The Human Stain

By: Phillip Roth

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser.

Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for 50 years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing private history is, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, "magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history of modern America."

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Philip Roth's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Judith Thurman about the life and work of Philip Roth – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.

©2001 Philip Roth (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"In American literature today, there's Philip Roth, and then there's everybody else." (Chicago Tribune)

“By turns unnerving, hilarious, and sad…. It is a book that shows how the public zeitgeist can shape, even destroy, an individual’s life…. Not only a philosophic bookend to American Pastoral but a large and stirring book as well. (The New York Times)

Less Dramatic than the Title Implies

The title, and Roth's prestige, had me thinking this was going to be an extremely heavy-handed novel and was actually relieved when I found the plot and the characters deep enough to swim in but not be drowned by. I thought about them long after I finished the book and I found it all to be paced very nicely. I had no trouble getting into the story at its start and then when I realized it was about something entirely different than I had first supposed I was hooked. I know this review may be a little abstract but I don't want to mislead or give anything away. This book is a window into a time and place--a life much like any other where ordinary things happen and the main characters and the society we share with them are what are fascinating--not some epic drama about a Big Event.

I did not find the academic parts of this book pretentious or inaccessible because it seemed Roth was pointing an almost self-deprecating finger at institutionalized education. He did this both through the narrator's character--which was one of literary accomplishment and social seclusion--and also through his unfavorable depiction of (some) university politics.

Anyway, that's not what makes this story wonderful nor at all what it is about. It brings questions of identity gently to the surface through dark water and then suddenly yanks them free for all to see and poke at and inquire upon--all while maintaining this conspiratorial relationship between the narrator and the reader, as if we are the only ones in on the secret and must ponder our own choices and identities alone.

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

HUMAN STAIN

Figuratively, Phillip Roth skins an onion in his book, The Human Stain. He exposes the insidious nature of discrimination in a story about a college professor’s life.

In a Buddhist’ way, Roth’s story stings the eyes of wisdom and the material world. The Human Stain offers layers of truth about human nature; Roth gives examples like President Clinton’s contretemps with Monica Lewinsky; stories of a “free” but tainted press; the many forms of discrimination, and incidents of female sexual exploitation. Each peel of the onion reveals a layer of stinging truth about human beings in a material world.

By the end of The Human Stain, one is reminded of the biblical phrase, “he who is without sin can cast the first stone”. Roth’s story infers every lie (and we are all liars) leaves a stain; every human experience leaves an imprint, some of which are stains; others, the building blocks of life.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Spooky how Roth bends the edge of the possible

Reading Roth is almost a spooky, sexual experience. I say that knowing this will sound absurd, trite and probably hyperbolic. But with Roth, his words are imbued with an almost carnal power, a spectral courage, energy and life. IT is like watching an absurdly talented musician do things with an instrument/with sound that bends the edge of possible.

Reading Roth, I can understand how the audience in Paganini 's time wanted to burn the man for witchcraft, feared the man for his deal with the Devil. I'm not sure who Roth sold his soul to, but Roth's run of novels: Operation Shylock (1993) Sabbath's Theater (1995) >> American Pastoral (1997) >> I Married a Communist (1998) >> The Human Stain (2000) can only be thought of as the greatest series of novels produced by ANY writer at anytime. Maybe Shakespeare had a better run. Maybe Proust. Maybe. For me, these five novels, ending with 'The Human Stain' are the apex of 20th Century writing. Spooky.

29 of 31 people found this review helpful

Insightful Analysis of Human Mature and Society

I have always wanted to read the Human Stain and had never gotten around to it. No wish I got here sooner. Roth does and excellent job of weaving together disparate members of the human community and looking at the same event from their widely varying points of view. The novel causes reflection on events in ones own life as it is universal in nature. The narrator only enhances an exceptional work of art.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Powerful! If you love Philip Roth

It is a typical Philip Roth book. Powerful, well-written, has multiple narratives, presents different points of view.

It is never about who is write or wrong in the conflict. It is not "who'd done it". Roth tells you how the story ends in the first part of the book. No surprises in actions. It is the characters who surprise you after you get a deeper glimpse into their internal world.

You need to get used to the narrator, the slight frustration I had went away after the first 10 min.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Very good!

What can I say? This is Philip Roth, and this is one of his most famous novels. A very intricate, intriguing story which absorbs the reader (in this case the listener) without any fail. The reader is somewhat restrained but in a positive way. He doesn't try to imitate too many characters as some audio book performers use to. I really enjoyed this audio book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

If you love lots of pontification....

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If there were more action.

Has The Human Stain turned you off from other books in this genre?

I like books about this subject but once the characters and problems are extablished, the story needs to go forward at more than a snail's pace.

6 of 9 people found this review helpful

Thought-provoking

Good story. Very thought provoking. I wish I hadn't heard the narrator swallow so much. :/

4 of 6 people found this review helpful

Much ado about nothing

I honestly struggled to finish the book. I am a reader and if this novel had been in my hand, I would have put it down without finishing. At some point, I felt like shouting, over the literal noise of endless over description, " OK!!!Ok!!! I get it!"
All the earmarks of a book that college lit majors will be forced to read under the guise, "Masterpiece." Thank God for this narrator's adept performance. I could never have completed it on my own.

9 of 14 people found this review helpful

A masterpiece, without equal.

With his trademark silken, symphonic prose, Roth has created a compelling page-turner that threads through and weaves together the great themes of 20th century America. The writing is effortlessly lyrical, yet the novel never deviates from being, in the end, a great, great story. Much has been made of the book’s big “secret” or “surprise”; I defy anyone to limit themselves to being shaken only once, especially since that big reveal comes only 1/3 of the way through the book.