tylermcgaughey 's review for:

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

5.0

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Stunningly good. This is truly what I once heard a slightly bumbling English professor call a 'summa novel:' a summation of the author's greatest and gravest concerns in one potent brew. Maybe another way to put it would be to say that there's plenty of material here for any Lit Studies major to unpack. I used to be vocally against any kind of obvious symbolism or thematic portents (Why can't a crow just be a fucking crow? and so on) but damn if I wasn't impressed by Roth's stable of themes here: you've got the crows mentioned above; blowjobs; blood; Greek tragedy; the way things used to be in old New Jersey (see also: [b:American Pastoral|11650|American Pastoral|Philip Roth|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1203002984s/11650.jpg|598119]); secrets and confessions; etc. And this is to say nothing of the character-building he does with the four principals, which is some of the most vivid, intense writing I've seen in a Philip Roth book. Just great stuff all around. Far and away the best thing I've read by this old fart.