Philip Roth is one of America's most prolific and successful authors. Many critics have marked him as a likely recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature at some point during the coming years. When the New York Times asked hundreds of the most prominent critics, writers, and editors to pick the best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years, six of Roth's novels made the top spot repeatedly. The essay accompanying the results of this survey stated that "[i]f we had asked for the single best writer of fiction over the past 25 years, [Roth] would have won."
Roth was born in 1933 and grew up near Newark, NJ--much like the protagonists of The Human Stain and many other Roth novels. Roth was recognized as a great writer at a young age, publishing Goodbye, Columbus in 1959 (when he was just 26). After receiving the National Book Award for this volume in 1960, he went on to publish a number of other texts that form the fundament of postwar American literary fiction. From 1969's Portnoy's Complaint to 1979's The Ghost Writer to more recent works, such as American Pastoral (1998), The Plot Against America (2004), and The Human Stain (2000), Roth has managed to write books richly evocative of the era in which his readers live.
The book we'll be reading in class--The Human Stain--is one of Roth's more recent, but it manifests many of the themes that have preoccupied the author since the beginning of his career. The complexities of race in America is a primary subject in the novel, as is the relationship between men and women and the way they negotiate the vagaries of power in their sexual relationships. Roth is also deeply interested in the links between autobiography and writing, as well as those between the family and the individual, in The Human Stain. As you read The Human Stain, think of how its rendering of race and ethnicity compare to that portrayed in Beloved. What picture of contemporary America emerges in Roth's novel? What does it say about race, gender, and the academy--not to mention the links between Jewish and African American identity as symbolic poles in America's self-fashioning?
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Well since my alarm didn't go off for at least the 2nd time this year, I feel I should at least post a blog. Never use a phone alarm clock.
I first wanted to say that when The Human Stain has dialogue between characters, it runs a lot more smoothly. The back stories were frustratingly long.
My favorite quote or passage or probably most pertinent is when he listens to the lawyer talk down to him, and then explodes at him. Coleman says "I never again want to hear that self admiring voice of yours or see your smug fucking lily white face." I think this is important because it does bring up the issue of race again. Why lily white? It shows that Coleman may have some racism issues or just makes a bad habit of making off colored jokes. Coleman has definite cultural issues that he needs to address and needs to watch what he says, but I think he means well. I am thouroughly enjoying this book so far after about 170 pages.
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