Βιβλιάρα! This simple word holds a world of charm and wonder.

Books are like magical portals that transport us to different times, places, and experiences. They are a source of knowledge, inspiration, and entertainment.

Whether it's a thrilling adventure story, a thought-provoking novel, or a factual encyclopedia, each book has its own unique allure.

We can lose ourselves in the pages, forget about the outside world, and immerse ourselves in the story.

Books have the power to educate us, make us laugh, make us cry, and make us think.

They are a constant companion, always there to offer comfort and guidance.

So, the next time you pick up a βιβλίο, remember the joy and value it can bring.

Let the words on the page carry you away and open up a new world of possibilities.

Βιβλιάρα! Long live the magic of books!

What is a stigma?

The wiktionary defines it as "something that marks and usually shames the one who bears it."

"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth is a complex and penetrating novel - complex in terms of the number of questions it poses, and penetrating in terms of the psychological depth of its characters. Its central hero is Coleman Silk, a special person, endowed but without the right pedigree, who is faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, the need to belong somewhere, and on the other hand, the urge to stand out. A combination of Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, if possible.

Does the equation have a solution? If you are of African descent - not in Harlem, but in an academic ghetto of prestige - then things are by no means simple. Especially in America, which was focused on Monica Lewinsky's dress (1998) while sending airplanes to Belgrade (April 1999). A person as complex as Coleman - a force of nature, idiosyncratic, combative, erotic, and vindictive - will choose the most fantastic and demanding in interpretation performance, in which he himself will star, dressed in the guise of a lamb. And when the conflict with the silent majority arises, he throws down the gauntlet; unfortunately for him.

All the main characters have something important to say, like shipwrecks: Faunia Farley, a complex woman, badly beaten by "misfortunes" that begin in her adolescence, and now immersed in a drunken promiscuity, as Silk's voluptuous mistress who, however, knows much more about life than the former academic. There is also Lester Farley - formerly her husband, now a Vietnam veteran and their future Nemesis. All stigmatized, all unforgettable in their humanity.

Stigma, the sword of Damocles over the heads of those who may deviate, a可怕的tool of social control. Stigma is belonging to the "wrong" group in the wrong context, stigma is the psychological and social distancing from the "right" group, stigma is old age, stigma is a, not platonic, erotic relationship.

Yet Roth's novel deals with much more: the hypocrisy of the academic establishment, political correctness in the public sphere, the arrogance of academic authority, the tight embrace of political momentum with the individual fates of people. Finally, one of Roth's favorite themes, the difficult relationships within a family in social mobility, along with the constant search for a fair assessment of the father's image by the son...

Roth is talented, he is sincere, he is deeply human. But above all, he is a writer of enormous magnitude, for whom every praise is an understatement.

Philip Roth's "The Human Stain" - an American domestic classic with excellence - shattered the perfect and unified model of the ideal novel in theory. In the belly of these 650 pages, there are more than one plot that moves the events and characters. But the more important thing is the shattering of the model and its power that has dominated all novels for a long time. There is a plot that controls not only this novel but all of Roth's novels, an external and independent engine. Roth might call it his magical key, and he has every right to this naming. Because he designed (a literary masterpiece). In the person of the narrator Nathan Zuckerman, who is attached to Roth's novels and maintains here the first-person narrative level of the text, but he is not completely reliable. With his ability, he can inject his own desires, imaginations, and handle his affairs, and spread his contemptuous views in the channels of events without his voice being known or his intentions being suspected. A murderous voice with a hint of the commonness that misdirects people's attention to the opposite of the real impotence that caused the crisis. This, it seems, does not happen only here but in more than one novel of Roth. The story begins when Coleman Silk, the former dean of literature, with his acute mental pain, turns to Nathan, his neighbor, whom he may not have noticed before and will enjoy the sweetness of communication with this exemplary intellect for the first time, to write his painful and exemplary story according to the American model (a successful classics professor who suffers from the betrayal of his surroundings because of what he is obliged to be upright / the white Jewish memory / the father of a very ordinary family / falls into a verbal trap that opens the gates of hell for him). The double meaning word between "spooks" and "negro" with its racist connotation destroys his career path. His wife dies suddenly, and his children blame him.

