels frustrated for not being able to achieve the perfection expected of her. She breaks away from her world and runs in search of a new one where she can be accepted as she is, with her virtues and flaws.

Casei com um comunista deals with the life of a child with a tragic past until he becomes a man. Throughout his life, he manages to climb to the top of popularity, but his past and lack of education prevent him from having a correct understanding of communism and communists, leading to the loss of everything. He falls from popularity to depression and isolation.

On one hand, Roth criticizes American society for the hatred they claim to have towards the communist regime, while most of the population doesn't even know what it is. On the other hand, he tells us about the Jews, the hatred they feel for being Jews. They renounce values and family. They create new identities.

In A Mancha Humana, Roth again talks about identities, but this time in relation to "being black". In this third book, the protagonist is an old man who reaches the top of his career as the President of a University.

Three interesting books that deal with "our life" at different stages, what we were as adolescents, what we are as adults, and what awaits us in old age when death, disease, and the indifference of others fall upon us.

A Mancha Humana tells us the story of Coleman Silk, who, being the best as a student and the best as an athlete, decides to create a new identity and deny the previous one, keeping that secret for 40 years away from everyone, including his wife and his 4 children.

Coleman Silk didn't want to be black in a time when being black was synonymous with a person without rights, in a racist world, in a racist country, and since he had the luck of having light skin, he could easily hide his origins. Ironically, at 70 years old, he was accused of racism by a student. This process leads him to resign and distance himself from his colleagues at the university.

The anger, hatred, and contempt for others, in the face of events and associating them with the death of his wife, lead him to solitude, and he decides to write a book. Unable to write it, he turns to a writer, Zucherman.

Faunia is a 34-year-old woman, ignorant, who works as a cleaning employee at the university. A life where tragedy devastated her at 14 years old and accompanied her until her death. She meets Silk and has a relationship that was initially only physical, but as time passes, emotions become involved. Both have a past they want to forget, neither judges the other, and both accept each other as they are.

Zucherman is a writer who, more than telling the story of Silk, Faunia, Delphine, and Les, prefers to understand them. He writes A Mancha Humana without ever judging the attitudes of the characters. The good and the bad, the right and the wrong are interpreted by the reader, left to their consideration.

From this book, I draw many reflections about my, your, our Human Stain, but the most valuable one being that each person should accept themselves as they are and accept others as they are. Our attitudes have a reason for being, but the attitudes of others also have a reason for being that way. The best thing is not to judge without first trying to understand.

Human Stain represents the third and final part of the trilogy that was started with The Pastoral, and if The Pastoral was excellent but somewhat underdeveloped, and The Communist was excellent but the weakest one I've read by Roth, Human Stain represents something better, I would add so far, of what I've read by Roth. This book is a combination of The Dying Animal (a more subtle version) and American Pastoral. From the male problematic of the third age, it transitions to all that is the basis of both The Pastoral and The Communist, which is racism, the fear of the unknown, and stigmatization of the small and middle class. I would gladly say in this case the American one, but I think this is a universal problem of the whole world.

"The danger associated with hatred when it has already been set in motion lies in the fact that you can get a hundred times more than you asked for. Once you start with hatred, you can't stop. I don't know anything that is as difficult to control as hatred. It's easier to give up alcohol than to master hatred. And that says something."

Coleman Silk is set as the main hero of this book, and his biography, his interesting case, is described by Zuckerman, the writer's spirit, as in the previous two books of this series. What is interesting about Coleman Silk is that he is basically black, but he is not black, but, unlike his family, he is white. Whether he is an albino or has some other health problem is not explained. However, what characterizes this professor, a new Kepesh, is that he renounced his family at a young age, renounced his dark skin with the desire to gain an advantage with his whiteness over his origin. As a young boxer without a defeat, with his father as a source of stability and wisdom, Coleman heartlessly rejects his mother's love, acquires a new family, children who inherit white genes, and awaits to be stigmatized in old age, as the dean of Athena College, because of his love with a thirty-year-old janitor. Everything he was hiding from and did not believe in was always there behind his back, ready to strike back. Those dark ones he did not recognize as his own but selflessly donated to, turned against him. His brother forbade him access to his parental home, his mother cried for him, longing for proof of love, getting to know his white grandchildren, who don't even know who their father is and that they are actually genetically at least half black. His sister maintained contact through letters and loved him secretly, and the middle class in which he self-made himself despised him because of his love for the thin, tall, thin-armed Faunia Farley, the unconscious mother responsible for the death of her children, who brings into her inheritance a Vietnam War veteran, her former husband with post-traumatic syndrome, jealous, aggressive, and unhappy former father.

