The Human Stain (The American Trilogy, #3) in Around the World in 80 Books

Oct 25, 2014 Bogdan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-world

A book that you cannot ignore, with a big density of ideas and full of major problems of America in 20th century. I can totally understand those readers that could not appreciate it too high, as the narrative is not the main focus of the book. These are themes of racial identity, social (mis)adaptation or American puritanism. And instead of being a result of the narration, they become the main actors, making way for long reflection passages on these ideas.

They are also forming the premise. A big A book that you cannot ignore, with a big density of ideas and full of major problems of America in 20th century. I can totally understand those readers that could not appreciate it too high, as the narrative is not the main focus of the book. These are themes of racial identity, social (mis)adaptation or American puritanism. And instead of being a result of the narration, they become the main actors, making way for long reflection passages on these ideas.

They are also forming the premise. A big, important premise, as these ideas are fundamental topics for modern society, some of them even to this day. Thus my rating is 5 for premise.

Regarding the form, the regular writer would have chosen to stage these ideas as natural conclusions of the epic story that it is presented. Philip Roth chosen otherwise and did not feared to interrupt the narration (or delay its start) until some of these ideas are discussed in detail. Apart from that, the narrator choice is quite unusual, as in the chapters presenting other characters past, the narrator shifts to a third person omniscient one. As I am not a big fan of philosophical novel, I will rate it with a 2 for form.

In terms of originality, there are not too many daring authors to write so openly about these hot issues, like race identity and segregation or mocking American puritanism applied to all forms of social interaction. So I will give it a 5 for the level of originality.

The characters are one of the best in modern literature. Philip Roth is a master of psychological introspection and it can create veridical characters even for the side ones. I'll rate it with another 5.

Regarding the complexity and difficulty, I feel the novel has a lot of messages to tell, some obvious and other hidden under a thin layer of fiction. But all these messages require the reader to meditate and think about them. It also has a lot of references to 20th century events and people that it makes it hard to read without at least being interested in that period. Thus, I will rate it then with a 4 for complexity and difficulty.

In terms of credibility, I've visited once USA and I am daily exposed to values, models and cultural products of that society. I can say without hurting anyone that Philip Roth got it like no other had made. Yes, these are the biggest problems of contemporary US and this is why, my rating for credibility is 5.

The last criteria is edition. My Romanian translation was not so full of exotic words (as other reviewers complain for the original edition). I would have liked that the editor would publish it in a bigger format, this pocket paperback making it a big novel, hard to manipulate. I will rate it with a 2.

To summarize, I enjoyed this novel, but you need to have patience with it. As you progress with the reading, more and more interesting ideas appear and in the end, make up for the lost pleasure of reading a great epic story. All in all, my final rating for it is 4.00, which require no rounding on Goodreads system.


+--------------------------+-----------------+
| Criteria | Rating |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Premise | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Form | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Originality | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Characters | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Difficulty/Complexity | 4 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Credibility | 5 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Edition | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Total | 4.00 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+