The Human Stain - Philip Roth

It gets everywhere (761 words)
by demosthenes - written on 04/10/01, updated on 04/10/01 (Very useful, 361 readings)
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of the human being, his compassion, expressed again and again in his lively novels, for the ordinary human being caught up in the complicated endeavour of living. Roth, and Zuckerman, reveal that the purification of Coleman Silk lies not in the revelation of his secret but the appropriation of it by others. Coleman, who has fashioned himself into an enlightened man, has been transformed by Athena College into a racist. By taking his fabricated identity away from him and shaping it as they choose, his family, friends and colleagues destroy Coleman. For Coleman, his affair with Faunia is a rejuvenation: “This was a new Coleman,” says Zuckerman, “Or ...

The Dying Animal - Philip Roth

Sex and death - no rock and roll (834 words)
by demosthenes - written on 11/09/01, updated on 02/11/01 (Very useful, 195 readings)
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take her hair in his hand, twist it into a knot and literally eff the ineffable ... her face. This scene, brilliantly paced by Roth, is the lynchpin of the novel, the scene in which we see the power shifting, in an act of such brutal power play, from Kepesh to Consuela, when she first allows him to do this to her, and then snaps her teeth at him, signalling the extent of her forbearance and the economy of exchange that he has pulled them both into. Disturbing and unsettling, this scene informs and enables the rest of the novel, which is the story of the madness for Consuela that grips Kepesh. Written as a long monologue from Kepesh, this novel is short but ...