Reading 1001 discussion

I struggled to connect with the characters. Roth's prose is beautiful and refined; he made me think; he created tension; his pacing was taut and perfect. Even with all of that I didn't care about the characters. I didn't grieve with them or for them. I didn't empathize. I wanted to like Coleman, but I didn't. The book was like reading a thesaurus, at times, which I hated. Still I am giving it four stars because I am somewhat convinced that I did a poor job as a reader with this one.

I think that Roth intended for the reader to not like the main character. Of the Zuckerman novels I’ve read, this was the case each time. Given the subject matter, this one was pretty well done- there’s a few fine lines he had to walk. It’s timely, too!
His books are hard reads for me, too- I have a love/hate relationship with them. His later work is, so far at least, more enjoyable for me. But those early books are awful. I loathed Portnoy’s Complaint And The Breast!

This was my third Philip Roth novel, along with Portnoy's Complaint and American Pastoral. I've given it a four-star rating (4+), as I did Portnoy's Complaint. American Pastoral I didn't like as well and rated three stars.
Having the author as a character in his own story reminded me of how Somerset Maugham did the same in The Razor's Edge, which I re-read this year.
I didn't particularly "like" the main character, but that's ok. The realistic compelling characters including the main one, Coleman Silk, are really the main strength of the story, along with just wonderfully written, evocative sentences interspersed through the novel. It's exploration of aspects of race and racism in America are very timely. Highly recommended.

Read in 2015, my review: FORMAT:☊ - audio, narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris (did a good job)
PUBLISHED: 2000
TAGS/CATEGORIES: 1001 Books, American literature, racism

excellent 4.5 ★★★★☆

This was a book that was so much on so many levels that I know my review will be inadequate. So I will start with what it is; this is the story of a man who loses his job at a college where he has been the dean because he used a word that had been a racial slurr at one time and because it was taken out of context. It is set in 1998 during the Clinton administration and the Monica Lewinsky situation. It is set in rural New England and is in the first person narrative of 65 y/o Nathan Zuckerman who appears in a couple other Roth novels American Pastoral, and I Married a Communist and make up a loose trilogy with this book. The narrator is observing the protagonist Coleman Silk, the retired professor of classics. The professor retired after being accused of racism by two African American students. This novel was inspired by an event that happened to a friend of the authors, Melvin Tumin, who had become a subject of a "witch hunt" but was found innocent of using racial language. The author explores American morality and the effects. He examines the cut throat and petty atmosphere of American academia "political correctness". The trilogy covers the 20th century--The McCarthy years, the Vietnam War and Pressident Bill Clinton impeachment which the author feels are historical moments of post war American life that has had impact. The novel shows how the public zeitgeist can shape and even destroy an individual life. This book represents many themes that resonated with me but I still did not like the amount and kind of swearing and some subject matter (though relevant to the book), it is a book that I will give a high rating too and one that I am glad I read. The book was a national bestseller and won numerous awards. It was adapted to film in 2003.

OPENING LINE: It was in the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk - who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classics professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of faculty - confided in me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college.

And by the way Fergus Falls, Minnesota has several mentions in this book set in the Berkshires.

As Kristel articulated above, it would be very difficult to review this book well.
In The Human Stain, Coleman Silk makes a reasonable decision given his life's ambitions and society's prejudices particularly at that time. He keeps his true identity a secret and in so doing loses his mother, brother and sister. Coleman then proceeds to have a life in which the most defining thing about his life is this secret, both it's shame and it's thrill. Coleman becomes a well known Classics professor and a Dean at a small liberal arts college in the Berkshires who is able to rescue the school from irrelevancy. He is a husband to an accomplished dedicated woman and a father to four children. Yet, it is the secret that informs all meaning in his life. The book builds on thoughts of given identity versus built identity through a number of interesting characters some of whom are very much caricatures. The plot dodges back and forth through time but the reveals are done in such a way that you feel the character's motivations form rather than feeling it as plot based drama. Nathan Zuckerman, the famous writer, who is a primary character in other Roth novels, narrates much of the story and ties up many of the mysteries. He is the one that ultimately is able to recognize the core influences and key motivators of each of the characters and yet he also realizes that no one is able to fully see anyone else.
The book speaks to racial and gender identification and racist and feminist forces but it also manages to widen the discussion to all human estrangement. The book folds in Greek drama and the work of fate and how it determines an inescapable destiny that can be called "accidental" or "the gods". It also references the obsessive passions a la Death in Venice.
The writing is unforced and remarkable without calling a great deal of attention to itself. Roth is able to capture the raving pain of a sufferer from PTSD and the cool collected reasoning of someone who wishes to be a crow and can see others with little judgement because of the judgement the world has already loaded on her life. I believe I will be thinking about this book for some time and really appreciated it.
4.5 stars

Quotes: "I did no more than find a friend and all the world's malice came rushing in."
"All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."

Gail wrote: "As Kristel articulated above, it would be very difficult to review this book well.
In The Human Stain, Coleman Silk makes a reasonable decision given his life's ambitions and society'..."

Wonderful review/comments Gail, you should get paid for doing this so well.

This is a complicated book and unlike The Breast its place on the 1001 list is completely justified.

Roth takes a seemingly ordinary aging classics professor and turns his life on its head just because off the cuff he happens to use a word that can be taken out of context. From this point on we move backward and forwards through time piecing together a whole life history. A history which is nothing like what is apparently visible on the surface.

In this book Roth explores the American need to sanction others to feel better about yourself, sexism, racism, domestic abuse, scandal involving those in power and the lasting affects of the past down the generations.

While some of the characters are caricatures on the surface once you drill down there are some complicated machinations going on.

4 Stars - Worth reading to see how Roth juggles all the different perspectives in this book into a cohesive narrative where nothing is black and white.

Rating: 4 stars


The story of a professor who loses his job due to unintentionally using a racial epithet to refer to a couple of African American students. Ironically, he is African American himself, but has chosen to hide his true identity. In so doing, he has also estranged himself from his family.

Overall, one of Roth's better books.

****
A classics professor loses his job in disgrace after allegedly making a racist comment about some of his absent students; Coleman Silk's life then spirals down to a fatal end, after which one of his secrets is unveiled which could have changed his whole story. This novel touches so many themes and is quite complex in its development and its structure; this is not a very linear story, lots of movements from past to present. Nevertheless, without revealing too much of the punchline, its main themes echoes the subject matter of the novels from Nella Larsen (Quicksand and especially Passing). This was the best novel from Roth I have read so far.