They push him away at different levels. He turns to this neighbor who knows that the commonness is of a different kind. So who will kill the commonness? Nathan sympathizes with Coleman's worries and dreams and dances with him and sucks on him if necessary, so that he can come out through their sincerity into a new world that is not subject to the model. And everything Coleman has is not really his to lose. The man is a former negro / not like saying the man is a former soldier / this is more logical. So how can a person not know about his negro origin as if it is something that someone can hide! And how can this not be the easiest way for him to fix what was broken in his career path and remove the accusation from him. And not only this, but will Coleman establish a family without his wife and children knowing about it? Nathan will reveal Coleman's issues in a more wonderful way than reality. The loyal husband who chose the educated wife will be found in love with Fania, the ignorant woman who milks the cows and cleans the college toilets, contrary to the wife with knowledge and political awareness. And the balanced man will turn into another, more wretched and more miserable, in the eyes of Nathan. From the womb of Coleman and from the position of the sucker, the danger of the friend who has lost a friend and complains to him about an old enemy who has lost his wife and wishes for her death while she is in the arms of her Jewish lover is no less. How could it not be, since her suspicious sexual relations have caused the loss of her children in a painful fire? Suddenly, after the frustration that Coleman endures and his sitting for months mourning his losses, he loses his job, his wife, and the trust of his children. Coleman recovers and begins new dreams, leaving Nathan without a story - literally - empty-handed and without any means of writing. Therefore, Nathan begins his narration about Coleman, and here there will be no difference between reality and the fictional imagination, and it will be under the mercy of the hands of Roth and Nathan. So there is no need for condemnation, for all possibilities are beautiful. And if Nathan did not do this in other texts of Roth, he should be warned.

Do we protect our city from secrets by spreading false rumors about us and our affairs to create a successful and controversial situation related to it? Is the rumor an identity or does it contribute to its making at least? Bill and Monica's scandal with Roth's pen was a magical and disastrous conclusion about his suggestions! The position that Clinton rose to with his hidden heroic history, his loss with the publicity was in the absence of it, and he was the most capable of avoiding its terrible consequences.

Some people believe that rumors are of a certain kind for several reasons.

In the labyrinths of this literary world of Roth, you must exclude pleasure. For the general flow of the novel, despite its warmth and intimacy that takes you to the feeling of someone who throws his head on a large stone of the family that trusts him to listen to his story with teary eyes, is surprised by the return of the lurid action through several flaws and gaps in his narration. Among the flaws is that the text is heavy in construction. I have tried to hint at its cumbersome and artificial nature with its heavy and artificial language and its illogical events, such as Khaled Tobal falling in love with a life that was a child in his room one day. But the hint was stuck to it, so there is something illogical in the novel that is not believable. This is regarding the events. As for the construction, Roth writes with difficulty to reach the perfect model of construction for each sentence, as if there is an Arab inside him ordering him to do so! I would say that I enjoyed the narration in the first hundred pages as I never did in my life. And if it were not for the effort of the translator Fatima Naout, who surpassed the text, which is an extremely Indian effort, its value is discovered as you move forward in the novel and you should thank her for it. And her description in the preface of the work to the language in the sublime was excellent and did not miss the mark. And what she described as Coleman's free submission to ideas was very accurate. And there is an imbalance between the events of the novel and the flow of the internal monologues of the characters, each with its own repeated rhythm, which causes a break in reading and makes you forget the important event. And there is no doubt that retrieving the information in these 650 pages is not an important task at this time.

I recommend it to everyone.

