'An extraordinary book - bursting with rage, humming with ideas, full of dazzling sleights of hand'- Sunday Telegraph Philip Roth's brilliant conclusion to his eloquent trilogy of post-war America - a magnificent successor to American Pastoral and I Married a Communist It is 1998, the year America is plunged into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town a distinguished classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues allege that he is a racist. The charge is unfounded, the persecution needless, but the truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who comes upon Silk's secret, and sets out to unearth his former buried life, piecing the biographical fragments back together. This is against backdrop of seismic shifts in American history, which take on real, human urgency as Zuckerman discovers more and more about Silk's past and his futile search for renewal and regeneration. ________________ PRAISE FOR THE HUMAN STAIN: 'One of the most beautiful books I've ever read' Red '[A] tender, shocking and incendiary story on the failure of the American dream refracted through the prism of race' Guardian 'A masterpiece' Mail on Sunday

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim, course: Narratives of passing in American Literature, 17 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This term paper will deal with one of these novels that fit both of the aforementioned criteria – it is hard to translate into a screen play and the filmic version did not receive much attention at the box-office with a tanking of only 5,000,000 US$ in the United States (The Human Stain [Box Office]). The subject under discussion is the contemporary novel THE HUMAN STAIN written by Philip Roth and first published in 2000. The novel tells the story of a former college professor, Coleman Silk, who resigns from his position after being misleadingly accused of racism. After the death of his wife he is willed to write a book about his life. At this point, the reader does not know that Coleman Silk is black himself but has been passing for white for over four decades, which tragically turns the whole situation of racial harassment into irony. In the year 2003, thus only three years after the novel had been published, the filmic version was released - an incredibly short period of time for the development, shooting and postproduction of a movie. Was it maybe too short? This term paper primarily focusses upon the passing strand of THE HUMAN STAIN, and, therefore, its adaptation to the big screen. Is it even possible to deliver an appropriate intermedia translation of such a highly complex plot as it is to be found in Philip Roth's novel from 2000? How did the author use race to express the actions and especially the misery of the main character Coleman Silk? In what way did Robert Benton depict Anthony Hopkin's character of the passing figure in the cinematic version? And most importantly, does the translation from book to script, and then finally, to film succeed in the end?

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0 (A), University of Potsdam (Anglistics/American Studies), course: Introduction to American Literature and Culture, 2 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: We live in a time in which conformity and adaptation are important constituents of social life. Integration into society and the obeying of established norms, which goes hand in hand with it, are often the precondition for the degree of acceptance and the recognition of the individual in society. This, however, means that forms of expression of personal nature, including ethnic, religious as well as general questions concerning the personal belief, have to be practiced in private or in secret, or even have to be completely suppressed because the stigma of being antisocial or immoral is quickly allocated. Especially when it comes to moral centrals issues, such as different opinions and individual actions which are directed at the public morals, these are often not accepted or even fought against. The freedom of the individual therefore too often drowns in the swamp of generality. Philip Roth has tackled this problematic issue in his novel “The Human Stain”. The main character, Coleman Silk, is badly criticised by the people around him for making a thoughtless comment on two of his students, and in his anger uses this as an opportunity to evade social grading once and for all; he decides only to pursue the fulfilment of his desires and ideas. But Coleman is not the only acting character in conflict with the expectations of the general majority. There is Faunia Farley, a cleaner at the local college, with whom Coleman fosters a secret love affair and who tries to escape from the brutal behaviour of her ex-husband. There is precisely that Lester Farley, the Vietnam veteran who cannot come to terms with his war memories and therefore is not able to return into society. Interesting is also Delphine Roux, the young and ambitious College professor, who sets in motion the conflict concerning the accusation of racism against Coleman. Finally, the character Nathan Zuckerman should be mentioned, the author of the story who, in search for isolation, finds exactly the opposite. Each of the characters mentioned above has to bear his own internal conflict which keeps them from integrating into society and leading a normal life in adaptation, in the in the safe close circle of moral.

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《人性的污秽》 It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser. “美国三部曲”的登峰之作，与前两部相比，小说中各元素之间更加制衡，更具整体性，对人性的探讨更加彻底。小说重磅炸弹似的主题，注定其成为各方评论的主题。

This doctoral thesis explores the image of the human stain in Philip Roth’s fiction. It examines four novels written by the Jewish American author: Sabbath’s Theater (1995), American Pastoral (1997), The Human Stain (2000) and The Dying Animal (2001). In addition, it looks at the shaping of the stain in one of his earliest works: “Epstein” (Goodbye, Columbus and other Stories, 1959).The human stain appears in Roth’s work as a mark on the skin, a spilling of bodily fluids, the undesired presence of something that, apparently, should not be there. As a literary resource it consists of a combination of images: menstrual blood, semen, feces, mud. Within the plot, the stain -in any of its shapes-becomes an obstacle for the characters, who have to face its reality. With the objective of understanding the meaning of this literary device, this thesis carries out a comparative analysis of the sources cited above, a study structured around three main points: the human stain as impurity; secondly, the stain as power to transgress; and finally, as the human expression of suffering, illness and death. With the support of Roth scholarship about the subjects of the body, transgression, desire and death, this thesis attempts to offer a new reading of Roth’s work, arguing that this resource is a lens through which it is possible to appreciate and understand some of the most controversial aspects of his work. Aware of the scandal that he provoked with his representation of Jews, women and the physical frailty of human beings at their most vulnerable, Roth used the resource of the stain precisely to write about the very feature that he thought most characterizes us as a species...

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Commentary (novels not included). Pages: 25. Chapters: American Pastoral, Deception (novel), Everyman (novel), Exit Ghost, Indignation (novel), I Married a Communist, Letting Go (novel), My Life As a Man, Nemesis (Philip Roth novel), Operation Shylock, Our Gang (novel), Portnoy's Complaint, Sabbath's Theater, The Anatomy Lesson (1983 novel), The Breast, The Counterlife, The Dying Animal, The Ghost Writer, The Great American Novel (Roth), The Human Stain, The Humbling, The Plot Against America, The Prague Orgy, The Professor of Desire, When She Was Good, Zuckerman Bound, Zuckerman Unbound. Excerpt: The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain. Zuckerman acts largely as an observer rather than the protagonist of the novel, who is Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics whose complex story is slowly revealed. A national bestseller, The Human Stain was adapted as a film by the same name directed by Robert Benton. Released in 2003, the film starred Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, and Gary Sinise. The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who lives quietly in New England, where Coleman Silk is his neighbor. Silk is a former classics professor and dean of faculty at nearby Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. At 71, Silk is accused of racism by two black students because of referring to them as "spooks." As they have never shown up in his seminar, he asks: "Do they exist or are they spooks?" Having never seen the students, Silk does not know they are black when he makes the comment. The...

Unmarked screenplay, undated. A retired professor unintentionally offends by making what was considered a racial slur. It turns out he is a mixed-race man who kept it a secret all of his adult life. First shown at the 2003 Venice Film Festival, it was released in the United States Oct. 31, 2003, by Miramax. Starred Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.