The discovery of love also brings stigma. The seemingly worried Frenchwoman who shares the philosophy department with the dean discovers that he is her male side, that he is the one she actually needs. She, who wanted Harvard or Columbia but got the small Athena, she, who thought that the whole world would fall at her feet because of her subtlety, knowledge, and emancipation, presented small-town thinking and organized a witch hunt under the guise of moral concern for women's rights, the level of knowledge of an educated woman, and the message that forbidden love carries to students.

Roth has created a multi-layered work that deeply touches on the thoughts of a person and his limiting factors. The inability to fight against one's own limitations turns into a lie, which creates a new lie and hatred, and along with hatred, there is also misunderstanding, new hiding, and imprisonment in the castles that a person has created for himself. The main Rothian guidelines are, of course, racism, anti-Semitism, political and moral prohibitions and limitations, along with all those male problems that are subtly called a midlife crisis, along with the inevitable health, typically male, problems. Mickey Sabbath, Professor Kepesh, and of course the inevitable, from now on, Coleman Silk, are all intertwined.

"This is what it means to be raised by a human hand. This is what it means to be smeared with people like us all our lives. Human Stain, we leave a stain, we leave a trace, we leave our mark. Filth, cruelty, evil, sin, vomit, semen - there is no other way to exist. It's in all of us. Inside. Inborn. It determines us. That stain that is there before its sign. It's there even when it's not visible. The stain that precedes disobedience, that encompasses disobedience and threatens all explanations and understanding."

"The century of destruction, like no other, in its extremity has also affected and destroyed the human race - the strong millions of the ordinary world are condemned to be deprived of everything, to experience brutality upon brutality, evil upon evil. Half or more of humanity is exposed to pathological sadism as a social policy. Entire societies are organized and bound by the fear of persecution, of the degradation of individual life that is brought to a level hitherto unknown in history."

SPOILERS

The approaching release of Blake Bailey's enormous biography of Philip Roth was what drove me to read a few more of Roth's novels this year. Even though I seem to fit the typical Roth-reader demographic (atheist, Jewish, male), I only started reading Roth in the last ten years. After seeing a copy of American Pastoral on my grandmother's bookshelves, I was introduced to his works. I had read Portnoy's Complaint earlier in the year and had also picked up The Human Stain. However, I was still reluctant to get Bailey's book. It seemed overly long, had received some mixed reviews, and whether Roth had asked him to or not, Bailey appeared to have used the biography to settle some scores, especially with his ex-wives. I did end up getting an audiobook version, but when the terrible accusations of sexual impropriety and assault against Bailey came to light, I just couldn't bring myself to even think about reading the biography and returned it.

Nonetheless, there was a certain irony in being in the middle of reading The Human Stain when the Bailey scandal broke out, considering the themes Roth explored in it. The Human Stain is the final book in the American Trilogy (after American Pastoral and I Married A Communist). It was one of the many acclaimed and awarded novels he wrote in the 1990s and early 2000s, a productive period that included Operation Shylock, Sabbath's Theatre, and The Plot Against America in addition to the Trilogy. The Human Stain is also one of Roth's more controversial books and, frankly, one of his most dated and less engaging works. Reading The Plot Against America in 2016 as Trump rose to prominence felt like Roth had foreseen the future and was warning us. Reading The Human Stain, on the other hand, felt like Roth was looking back to simpler times when prejudiced attitudes were not challenged and were allowed to persist.