The Human Stain is a rather complex and perhaps somewhat uneven novel. It feels as if it is the work of multiple hands, with varying degrees of success. There is a central narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, through whose perspective we get to know the anti-hero Coleman Silk. However, there are also different voices that contribute to the overall story. One of the most annoying voices is that of the ranter, who不停地喋喋不休地谈论比尔·克林顿和他的性丑闻。这些长篇大论既令人厌烦，又与情节无关。另一个我不太欣赏的声音是越战老兵的声音。虽然创伤后应激障碍在退伍军人中是一个真实存在的问题，但展示莱斯·法利的部分却缺乏说服力。还有一个哲学性的声音，它涉及广泛的话题，但更倾向于散漫而非专注。也许小说中最有趣的部分是关于科尔曼本人的。我不禁将他与约翰·威廉姆斯的《斯通纳》进行比较。两人都来自截然不同的背景，最终都成为了学者。他们都背叛了自己的父母，从而也背叛了自己的出身。他们都有成功但动荡的职业生涯。他们都有过婚外情，这引起了公众的蔑视。但在我看来，斯通纳比科尔曼·丝绸更胜一筹。

需要注意的是，接下来有剧透。但我认为这并不重要，因为在故事的早期就已经揭示了。这个故事是基于罗斯的一个朋友的真实事件改编的，一位学者对两名缺课学生的评论被误解为种族主义。他的朋友不像故事中的科尔曼·丝绸那样是非洲裔美国人。这种修饰有点聪明反被聪明误。科尔曼·丝绸冒充（假装自己是另一个种族）的行为并非闻所未闻，当然也不是独一无二的。但这个情节转折在情节发展方面并没有充分发挥其潜力。

这个故事对我来说有点过于冗长，但有两件事脱颖而出。首先，每一代学生都越来越以自我为中心。这可能是科尔曼最初陷入困境的原因。学生们只是缺乏纪律。这从来都与种族主义无关。科尔曼的秘密只是增加了混乱。其次，是标题本身。什么是人类的污点？在故事中，它是一只被人类养大的乌鸦，因为这个原因，它无法与其他乌鸦融合或表现得像它们一样，最终成为了一个弃儿。似乎有一种对神学中原罪概念的模糊提及。叙述者似乎对此持反对态度。那么，人类的污点是什么呢？是科尔曼的种族出身使他与众不同吗？是他试图冒充白人使他成为了一个弃儿吗？

小说中的人物组合很有趣。科尔曼被描绘成一个不墨守成规、叛逆的人，最终成为了一个烈士。但他并不是一个特别讨人喜欢的角色，所以我对他没有共鸣或同情。内森·扎克曼更讨人喜欢，但可惜的是，他只是一个旁观者。福尼亚给人的感觉冷酷无情，但她悲惨的过去使她的形象有所缓和。德尔菲娜则充满恶意。莱斯则只是一团糟。

结论：这是一本有思想但缺乏灵感的读物。

This novel was truly disappointing. I had high expectations for it, but it failed to meet them.

The story delves into the life of an African American college professor who has been "passing" as white since his late teens. He has concealed this fact from everyone he knows, including his wife and children. His secret starts to come undone when he refers to two absent students as "spooks." Since the students are black, the comment is regarded as racist, although he had actually meant the word to mean "ghosts."

The writing is extremely dull and meandering. The sentences, paragraphs, and chapters seem never-ending, and the prose is too dense for my liking. The narration is very unclear, constantly shifting between a primary narrator and events and thoughts that the narrator couldn't possibly have known.

However, the subject matter is thought-provoking and prompts discussion. Is race simply about skin color? Is a person black if they have white skin? Why is the "one drop" definition of ancestry only applicable to blacks and not other races? Is it acceptable to construct an identity based on a "lie"? What does it mean to lead an authentic life? These are all questions that the novel raises and that are worth exploring further.

