And may I be the first to say that I really do not share Professor Hungerford's admiration for this book, which I thought was self indulgent, incredibly sexist, racist in many respects, and lacking in the kind of language that often makes Roth's books so evocative. (By contrast, I really liked his more recent book, The Plot Against America, and have a lasting affection for Goodbye Columbus, Pornoy's Complaint, and even The Breast.)

I particularly disagreed with Hungerford's contention at the end of her second lecture that Roth's purported ability to communicate to other people his sexist white male character in language somehow makes up for his complete inability to understand or write about women (or, in my view, about African Americans and race). That logic doesn't hold up for me. That Joseph Goebbels could use compelling language hardly makes up for his hate filled anti Semitic world view, for example, and certainly doesn't give his language merit.

Hopefully someone out there completely disagrees and sees all the fine points of this book. Please jump in!

Not me! I've only got The Plot Against America to compare The Human Stain with in terms of Roth's work, and well, at least I didn't have to force myself through The Plot Against America. I have to admit that I skimmed about the last 20-30 pages of The Human Stain, just to get it over with.

As far as divorcing the value of the language from the value of the message, I suppose that's an exercise you could get into if you really felt the need, but I really haven't (in my limited sample) found Roth's use of language compelling enough to warrant it. About the only passages that really stuck out to me were the dance between Nathan and Coleman and the description of the pianist at the recital. All the passages about Faunia left me cold, and anything about Delphine Roux made me want to hurl the book across the room.

That, actually, was where Roth lost me, initially - the first extended passage about Delphine Roux. I much prefer characters to caricatures, and Delphine was one of the more ridiculous caricatures I've had the misfortune to be exposed to in recent reading. I find the degree of laziness involved in writing a character like that distasteful.

According to Hungerford, it is more than laziness -- apparently Roth self identifies himself as a sexist white guy with no interest in a woman's point of view. Which makes me wonder why he feels such a drive to write from a supposed woman's point of view. The result is caricature (Delphine, even Coleman's sister) or incoherence -- what the heck was with Faunia and the crow?. I was incredibly offended, too, by the repeated suggestions that Faunia's history of child molestation made her more sexy. And I really lost all sympathy for Coleman when he gratuitously rejected his mother. For life.

How, by the way, about the insensitivity and general obnoxiousness of the idea that it is understandably hard for Vietnam vets to deal with Chinese restaurants? Ridiculous, speaking as a person who grew up in a town full of Nam vets, and so offensive to indicate all Asian people understandably look alike -- and cook alike -- from a non Asian person's point of view.

I was really irritated by the idea, too, that there was anything noble or brave or free spirited about Coleman, who clung to his secret long past the time it had any relevance at all to anyone in his liberal academic milieu.

I think one interesting thing about this book, like On the Road, is the clear homosexual eroticism in the relationship between the male characters. I think that is one reason why the dance scene (and, I thought, the Tanglewood concert) are bright spots in this dreary book. I liked Hungerford's discussion of this aspect of the book, too.

I have not read this book but I have read his 50s and 60s novels and I just could not understand them. They seemed to be called in from a different universe. I just can't find any common ground with Roth. Oddly enough I feel the same way about Eli Roth's movies.

I agree about the lack of common ground with Roth, arse_hat. What I liked most about The Plot Against America was its rich sense of place, and the fact that that place was a small city. I think I remember someone calling it "a love letter to Newark of the '30s." I love cities, and am always happy to read about cities that aren't New York, LA or San Francisco, which take up a lot of the urban literary landscape.

bearwife, I agree with you on the offensiveness of much of this book. I really find myself not wanting to think about how distasteful I found so many of the ideas underpinning it, and how little redeeming quality I found in it otherwise. This is possibly not so helpful to conversation, unfortunately.

I did find Nathan's reflections on aging and mortality affecting, in that they were very telling about his character, and one of the few moments where I felt like I was able to make some kind of connection with the book. His rejection of social interaction, his push-pull relationship with accepting aging and raging against it, his envy of and attraction to Coleman's vitality, these gave me an idea of who Nathan is meant to be as a person that I found largely lacking from pretty much every other character in the book.

I think the problem may be that the only really interesting character, and non-offensive character, is Nathan himself. The book is so consumed with his cartoons of others that we miss his voice. Prof. Hungerford says this novel is an innovative reworking of the "identity" novel, but I think that is in fact what it is missing. Nathan's identity is most interesting, but unexplored. Coleman's supposed identity is at best not interesting and at worst incredibly offensive.

Yeah, I'm not sure I see the innovation here, with respect to the identity plot. I can see the multiple layers of the mechanics of that plot that Hungerford sets out in the first lecture, so I can understand from a technical perspective why this book might be included in a curriculum addressing the identity plot, but ultimately I don't care about Coleman's identity because I don't believe in him as a fully realized character.

I went back to the passage at the end of the second lecture where Hungerford discusses why she likes Roth, and this struck me:

I read to see what I'm not, not to see what I am, and so Roth's very difference from me, his misogyny, is part of what allows me to feel that I am entering, however partially, however always in a compromised way, into the consciousness of another person through that beautiful, amazing medium of language.

I realized that I do think she's right about Roth's language allowing a passage into his consciousness - but far more, in this case, his consciousness than his characters. And this crystalized part of my problem with this book: even setting aside the fact that entering into Roth's consciousness was distasteful to me, for a number of reasons, I really prefer novels where the author is not at the forefront in this way. I don't quite know how to put it, but I like the authorial voice to be in service to the story and the characters. It's a problem I have with DeLillo -- I don't believe in the characters, I don't get invested in them, because the author is almost intrusively present. It's not the author's consciousness I want a route into, its their characters'.

I think you are right and that may be why autobiographies are tough to pull off. By contast, narrator driven novels often work very well. I just read The Book Thief, which did that superbly, and am in the midst of Before I Go to Sleep, which does equally well. In this syllabus, Lolita is also an enormously successful use of a narrator voice, rather than the author's intrusions. I also think Hungerford's premise is just wrong for me -- the last thing I want is entree into the consciousness of an unrepentant bigot. Nor, like you, was I much wowed in this particular book by Roth's use of language.

I loved The Book Thief so much I couldn't put down and banged up my borrowed copy so badly dragging it everywhere I went that I had to buy a new one to return to the friend who lent it to me. I purged The Human Stain by reading Neverwhere, and Gaiman's kickass female characters were an effective antidote to Roth.

The Book Thief was wonderful, wasn't it? I'm into The Tigers Wife now. And I will add Neverwhere to my future reading list.. Hoping the next book in the Hungerford syllabus doesn't need to be washed away!

The Tiger's Wife is on my list, thanks to AskMe, I think. Would love to know if you think it's worth reading.

So far, it is great. Slow read, but great. Will give you an update when I am further in.