A Literary Life

The Human Stain (Philip Roth)

This novel by the acclaimed and Pulitzer-prize winning author Philip Roth is the tale of an aging college professor beset by false claims of racism, involved in a (some say) tawdry affair with a cleaning woman and a (supposedly) Jewish man with a secret, all set against the Lewinsky scandal of the Clinton presidency. But I have just a few things to point out:

1. People do not talk in complete paragraphs
2. There is a certain word count, despite commas, where a sentence should end
3. Readers do not like giveaways as to who will die or what secrets will be revealed without time to suss out these possibilities themselves
4. Readers do not like authors to tell them the significance of such deaths or secrets in a pedantic, lecturing way by the author instead of (again) coming to such conclusions themselves

An interesting plot line, over-dissected characters, a great author and bad editing. That’s all I have to say of this long yet uninspiring book.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Vacation reading

Fiction |