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rc90041 's review for:
The Human Stain
by Philip Roth
Sadly, upon finishing this book, I’ve come again to the conclusion I came to many years ago: Philip Roth was a decent writer who had the misfortune of being wildly overrated, and therefore forever disappointing, and, in this book especially, overreaching his talents in an attempt to live up to his larger-than-life image. Philip Roth, in my view, is capable only of writing about Philip Roth. His attempts to capture the voices of women or anyone who is not a transparent stand-in for Philip Roth are often embarrassing.
It’s with regret that I say that I really can’t understand why this book was as praised as it was, other than because people felt Roth had written an “important” book about an “important” subject. But Roth’s imaginative limitations are on full display here, and it quickly becomes clear that Roth is not the author to shoulder the burden of writing a Great American Novel about the African-American experience in the twentieth century. Roth was at the height of his power in “Portnoy’s Complaint,” rhapsodizing about f*cking dinner meats; he’s lost and powerless here.
This is a misbegotten and cringe-inducing hot mess.
It’s with regret that I say that I really can’t understand why this book was as praised as it was, other than because people felt Roth had written an “important” book about an “important” subject. But Roth’s imaginative limitations are on full display here, and it quickly becomes clear that Roth is not the author to shoulder the burden of writing a Great American Novel about the African-American experience in the twentieth century. Roth was at the height of his power in “Portnoy’s Complaint,” rhapsodizing about f*cking dinner meats; he’s lost and powerless here.
This is a misbegotten and cringe-inducing hot mess.