The Human Stain is set in the late 1990s, with the Clinton impeachment hearings as the backdrop. Roth portrays this as a period of puritanical overbearingness, where small mistakes lead to disproportionate consequences and ruined lives. Like the other three books in the American Trilogy, we hear the story through the words of Nathan Zuckerman. This time, he tells us about a troubled former professor and dean, Coleman Silk. Silk's downfall began when he referred to two constantly absent students as "spooks," a racially charged term. Since both students were African American, the University reprimanded Silk for using it. He was quickly abandoned by colleagues he had brought to the school as professors and left to fend for himself by his replacement as dean, Delphine Roux, a more modern academic who embraced critical race and gender approaches to studying subjects, which annoyed the old guard. Silk's wife died suddenly in the midst of his battle with the university, and in a moment of desperation, he resigned his position and began writing a book criticizing the university for what they had done. He eventually decided not to publish the book (this closely parallels Roth's own obsessive behavior when his ex-wife wrote a tell-all memoir that painted him in a very bad light) and began dating a much younger custodial worker (the age and power difference is very明显), an act that also managed to irritate his nemesis Roux.

The big twist in The Human Stain, however, is that Silk is actually an African American man who chose decades earlier to pass as a white man, become Jewish, and cut off his family from his life. He never told his wife, his children, or any of his friends about his background, and despite accusations of racism being thrown at him, he lived with this secret. There was a moment where Roth could have used this remarkable revelation to explore not only questions of identity but also the inner workings of Silk's mind, how his choice to run away from himself led to eventual disaster, and how his internal struggle made him vulnerable, unable to properly deal with adversity, and eager to lash out and blame others. It would have made for a better book, a more self-aware exploration that revealed more about Roth's own internal struggle rather than his tendency to blame others. Sadly, it was not meant to be.

In a recent review of the Bailey situation, Jeet Heer noted: "A typical Philip Roth novel is about a controlling, willful man who tries to bring an unsustainable order to his life only to be blindsided by the perversity of human nature. In the best of Roth's novels, that perversity resides in the protagonist. In the weaker and more defensive books, perversity is assigned to others—often ex-wives or children." In The Human Stain, Roth takes that much less interesting path. Delphine Roux becomes the villain, the one responsible for Silk's downfall, who continues to be obsessed with Silk long after he has left his position at the university. And in one of the most painfully bad and predictable plot points, Roux's obsession is not rooted in hate but in a hidden desire and love for Silk. Her inability to have Silk leads to her trying to destroy him. Delphine Roux is the character that comes to mind when reading Laura Marsh's excellent review of the Bailey biography in the New Republic, which noted "Women in this book are forever screeching, berating, flying into a rage, and storming off, as if their emotions exist solely for the purpose of sapping a man's creative energies."
But Roth doesn't just confirm the worst accusations of his harshest critics regarding his poor treatment of women characters. He goes further, exploring other intellectual curiosities and expressing opinions that could just as easily have come from the mouth of Jordan Peterson. His characters constantly harp on the emergence of new perspectives in academia, questioning the value of looking at classic texts through the lens of race or gender. Painfully, Roth chooses to have a Black woman, Coleman's sister, express this most clearly, herself not impressed with the insertion of race into larger academic conversations. That choice is not accidental and shows how weak the position is when the white male (whose perspectives have dominated for so long) has to express his frustration through a fictional character of color.
Roth cheats us as readers by taking this predictable and frankly tired path. The Human Stain is brilliantly written at times. The exploration of torn and blurry racial identities is where this novel shines the most. But just as in life, Roth couldn't take us there. He had to use these pages to air his grievances, and as a result, the work is frankly weakened.
I still stand by my liking of Roth as a writer, despite his flaws. He was a bitter and angry man who held grudges to an extreme, and this not only weakened his writing but also likely led him to choose a biographer like Bailey, whose downfall will surely damage Roth's legacy. Roth is a complex author. At his best, he expresses a chaotic anxiety in the most entertaining way. He explores issues of Jewish identity and complex historical moments with both solemnity and humor. But when he misses the mark, when he gives in to his worst impulses, the problems in his writing (his misogynistic portrayal of women being the most obvious) really feel disappointing. Because it is Roth, you can see the potential for a great novel in The Human Stain. But because it is Roth, you also know exactly how he self-sabotaged it.

