Philip Roth, The Human Stain. Some notes. p135: the ease with Ellie v.

the ambition of being with Iris. The gift of secrecy. Coleman realises that with Ellie he allows himself to be like others he lies about his colour like ten or so others in the Village, but he wants more, that which has been developed in him from his youth. p139: the contrast with those who do not face the reality of their lives head on, do not give the brutality of their acts its realism. Once youve done a thing like this, you have done so much violence it can never be undoneThis takes him right to the heart of the matter. This is the major act of his life, and vividly, consciously, he feels its immensity. (139) [The whole paragraph is crucial. Its sets what Coleman can do, and how this hones who he is, against what would appear to be right by any standards. But Coleman, as shall be seen is acting against social coercion.] But one no more decides not to become a boxer because of the history of Lawnsides runaway slaves, the abundance of everything at the Gouldtown reunions, and the intricacy of the familys American genealogy or not to become a teacher of classics because of the history of Lawnsides runaway slaves - than one decides not to become anything else for such reasons. Many things vanish out of a familys life. Lawnside is one, Gouldtown another, genealogy a third, and Coleman Silk was a fourth. (144) (text goes on to suggest that he is not the first to vanish like this.) The act was committed in 1953 by an audacious young man in Greenwich Village, by a specific person in a specific place at a specific time, but now he will be over on the other side forever. Yet that, he discovers, is exactly the point: freedom is dangerous. Freedom is very dangerous. And nothing is on your own terms for very long. (145) 135-145: opens up a whole complex set of problems that I find resonant. One becomes one thing rather than another, the no going back, the inevitably loss of control, the ambiguous line between care of the self and brutality to others. singularity v. the we p225ff: the tension between the now and meaning. Talks of the brutality of her sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. p242: the human stain, prior to grace or disobedience: The fantasy of purity is appalling. Powerful contrast of the corrupt, contaminated God Zeus with the monomaniacally distant and isolated God of the Hebrews and the pure guilt-inducing God-man of the Christians.

p247: a crow who doesnt know how to be a crow and a woman who doesnt know how to be a woman 259ff: a more interesting and complex perspective on Delphine, though she still appears somewhat disjointed as a character. Tension between Walter and Coleman: political obligation and self-determination p326: problems age p327-8: Ernestine: should she hate Walter, Coleman, why stop there? p330: Everybody knows see section. Followed by Es lament for America. Followed in turn by narrators wonderings about Coleman, his motives, the degree to which the secret remained central to his life, the ethics of his choice, whether he was entitled to make it. The idea that he controlled life vis--vis the secret but was done by history, something entirely other, the history emerging as the narrator writes. p342: what Coleman jettisoned to become something other