The Human Stain [Paperback]

Roth becomes more ambitious with every book and The Human Stain again sees him tackling through a piquant life story The State of the Nation. Here he is taking on the tyranny of political correctness and of the persecuting spirit which is said to be ruling America at the time of the Monica Lewinsky trial.

Some of Roth's hits at the intellectual decline of American universities or the absurdities of French theory are shrewd. But they are also often disconnected from the vital life of the novel and read more like impassioned (and not always well thought through) journalistic tirades.

'Write what you know' is a saying that Roth always seems to have respected in his earlier work, with its accounts of the life of the novelist and the pains and pleasures of an American Jewish upbringing. But it is one he seems to depart from here. His central character Coleman Silk is marvellously alive, but many of the supporting figures- like the neurotic Derrida spouting academic or the mad Vietnam veteran- feel like a clever assemblage of cliches rather than authentic creations.

For me at least if Roth is becoming ever more concerned with 'issues'- wrestling with Black History month or the Monica Lewinsky trial- then the cost is a slackening delight in language. The monologues here lack some of the high octane inventiveness of previous works and Roth's bent for exaggeration looks less like surrealism or fantasy than lack of attention to the facts.

Having said all that there is still much to admire here and a fantastic plot twist which generates an extremely intelligent discussion of what personal identity means in modern America. Buy by all means but preferably with some earlier Roth for comparison.

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 Roth's novel as well as Zuckerman's 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 Portnoy's Complaint, this book impressed me so much I'm 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.

-Joe Sherry

Despite the rather grandiose ambition of the book (to make a once-and-for-all comment on the whole topic of political correctness in academia), the book is immensely readable and as the story gathers pace, the reader is drawn into a narrative as thrilling and suspenseful as any crime novel (and in any case there are plenty of crimes in here anyway!). The characters are complex and the situations they find themselves in unusual. Huge conflicts emerge behind their differing approaches to life and the book is in some ways like a glorified soap opera with all the human themes one would find in any television drama.

In writing a review of this book, you become aware of quite how rich this novel is. It would be an excellent book for a reading group, or a more academic programme and the topics for discussion which arise from it would be endless. The book tells complex stories about the Vietnam experience, Bill Clinton's meanderings through the Lewinsky story, racism and ethnicity, human ageing, and the irresisitlble pull of romance and sex. Primarily, the book is about the human condition (the "human stain" of the title) and to use a cliché, man's search for meaning. But it can also be read as a powerful human drama, for Roth's fictional narrative is as valid on its own terms as the lessons he seeks to draw from it.

This is a rich and compelling read, highly recommended to anyone who expects their chosen books to make them think about their own lives and the lives of those around them.