So I watched the movie, and I truly, deeply regretted it. To borrow the words of Pope Pius VII, it sometimes makes you question if you're inhabiting the right planet. Anthony Hopkins portrays an extremely white black man! And the breathtakingly beautiful Nicole Kidman plays an illiterate janitor! Yes, you heard that right! And we're expected to take this seriously! Moreover, the actor who plays the young Anthony Hopkins bears absolutely no resemblance to him! It's completely insane. I firmly believe they consume an excessive amount of drugs in Hollywood, and this movie seems to validate that theory. Some of the craziness, of course, can be attributed to Philip Roth. Because the story has the stunningly beautiful, albeit severely dowdy, Nicole develop a crush on the 70-year-old Anthony and desire to have an affair with him! And this is the same wish-fulfillment fantasy that Philip Roth repeatedly writes about in all his later books! Over and over again! This would be comical if it weren't for the numerous Roth enthusiasts out there proclaiming that he's the greatest living writer of prose and will soon be the greatest deceased one too. Ugh.

Okay, I admit, the book MUST must must must be superior to this wretched, crazy movie, but I'll never know for sure. I got so fed up with Roth years ago.* This movie, "The Human Stain," was just a one-time experience. It meant nothing. I solemnly swear I'll never watch it again.

Hey, maybe when I'm really old and creepy, I'll transform into a huge Roth fan, reread all his works, and be shouting, "Yeah, go for it one more time, substitute-Rothman, you know she's eager for your 70-year-old body." Ew.

TO RECAP :

this is a black man

this is a cleaning lady

I understand the team behind "The Human Stain" will soon be producing a biopic on Philip Roth, and the challenging role of Philip Roth, which requires the actor to age from 20 to 70, has been assigned to

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* er... not quite - I did subsequently read "Nemesis," and since it had nothing to do with shagging, it was actually really quite good, in a Larry David kind of way: "pretty...pretty...pretty good."

I repost this because The New York Times has included two of Philip Roth's (RIP) novels, The Human Stain and The Plot Against America, on their list of 100 best novels of the 21st century, at the one quarter-century mark.

I read Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint in college and loved them for their humor and literary flair in depicting the lives and lusts of young men. However, I didn't read him often after that for no specific reason until recently. Maybe it was because I felt tired of reading about the same aggressive, lust-driven male main character in his books. But then I read Patrimony, about his relationship with his father, and The Plot Against America, a dark fantasy about a possible past where we chose a fascist dictator instead of FDR. I liked these books very much and decided to take a closer look at his work again. Now I have read several Roth novels.

After completing his Nathan Zuckerman trilogy, beginning with the masterpiece American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, which I also came to like, I see the greatness of this trilogy. It, like The Plot Against America, focuses on the sweep of twentieth-century American history and examines central social issues of each period through deeply flawed characters. Roth's use of language is visceral, muscular, and startlingly honest, often lyrical at the same time. All the characters talk and think in grand, sometimes manic, fashion, engaging in epic verbal sparring and reflection.

The Human Stain took some time for me to warm up to, but it grew on me and ended with a resounding hurrah. It tells the story of three interlocking tragic stories: Coleman Silk, a classics professor and dean at Athena College, is forced out of his job at age 69 for supposed racist comments; his 34-year-old girlfriend Faunia Farley, and her ex, a PTSD-riddled Vietnam vet. The legacies of racism, war, and shame are at the heart of this book, showing how we can never truly escape them.

The inciting impulse for the novel, set in 1998, is the Clinton Impeachment trial, which becomes a national interest and also parallels Silk’s affair with Faunia, which becomes a small town scandal. At first, the book reads like a gripe about cancel culture, but it becomes much more than that. It makes you uncomfortable with its crude jokes about the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and the damaged and abusive Farley’s outbursts. These are deeply flawed, screwed-up people, but they are never uninteresting.

