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11 , 27/5/2010
(Finalizing: The Human Stain, part B)
Issue of writing, of the constructiveness of a novel
Focus on the narrator
Nathans role

P.337 I was completely seized by his story by its end and by its
beginning, and, then and there, I began this book
Is he reliable?
Or is he imagining?
Or is he seized by desire (erotic-elocutionary-structural)?
Is he desire only for the story or for Coleman too?

There will be excerpts in the exams to be analysed.

Why seized? He emphasizes on the narrativity. It also points out the
constructiveness of the narration. It is a product of imagination.
Seized: desire behind it. the purifying ritual a process through which
he is liberated.
Subjectivity of narration - Nathans homoeroticism? He is not a secondary
character.

Reference: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Between Men: English Literature and

Male Homosocial Desire 1985
Epistemology of the Closet (1990)
Between Men:
1) Demonstrates the immanence of mens same-sex bonds, and their
prohibitive structuration, to male-female bonds in nineteenthcentury Eng;ish literature
2) The book focuses on the putatively oppressive effects on women
and men of a cultural system where male-female desire could
become intelligible only by being routed through nonexistent desire
involving a woman.
3) Sedgwicks male Homosocial desire referred to all male bonds,
including, potentiallt, everyone from overt heterosexuals to overt
homosexuals. Homosocial is a neologism meant to be
distinguished from homosexual and connotes a form of male
bonding often accompanied by a fear or hatred of homosexuality
Also in Human Stain, men need a woman to channel their desire when
talking about sex. In scenes with Faunia, Nathan projects his desire.
Fear of sameness. (Coleman) The reason the book exists is the desire
for difference. So if there is any homoerotic desire it has to be latent
and covert.
Epistemology of the closet (1990)
In E.of the C., S argues that virtually any aspect of modern Western
culture must be, not merely incomplete, but damaged in its entral
substance to the degree that it

In Victorian literature the homosexual desire is channeled

through a woman
Watching together Faunia milking the cow
Faunias mediation between Homosocial desire
Nathans desire to dance (p.25-6)
Death-corpse pop up
Vs. Faunias dance (p.226) Why not?

well both be dead he first brings up the notion of mortality which is

always lurking. Mayby it is the fear of punishment for his transgression.
(Nathan). (beginning and end of the extract reference to death).
Transience of life, mortality gain courage to do something.
Faunia is already dead? So she says Why not? She does not need to find
courage or excuses for a possible social critique. Nathan needs that.
Nathan needs to mention death. Exorcise it. Because death may be the
only way out of or the only salvation from the outrageous limitations of a
society. (Camus, theory of absurd and suicide). Indeed, the protagonists
die
Me
Death in Venice

Why repeated references?

Desire is described as a late adventure of the feelings
Lateness of desire as a characteristic of both4774

Viscontis 1971
Dirk.
But his escape becomes a silent

It is important that. Dies.

Homoerotic desire seems deadly
Unconventionality of desire produces fear.
Desire as difference and the threat of the same
Homoerotic desire is a threat
Sameness is self-canceling (lacks the fundamental structure of difference
that the narrative sets up)
1) Language sentence
2) Narrative
3) Human connection

Sameness brings collapse of the narrative therefore a great threat

Sameness in language: ( the difference in structure gives the meaning.)
Sameness as equal to meaning nothing special to think or elaborate
(Faunia) the end of narrative!! She does not want to talk because
language equals meaning and she wants to avoid all that.
Nathan Coleman doubles

Colemans fight: all literature begins with an argument

Nathan implants what Coleman will say later
Colemans mind is Nathans mind
They are thinking the same but we dont know how earnest he is

N when he doesnt have answers, he just provides them. (Reason for

accident in the end not for sure)
Imaginative role of narrator! Maybe he is creating a character that is like
him.

Nathans character and voice underlie the constructiveness of the

narrative.
It also invites us to think of Roths relation to Nathan.
He is a creative remove for Roth to write about his own life.

