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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
4.5 stelle.
Bravo. Bravo Roth. Questa è una lettura che ho apprezzato davvero tanto.
Se posso fare un appunto è che pecca troppo di lunghezza. E non intendo di pagine, io amo i libri lunghissimi, ma in quanto a descrizioni e passaggi a volte esagera. Si disperde e qualche volta il filo della narrazione ti viene a mancare. Roth riesce sempre a fartelo ritrovare, ma è comunque difficile da seguire in certi punti. Ci sono almeno cento pagine che probabilmente, omesse, non avrebbero alterato il corso della storia. A parte questo, però, Roth ha un talento nella scrittura non indifferente, oserei quasi dire sublime. E' in grado di irrompere nella tua mente e sconvolgerti. Inserisce dei colpi di scena che fino all'ultimo non vedi arrivare, sono come schiaffi in faccia, ti lasciano stordito. Uno Scrittore con la S maiuscola, che non vedo l'ora di riprendere in mano nel 2019 (magari prima leggerò altro, però, perché la scalata è stata lunga e faticosa).
Bravo. Bravo Roth. Questa è una lettura che ho apprezzato davvero tanto.
Se posso fare un appunto è che pecca troppo di lunghezza. E non intendo di pagine, io amo i libri lunghissimi, ma in quanto a descrizioni e passaggi a volte esagera. Si disperde e qualche volta il filo della narrazione ti viene a mancare. Roth riesce sempre a fartelo ritrovare, ma è comunque difficile da seguire in certi punti. Ci sono almeno cento pagine che probabilmente, omesse, non avrebbero alterato il corso della storia. A parte questo, però, Roth ha un talento nella scrittura non indifferente, oserei quasi dire sublime. E' in grado di irrompere nella tua mente e sconvolgerti. Inserisce dei colpi di scena che fino all'ultimo non vedi arrivare, sono come schiaffi in faccia, ti lasciano stordito. Uno Scrittore con la S maiuscola, che non vedo l'ora di riprendere in mano nel 2019 (magari prima leggerò altro, però, perché la scalata è stata lunga e faticosa).
Meine Meinung über dieses Buch schwankte während der Lektüre immer wieder. Sprachlich gefiel es mir sehr. Thematisch sehr weit gestreut hat mich nicht alles wirklich interessiert, allerdings war es meiner Meinung nach am Ende doch rund.
this was….. lame. i’ve got mixed feelings but overall i thought it was pretty lame.
roth is right about a lot of things. he’s also wrong about a lot of things. he’s right, for example, about american purity culture and its absurdity. but there’s so much going on in this book that i found so tiresome and pretentious and uninteresting. for such a genuinely talented novelist and prose writer, i found it to be shockingly heavy-handed about its messages, first off. the lack of subtlety is painful in some places and it becomes sooooo evident on multiple occasions that roth is using his characters as mouthpieces to preach about the current state of our world. this was especially apparent to me in ernestine’s monologue near the end, but it shows up in a lot of places and i found it embarrassing. especially because a lot of the preaching was “back in my day we didn't have to worry about 'political correctness' and these damn kids took responsibility and didn’t blame the establishment for their struggles”…. etc. okay. so much of it is just SO self indulgent and it’s painful. multiple times the author just could not resist directly spelling out what the characters and their relationships are meant to represent and symbolize. that part where ernestine talks about the man who bled to death and roth feels the need to be like “oh hey this kinda sounds like the irony in COLEMAN’S story!”…. sir, do you think i’m dumb. i know. i could have figured that out. trust your readers!
the entire storyline about false accusations of racism is just… tired. it feels dismissive and mean-spirited when there is so much racism to dissect in academia. instead, he creates a false scenario that is SO absurd just to highlight how white professors are the real victims of these new “political correctness police” going on a witch hunt. it’s silly. it’s not accurate. it’s not helping anybody. this kind of thing doesn’t happen. you know what DOES happen? countless non white students being pushed out of academia because it is such a fundamentally racist and uncomfortable atmosphere. and to that end, the elephant in the room and coleman’s secret: i don’t care what a white man has to say about race relations in america. i just do not, and for him to write this whole book trying to examine it was a choice. to me the commentary was very clearly lacking because there’s a lot he doesn’t know, COULDN’T know because this is not his lived experience. so what’s the point? it’s half baked anyway, even if he writes about it with a wince-worthy zeal and over-familiarity.