This book is not just about sexual gossip but also about racial secrets. It makes us reflect on the continuing national obsession with race and color. We read this novel through the lens of current events like the Obama birther story, the controversy around Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

When I was done, I thought that Zuckerman is to Silk as Nick Carraway is to Gatsby, albeit a cruder, more visceral combo. The stories of Silk, Faunia, and Fawley are told by Zuckerman, making us reflect on the magic of a novelist’s imagination. But Zuckerman makes it clear that neither the novelist nor the readers will have any truly deep insights into human nature. We are all unknowable at some deep level. Even when Zuckerman knows everything he can to tell Silk’s story, he says, “Now that I know everything, it was though I knew nothing.”

We look at others and the world, and what we are left with is mystery, but also a sense of being highly entertained. I highly recommend this book. You don’t need to have read the first two novels in the trilogy to read this one, but the whole trilogy is great if you want to add it to your tbr list!

Wenn ich mich bei meinen Buch-Freunden hier in Goodreads umsehe, fällt auf, dass dieses Werk extrem stark polarisiert.

Die einen lieben es, die anderen finden kein gutes Haar an ihm. Ich bin diesmal wie so oft in der Mitte und kann sowohl die Begeisterung als auch die Ablehnung verstehen.

Im Gesamtplot finde ich die Geschichte echt grandios. Ein sehr heller Schwarzer konstruiert seine Lebenslüge als weiße Identität, inklusive sagenhaftem akademischen und gesellschaftlichen Aufstieg.

Aber wegen eines Missverständnisses wird er als Rassist gegen Schwarze diffamiert. In dieser von Roth konstruierten Konstellation bekommt der Begriff Zwickmühle eine Bedeutung, die der griechischen Tragödie gleichkommt.

Der falsche Protagonist SilkySilk hat eine schwere Wahl zwischen verschiedenen schlimmen Optionen.

Auch die Sprachfabulier und Erzählkunst ist streckenweise ausgezeichnet, aber manchmal verfällt sie in die typische amerikanische eitle Schwadronierkunst.

Viele Kapitel sind mit sinnlosem Füllmaterial übersät.

Trotzdem halte ich die Analogien zur griechischen Tragödie und die mehrfachen Zitierungen derselben für wundervoll.

Inhaltlich spielt der Roman auch Gesellschaftskritik an der amerikanischen Scheinheiligkeit der akademischen Schichten.

Aber die unrealistischen Altherrenphantasien und die stereotypen Frauenfiguren sind extrem störend.

Die völlig randomisierten Wechsel der Erzählperspektiven irritieren mich.

Fazit: Die Story ist prinzipiell grandios, aber das Werk hätte besser lektoriert werden müssen.

Die Figuren sind klischeehaft und das intellektuelle Geschwafel ist teils himmlisch, teils unerträglich.

Insgesamt ist es für mich ein recht mediokres Werk.

Bulimico Roth.

It seems almost undeniable that within this lies everything that good old Philip has written at his best (at least referring to the 5 or 6 I've read so far).

There are a myriad of individual moments that are so direct and enlightening that they leave you breathless. Especially in the second part.

It could have been five stars, but sometimes it takes such a wide approach that it almost becomes unbearable.

However, it is gigantic. [78/100]

Overall, this work by Bulimico Roth is a captivating one. The writing is filled with moments of brilliance that truly shine through. The directness and illumination in certain passages make it a remarkable read. While there are times when the scope seems a bit too broad and might cause some discomfort, it doesn't overshadow the overall grandeur of the piece. It's a work that definitely has its strengths and weaknesses, but it manages to leave a lasting impression. With a score of 78 out of 100, it shows that it has a lot to offer to those who are willing to explore its pages.

Here we have the essence of literature.

Two simple things (not so easy) are required and only two for a literary work to be characterized as excellent.

An extremely interesting story with a profound meaning.

And mainly a writing style that can cause the greatest aesthetic pleasure and enjoyment.

Literature is a magical world that allows us to explore different emotions, ideas, and experiences.

A great literary work has the power to touch our hearts, make us think, and transport us to another realm.

It can be a novel, a poem, a short story, or any other form of written expression.

The key is to have a captivating story and a unique writing style that engages the reader and leaves a lasting impression.

Whether it's the beautiful prose of a classic novel or the innovative style of a contemporary writer, literature has the ability to inspire and delight us.

