Book Review: The Human Stain by Philip Roth

While I was reading The Human Stain by Phillip Roth, I felt like I had to talk about it with someone, so I explained the premise to my brother, and my brother said something along the lines of, “How did he write so much—an entire novel—about that?!” Which basically sums up my feelings about this book. The central concept of the novel is very topical in our age of cancel culture and the rampant sanctimonious hypocrisy, and how Roth fleshed it out is mind-blowingly outrageous in an enjoyable way, but the story did drag on, and I think both the length and the structure of the novel were a disservice to the book.

The way the narrative is structured makes the middle bogged down with expository backstory. And then on page 259, the novel seemed to be over, and I was wondering “what more is there to say?,” and while the next hundred pages proved to me that there was more to wrap up and explain, the structure of the novel didn’t do the flow of the novel any favors.

Roth’s prose is simultaneously extremely wordy, very easy to read, and emotionless. At times, the writing would be on a roll, but then it would transition into a rant or equally uninteresting exposition. And the emphasis on lust and sex was so banal to me. Also, there were intentional POV switches that were jarring. The novel is written in first person, but “I” is used many times by more than just the narrator. I think the idea is that us readers are supposed to be so absorbed in that character’s stream-of-conscious thoughts that we don’t notice the switch that makes it more personal, but it didn’t work. Whenever another character would start being written in the first person “I” without dialogue to justify it, I would think it was a mistake until it happened too often with too many characters to be unintentional. 

But the actual story was fascinating and the social commentary often poignant and incredibly bold. And all the characters had a lot of depth. At times perhaps too much depth since not all of it pertained to the story. But it was impressive nonetheless. I thought Les Farley, the Vietnam veteran who was the most violent villain of the novel and the most tortured, was impressively characterized. Though he had so much PTSD he turned into a violent man, Roth made him a sympathetic character. I’m not sure if that was entirely on purpose, perhaps Roth was just trying to explain Farley’s motivations, but that alone made him into a human worthy of sympathy if not pardonable.

And now I’m left with the question of whether I want to read the rest of The American Trilogy by Roth (this book was technically the third in the trilogy, but if I understand correctly, the books are connected by the theme of social criticism rather than by story or plot). On one hand, the story struck me to the level that, like I said, I felt compelled to discuss it with someone else—and this book lends itself very well to discussion—but if his other books are anything like this one, there’s a lot to drudge through to get to the gems of social commentary and plot and occasionally literary prowess. If I decide it’s worth it, I’ll pick up American Pastoral, but this hasn’t convinced me to read every Roth novel he’s written.