speaking of lacking commentary. Oh My God i have never read a book that fails the bechdel test quite as miserably as this one does. these female characters are beyond atrocious. every single woman in this book (w/ the exception of like, coleman’s sister and mother) either is sleeping with him or wants to sleep with him. delphine is very clearly supposed to be an angry feminist punchline. faunia is the only woman the narrative respects and it’s at the expense of every single possible trauma a woman can endure. of course she was molested. of course. there’s no other way for a woman to be traumatized. there’s no other backstory a woman can have. the endless descriptions of delphine’s short skirt and thighs and faunia’s breasts and her “unmistakably female neck” and it just goes on and on and it’s so dehumanizing and it’s boring as FUCK. yeah yeah, it’s satire. i recognize that roth was trying to satirize misogyny. i just also think he has a lot of misogyny of his own that he doesn’t even seem to be entirely aware of and it bleeds ALL over his female characters and his attempts at sexist commentary. like it is dripping blood. it’s very bad.
i give it two stars because this is a really intricate and interesting story and the writing is beautiful (whenever he isn’t talking about a woman.) i’m not about to deny that this man can write. he’s killer. i'm intrigued by it as a product of its time, a portrait of the clinton-lewinsky era america; more than i'm exactly offended, i'm inquisitive about what this book can tell us about roth, about race and gender in writing (how not to do it, I suppose), about "great american novelists," about the time it was written. maybe i got unlucky and i’d like other roth better—this was my first and i read it for a class. i don’t know if i care enough to try.
if you want to read a story about the american 1990s, read little fires everywhere. if you want to read a story about black americans who pass as white, read nella larsen. if you want to read about half decent female characters, read……. literally anything else.
roth is right about a lot of things. he’s also wrong about a lot of things. he’s right, for example, about american purity culture and its absurdity. but there’s so much going on in this book that i found so tiresome and pretentious and uninteresting. for such a genuinely talented novelist and prose writer, i found it to be shockingly heavy-handed about its messages, first off. the lack of subtlety is painful in some places and it becomes sooooo evident on multiple occasions that roth is using his characters as mouthpieces to preach about the current state of our world. this was especially apparent to me in ernestine’s monologue near the end, but it shows up in a lot of places and i found it embarrassing. especially because a lot of the preaching was “back in my day we didn't have to worry about 'political correctness' and these damn kids took responsibility and didn’t blame the establishment for their struggles”…. etc. okay. so much of it is just SO self indulgent and it’s painful. multiple times the author just could not resist directly spelling out what the characters and their relationships are meant to represent and symbolize. that part where ernestine talks about the man who bled to death and roth feels the need to be like “oh hey this kinda sounds like the irony in COLEMAN’S story!”…. sir, do you think i’m dumb. i know. i could have figured that out. trust your readers!
the entire storyline about false accusations of racism is just… tired. it feels dismissive and mean-spirited when there is so much racism to dissect in academia. instead, he creates a false scenario that is SO absurd just to highlight how white professors are the real victims of these new “political correctness police” going on a witch hunt. it’s silly. it’s not accurate. it’s not helping anybody. this kind of thing doesn’t happen. you know what DOES happen? countless non white students being pushed out of academia because it is such a fundamentally racist and uncomfortable atmosphere. and to that end, the elephant in the room and coleman’s secret: i don’t care what a white man has to say about race relations in america. i just do not, and for him to write this whole book trying to examine it was a choice. to me the commentary was very clearly lacking because there’s a lot he doesn’t know, COULDN’T know because this is not his lived experience. so what’s the point? it’s half baked anyway, even if he writes about it with a wince-worthy zeal and over-familiarity.