So, let's explore the wonderful world of literature and discover the works that will become our favorites.

Each of us has secrets, more or less jealously guarded. And each of us, no matter how hard we try to deny it, has prejudices and tends to judge. This is one of the many themes of this book, which catapults us, with an incipit in medias res, into the last months of Coleman Silk's life. And in the reconstruction of his existence made by Nathan Zuckerman.

I read slowly, savoring each sentence, getting lost in the overwhelming deluge of thoughts and reflections of Philip Roth. Round characters, pitilessly described especially with their "blemishes", with those weaknesses and those quirks that make them human. What emerges is the portrait of a selfish, hypocritical, conformist and gossipy humanity, which often suppresses feelings and impulses to conform to a social standard. And when it finally frees itself from conventions, it necessarily succumbs.

I hadn't read Roth since the days of Portnoy's Complaint. I have fallen in love with him again.

Capolavoro assoluto!

This is truly an absolute masterpiece. It has left me completely in awe and has inspired me in ways I never thought possible. The level of artistry and craftsmanship that has gone into creating this work is simply astonishing.

I am looking forward to writing a more detailed review in the near future. There is so much to explore and analyze about this piece. Every aspect, from the concept to the execution, is worthy of admiration.

I can't wait to share my thoughts and insights with others and encourage them to experience this capolavoro for themselves. It is a work that will surely be remembered and cherished for a long time to come.

Oh, Phillip Roth! You CARD. You IMP. No one makes me laugh like you.

Around this time last year, I was on vacation on the cape reading American Pastoral, another Roth novella full of fun and good humor! (Read Brinda's perfect description for an idea of that one.) I ended up forgetting the book there, with about forty pages left to read, and I never bought a new copy. I didn't care that I hadn't finished it because I WAS SO EXHAUSTED. The book wasn't bad. It was great. But reading a Roth opus is sort of like being in an abusive relationship, at least in my warped imagination. It seduces you with its seeming simplicity, its effortless brilliance. But it's so often cold, manipulative! Yet it's also so interesting, so unlike anything you've ever read before. And then it BEATS YOU CEASELESSLY OVER THE HEAD WITH ITS UNRELENTING DARKNESS AND TRAGIC HUMANITY. Sort of like that.

In a major "Groundhog Day" moment, I found myself on the cape THIS year with The Human Stain, which is no departure for Roth. This time around, however, I finished it and lived to tell the tale.

Roth chooses, it seems, to tell the story of the seedy underbelly of ALL OF AMERICA. You know, something light and fun for the beach. But he does it beautifully and without pretense or haughtiness, which I think is his biggest accomplishment. Parts of The Human Stain left me wishing Roth had chosen to continue to focus on the Jewish American experience, and not tackle issues of race in America. However, he successfully writes about race in New Jersey (no one creates a sense of place quite like Roth does with New Jersey). He also brilliantly uses the ever-annoying character of Delphine Roux to reveal the small-minded mob mentality of private academia.

As great as this book was, it left me yearning for Goodbye, Columbus, both the novella and the collection of the same name that contains it. The former proves that Roth was not always so very serious, not always the self-appointed biographer of the American psyche. He's capable of being simultaneously funny AND undeniably relevant. For me, it's not only more entertaining but thankfully less emotionally athletic.

The only Roth I'd ever read was Portnoy, back when it came out (practically), and the Plot Against America - which didn't impress me at all.

So I came to this book, which I listened to on audible, with a prejudice against Roth. I didn't like him, thought he was a fake, he didn't "look" like much of a writer to me, etc. etc. I probably wouldn't have gotten very far if I had been reading -- listening being a very different experience. (I do so much driving, that I listen to these things in drive-time, basically).

Surprisingly, I found myself really liking this book. It was much better than I had expected. The story was engaging, the characters were well-developed, and the writing was excellent. It made me realize that my previous judgments of Roth were perhaps too harsh.

Once again, yet another of my long-term biases have fallen apart. I'm glad I gave this book a chance and listened to it. It has opened my eyes to the possibility that there may be more to Roth's work than I had initially thought. Maybe I'll have to go back and give some of his other books another try.