Roth writes from personal experience. Many autobiographical elements

but at the same time he reveals and conceals he imagines, he is seized
etc.
The Facts: A Novelists Autobiography (1988)

An unconventional and candid autobiography which explores his

life, examines the relationship between fiction and biography and
discusses the themes of freedom (of intellect and the imagination)
which are used in his writing

Roth begins with a letter addressed to Nathan Zuckermann, that

explains why he is abandoning fiction and that poses a question
which resonates for other readers as well: Is this book any good?
THE FACTS concludes with a thirty-four-page response from
Zuckermann that faults his author for being too discreet, too genial,
devoid of the furious energy that empowers his finest fictions.
Autobiography, claims Zuckermann in another of Roths sly
exercises in imagination, is probably the most manipulative of all
literary forms (because there is NO true story)

Silks downfall is caused, ostensibly, by the spurious charge of racism

that results from his question about the two absent black students. But

as we learn more of Silks past a past of which his colleagues at Athena

have no knowledge his disgrace takes on different meanings. What
ironies are involved in Silk being charged with racism when he himself
is black? By denying his own racial identity has he turned it into a kind
of ghost? Is Coleman in any way responsible for his own destruction?

NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW

The Human Stain is an honorable B+ term paper of a movie: sober,
scrupulous and earnestly respectful of its literary source. This is precisely
the problem: the source, Philip Roths 2000 novel, is not especially sober,
scrupulous or respectful. It is an angry, ungainly squall of a book, a
clamorous defense of sexual vitality in an age of Puritan censoriousness
and a lyrical inquiry into the mysteries of race, old age and recent
American history,
The filmmakers explicate Mr. Roths themes with admirable clarity and
care and observe his characters with delicate fondness, but they cannot
hope to approximate the brilliance and rapacity of his voice, which holds
all the novels disparate elements together.
(The film cannot be as good as the novel)
The film includes some sex, a boxing match and an occasional burst of
dancing
But most of the action consists od two characters In a room talking
Some of these moments a late confrontation btw Zuckermann a
breakfast table quarrel between Faunia and Coleman, a meeting of the
minds between Faunia and a large caged crow are awkwardly paced and
paced, but many others are alive with human pain and heat.
Scene with cage and crow the eye of Nathan intrudes! Nathan takes
control of the scene. In the film there is no function.
The characters
The peculiarities of casting matter less than they might; or .
Anthony Hopkins
Doesnt look anything like mismatch.. technical details
Whether Kidman convinces us itself
A damaged, desolate disbelief..
She is less successful according to the critics for this role.

Most movie characters are like Greek gods and comic book heroes: we
learn

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Kidman and Hopkins are wrong for their roles admirable but lifeless
Hopkins doesnt even try to be American He taught in England were
told.
Our wrath is raided by a Roth adaptation THE TIMES
Roths Pulitzer
The Human Stain is a difficult book to adapt, full of disgressions and leaps
back and forth in time. But the main in difficulty is that the plot elements
are essentially disparate, in that one doesnt proceed from the other in
dramatic terms. The connections between:
1) Colemans past and his present
2) His race and his career
3) His sex life and the presidents are all thematic, not dramatic
4) In a book this isnt a problem it could be a virtue but in a movie
we feel the lack of build as a lack of urgency
GoW is the most successful adaptation of these 3. Road movie. People
move. Characters develop.
Meyer (the screenwriter) slashes through the books first 100 pages in
a matter of minutes to get to its narrative heart Silks revitalizing but
penilous relationship with the young cleaning woman
But compounding the problem is the esteem in which the book is held,
which prevents the filmmakers from wholesale additions to the story. If
they have had more freedom with the book they might have made a
better movie.

Performativity
Performativity is a concept that is related to speech act theory, to the
pragmatics of language, and to the work of J. L. Austin. It accounts for
situations where a proposition may constitute or instantiate the object
to which it is meant to refer, as in so-called performative utterances,
(Performative verbs)

I promise, I owe you, I swear, I salute you say something but do not
do anything! The moment you say it, you have already done it. We take
the notion from linguistics and we place it in gender.

Daily behavior (or performance) of individuals based on social

norms or hgabits. Butler has used (Wikipedia)

Performativity is tricky. You dont even have the script. You perform without
even knowing it.
If and when you realize it, then you start changing it and you put your own
signature.
There is no such thing as identity
a woman is a woman everywhere that is not true.
Identity does not pre-exist. It is constructed.
On whiteness
Whiteness isis/can be also performed!
The history of white people written by an African-American
Race is a concept with no scientific meaning
From wealth to race! Rich and white.