speaking of lacking commentary. Oh My God i have never read a book that fails the bechdel test quite as miserably as this one does. these female characters are beyond atrocious. every single woman in this book (w/ the exception of like, coleman’s sister and mother) either is sleeping with him or wants to sleep with him. delphine is very clearly supposed to be an angry feminist punchline. faunia is the only woman the narrative respects and it’s at the expense of every single possible trauma a woman can endure. of course she was molested. of course. there’s no other way for a woman to be traumatized. there’s no other backstory a woman can have. the endless descriptions of delphine’s short skirt and thighs and faunia’s breasts and her “unmistakably female neck” and it just goes on and on and it’s so dehumanizing and it’s boring as FUCK. yeah yeah, it’s satire. i recognize that roth was trying to satirize misogyny. i just also think he has a lot of misogyny of his own that he doesn’t even seem to be entirely aware of and it bleeds ALL over his female characters and his attempts at sexist commentary. like it is dripping blood. it’s very bad.
i give it two stars because this is a really intricate and interesting story and the writing is beautiful (whenever he isn’t talking about a woman.) i’m not about to deny that this man can write. he’s killer. i'm intrigued by it as a product of its time, a portrait of the clinton-lewinsky era america; more than i'm exactly offended, i'm inquisitive about what this book can tell us about roth, about race and gender in writing (how not to do it, I suppose), about "great american novelists," about the time it was written. maybe i got unlucky and i’d like other roth better—this was my first and i read it for a class. i don’t know if i care enough to try.
if you want to read a story about the american 1990s, read little fires everywhere. if you want to read a story about black americans who pass as white, read nella larsen. if you want to read about half decent female characters, read……. literally anything else.
Roth's writing flows well enough and reads pretty naturally, aside from the odd conspicuous phrase here or there. The characters were certainly well felt-out, but not all that compelling, and the same thing can be said for the plot. The ending fell a bit flat, like Roth was clearly going for some poignancy in his last few sentences and just missed it, and it sort of left the entire final scene sitting unpolished as a result. In all, not a bad way to spend a few days.
I thought it was a well written story that wove its way through a man's life. But, I knew the secret from the beginning, so it wasn't a huge reveal.
Also, I thought the stories about some of the other people in his life were too long and went too far off topic.
Also, I thought the stories about some of the other people in his life were too long and went too far off topic.
Gave up. I don't know, men and their untiring, world-siring sex drives just don't hook me. Lots of male mythologizing going on. No thanks.
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Maria and I read to each other. I am reading Fever Pitch to her, she was reading The Human Stain to me. We tend to read to each other every second Sunday morning, laying around in bed. Every second Sunday because we don't have the kids for the whole weekend. This means, as we also take it in turns to read, that it takes a bit of time to get through a book when you only read it aloud for three hours, every four weeks.
It has taken, about, six months to get through The Human Stain and the book hasn't suffered because of this longness length of time. In fact the book is ideal for this type of reading. It deals with several main characters, taking its time to build up their background, their history, leading up to the way that their stories layer into the whole plot.
I liked the way the author writes - in fact, like it so much that I am now reading another of his books - he slowly reveals information that can change the whole way you look at the book. One minute you can be hating a character and then, 30 pages later, you understand why the character did what they did. By the end of the book you really want to grab most of the characters by the shoulders and give them a good shake - tell them to read the book and then they will understand the other people's motives. Of course this is impossible - they are characters - but for me (and this is all about me, me, me) I liked the fact that you felt you could meet the characters, they were all plausible people.
A very enjoyable book (and exceptionally well read, thank you).
A disappointing read. Such a good premise for a story but so badly delivered. Roth gets too caught up in demonstrating his proficiency with the English language rather than telling the God damn story. Someone needs to teach this guy how to use a full stop. There were moments of good story telling sprinkled throughout but they were too sparse to give this book anything other than a big thumbs down.
It was for school. I didn’t love the writing nor the characters but the story is interesting…maybe one day ?
medium-paced