kellyelizabeth27 's review for:

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

4.0

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I wish I could give this 3.5 stars. It's an interesting story about a college professor from W. Mass. who resigns in the middle of a scandal - he is accused of racism. His real secret, though, is much more complex. The story is told by author Nathan Zuckerman, who befriends the professor, learns of his secrets, and tries to reconstruct the story in a novel. At times, the story inhabits the p.o.v. of each character, what's driving them. At other times, Zuckerman and other characters wonder how you can ever know someone else, what it was like to be the professor, etc. The book is well-written on a page-by-page basis, but I'm not so into the structure, don't feel like I got a sense of the narrator as a character... I don't know, I liked but didn't love the book. And am remarkably inarticulate about it.