The Human Stain Critical Essay | Critical Review by Rita D. Jacobs

Critical Review by Rita D. Jacobs

SOURCE: Jacobs, Rita D. Review of The Human Stain, by Philip Roth. World Literature Today 75, no. 1 (winter 2001): 116.

In the following review, Jacobs provides a laudatory assessment of The Human Stain.

Philip Roth has long been one of the great chroniclers of contemporary American life. There have been a few less-than-great novels, but from Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint through American Pastoral, Roth has given us quintessential portraits of men in their times. In The Human Stain he is at the height of his powers. In fact, at one point he has his narrator and recurring alter ego Nathan Zuckerman tell us, “For better or worse I can only do what everyone does who thinks they know. I imagine. I am forced to imagine. It happens to be what I do for a living. It is my job. It's now all I do.” And indeed, Roth's imagination...
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