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r

HOT DOGS

NATURAL CASING OR SKINLESS

Zuckerman, what Hawthorne long
for the lies we tell about ourselves, to
ago identified as "the persecuting spir-
ourselves, and to the public. Roth also
it" is chillingly alive — not only in
explored and played with a host of dif-
Washington but across the country,
ferent self-deceptions in American
even in the small New. England college
Pastoral and I Married a Communist,
of Athena. There, former dean and
the two novels written immediately
classics professor Coleman Silk has
prior to The Human Stain.
retired in disgrace under charges of
Together, Roth has said, these three
racism and misogyny.
novels form a thematic trilogy, each
Enraged at the injustice, Coleman
one focusing on the impact of a par-
demands that Zuckerman — who
ticular historic period, in the first the
himself has retired from most human
Vietnam War, in the second the
contact, living as he does in a secluded
McCarthy era of the 1950s, and, final-
cabin near the college — vindicate
ly, the new moral Puritanism that
him by writing the true story. Thus
closed the century just ended.
begins their friendship —and the slow
Taken together, they also define,
unraveling of
with thunderous clarity,
Coleman's long list of
Roth's bleak vision of the
other secrets.
stain all humanity bears.
The obvious secret
It is, he writes, "in
— the one most easi-
the universal hard drive
ly uncovered and that
everlasting and
gets the town wags
undeletable, the sign of
going — is the 71-
the viciousness of the
year-old Coleman's
human creature."
affair with 34-year-
And that same blem-
old Faunia Farley.
ish is reflected in the
Molested in child-
gods we worship,
hood by her stepfa-
whether Greek or
ther, then abused in
Christian or Jewish.
adulthood by her
Some have suggested
crazed Vietnam veter-
that a model for
an ex-husband, final- Philip Roth (as the young
Coleman "Silky" Silk,
author of 1959's "Goodbye,
ly torn apart emo-
Roth's silkily slippery
tionally by the deaths Columbus'): Through the
protagonist, was Anatole
decades, Roth's ruthlessly
of her two young
Broyard. The well-
ambivalent portraits have
children in an apart-
known author and New
drawn upon the author much
ment fire, Faunia
ire from the Jewish community. York Times Book Review
views the world with
editor, it was discovered
a tough-minded,
after his death, was not
primitive, passionate realism.
white, as he had let people (or led
Uneducated and illiterate, she works
them to) assume; he was black. But
as a part-time janitor at the college and
Roth is never so simple, or literal. And
earns her board by milking cows for a
the actual color of Coleman's skin is
local organic dairy. This Dionysian
not as pertinent as Roth's larger point.
couple cannot help but arouse the
Rather, Coleman's is the deeply
wrath of staid Athena's Greek chorus
human drama that pits the need to
of avenging professors, a set of Furies
realize one's individual ambitions —
led by the resonantly named, and
the singularity of the "I" Roth calls it
scathingly satirized, Delphine Roux.
here — against the demands of the
Still, as Zuckerman, a master
larger ethnic, religious, national or
observer of the surface of people's
family "we."
lives, wisely observes, "our under-
What turns the struggle tragic,
standing of people must always be at
Roth demonstrates, is our failure to
best slightly wrong."
foresee that even as we attempt to
Moreover, what passes for truth is
escape the confines of the "we" into
even more slippery.
which each of us is born, we unwit-
And so it is that, layer by layer,
tingly build different prisons. When
Zuckerman discovers that the deeper,
we throw off the bonds that tie us to
unspoken secrets that Coleman, Faunia,
our past, we not only become "lost to
even Delphine work so hard to conceal
all our people" — as Coleman's sister
in their outwardly convincing presenta-
eulogizes her brother — we also lose
tions of themselves — as distinguished
part of ourselves.
Jewish professor, illiterate sensualist and
And when that happens, Roth shows
successful academic careerist — make
us in this richly textured masterwork,
imposters of them all.
our fate is sealed, as blind-sided strangers
There are many different reasons
in a strange land, once more. ❑

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