After almost six years, I realize that it still remains with me :). The construction of the main character is very meticulous. It is truly remarkable how the details have been crafted to bring this character to life. Each aspect of the character's personality, behavior, and background has been carefully thought out and developed. It's as if the author has spent countless hours perfecting every little nuance. This attention to detail makes the character feel incredibly real and relatable. You can't help but become invested in their story and journey. It's a testament to the author's skill and talent that after all these years, this character still lingers in my mind, leaving a lasting impression.

A masterfully architected tale about race, shame, violence, and remembrance, The Human Stain is truly one of Roth's remarkable masterpieces.

From the very first pages, the reader is irresistibly drawn into the mystery surrounding Coleman "Silky" Silk né Silkzweig and his tragic downfall. The characters in this story are vivid and lifelike, and the descriptions are at times terrifying yet always utterly captivating. I found myself completely engrossed, unable to put this book down as I was relentlessly compelled to discover what would happen next - a sure sign of truly great writing.

If you have never delved into Roth's works before, you can safely begin with either this one or American Pastoral, and I'm certain you will be left craving for more.

I just watched the movie from 2003, which features Anthony Hopkins as Coleman, Nicole Kidman as Faunia, Gary Sinise as Zuckerman, and Ed Harris as Les. It is a wonderful and highly accurate adaptation of the book for the silver screen. It can be watched either before or after reading the book, but I would highly recommend reading the book first to fully appreciate the depth and complexity of the story.

This movie brings the characters and the story to life in a whole new way, and it's a great addition to any Roth fan's collection.

The danger, when you hate, is however that you choose what you have been looking for, but yourself. Once you have started, you can no longer stop. I don't know anything more difficult to keep under control than hate. It is easier to let yourself go to drink than to master your hate.

Page 427

Hate is a powerful emotion that can have a significant impact on our lives. When we allow hate to consume us, we are essentially choosing to focus on the negative aspects of ourselves and the world around us. This can lead to a downward spiral of anger, resentment, and even violence. It is important to recognize the signs of hate within ourselves and take steps to address it before it gets out of control. This may involve seeking professional help, practicing mindfulness and meditation, or simply making a conscious effort to focus on the positive.

The book that tackles the theme of racism, unfortunately still a very topical issue, has a rather popular language. However, as for the narrative, Roth was skillful in describing the various stories and from different points of view. He maneuvers clearly and transparently.

One of the things that struck me the most was the meaning of the title: "Every thing that man touches he destroys", that is, the tendency that man has to humanize everything that surrounds him, thus marking it with a stain that never goes away.

However, as much as it fascinated me, it never did so as much as the bipolarity of the assassin, Faunia Farley's ex-husband, Les Farley, who is described in a breathtaking finale.

I read it last year and it seemed as impressive to me as it was at the time of its publication.

It touches on extremely delicate themes through its alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, who here acts as a third observer of the injustice and decline of the protagonist.

The author has such a clear perception of the human condition and its miseries that it must be savored to the full.

I see that it is more relevant than ever due to the massive opinion groups and unfounded news hits on Twitter.

This work not only provides a profound exploration of human nature but also reflects on the social and cultural context of the times.

It makes the reader think about the power of perception, the role of the observer, and the impact of misinformation.

Overall, it is a remarkable piece of literature that continues to resonate with readers today.

My first Roth book...

It has a narrative structure that focuses on the introspection of the characters through few dialogues and many streams of consciousness. The characters are delineated and deepened until it becomes impossible for the reader to express a moral judgment on them. The lives of his characters have the gift of multiplication: threads that bud and intersect because no one is completely positive, no one is completely a hero, and no one is completely an anti-hero. Each of them encompasses the whole.

The language is complex and wisely articulated in the structure because Roth seems to want to deepen the feeling rather than the doing of his characters.

The story it tells is like a modern Greek tragedy: passionate, total, absolute, ethical, and cathartic.

I liked it. It was a captivating read that made me think deeply about the nature of the characters and their actions. The way Roth presents their inner thoughts and emotions is truly remarkable. It's as if he peels back the layers of their souls, revealing the complexity and contradictions within. The story's tragic elements added an extra layer of depth and poignancy, making it a memorable literary experience.

Nel tentativo, senz'altro ammirevole, di crearsi, aveva l'impressione di essersi rovesciata. Questo è il punto di partenza di una storia che ci porta a esplorare le pieghe complesse della società contemporanea e dell'uomo che vive al suo interno.

\\"Nel tentativo, senz'altro ammirevole, di crearsi, aveva l'impressione di essersi rovesciata.\\"

Possiamo dire, non senza un briciolo di presunzione, che il male della società contemporanea sia l'adattamento. È ciò che un essere umano ricerca ogni istante della sua vita, sia per costrizione sia per sua semplice volontà. Si adatta per sopravvivere, abbandonando la nostalgia per la società passata o l'idealizzazione di una società migliore. La \\"macchia umana\\", cioè l'insieme dei comportamenti umani, è caratterizzata dalla spinta verso il progresso individuale ed egoista, che è insita in ognuno di noi. Questo è il caso di Coleman Silk, il protagonista del romanzo, il cui destino è paradossale e autentico allo stesso tempo.

Bisognerebbe analizzare il motivo per cui le convenzioni sociali ci ingabbiano e la morale imperante di una società ci condanni al minimo sgarro. È perché la società occidentale è caratterizzata da un'etica falsa e viscida, dove la semplice accusa è già una prova e l'etichetta è il motivo, la prova e la logica. Questo è ciò che succede a Coleman Silk, quando viene accusato di essere un razzista e un misogino per una parola detta senza pensarci in classe.

Il \\"Diavolo della Piccola Città\\", come lo chiama Roth stesso, è il pettegolezzo eterno su ciò che non si conosce. È fare la morale a Clinton per gli undici pompini di Monica Lewinsky, è parlare di questo e ingigantirlo fino a renderlo l'assioma della società. Questo processo porta all'annientamento pubblico di un essere umano, come accade a Coleman Silk.

Se la vita di Coleman Silk si basa su un'unica, enorme menzogna, la sua fine, la sua caduta, si basa su una cosa incredibilmente simile, se non identica. La macchia umana è ciò che si porta dietro e che riemerge in lui nel momento in cui viene calunniato. Coleman Silk, professore universitario di lettere classiche, è un uomo dalla pelle bianca, ma in realtà è afroamericano. Quando viene accusato di essere un razzista per la parola \\"spooks\\", la sua menzogna primordiale viene alla luce e non riesce a difendersi.

Dopo questo passo chilometrico, è interessante notare come ogni pagina del romanzo sia permeata dalla classicità. Roth era un amante della tragedia greca e molte parole, espressioni e frasi criptiche ne dimostrano la grande devozione. Ogni cosa nel romanzo ha il potere dell'antichità, come il disprezzo umano per ciò che si condanna a priori, l'amore tra Coleman e Faunia, l'amore di Coleman ragazzo per Steena. Tutto questo ricorda la tragedia classica e conduce all'inevitabile fine. Tuttavia, dobbiamo capire le sfacettature di questa storia e i messaggi nascosti, per poter denudare la macchia di questo uomo e comprendere il suo destino.

La scelta di Coleman Silk è una scelta che lo porterà a decisioni crudeli verso coloro che lo amano. È una scelta che può farci gioire per la sua crocifissione, ma anche farci capire quanto sia vittima di se stesso e delle convenzioni sociali. Tuttavia, non possiamo odiare Coleman, perché è vittima di un ciclo umano e insaziabile che ci porta all'odio verso gli altri e all'autocritica. Coleman Silk è ciò che siamo, niente di più e niente di meno.

\\"Aveva solo l'umanissimo desiderio di salvarsi.\\"