The Human Stain

Nathan Zuckerman is a fictional character who appears as the narrator or protagonist of many of Philip Roth's works of fiction. Zuckerman makes his... first appearance in the novel My Life As a Man , where he is the product of another fictional Roth creation, the writer Peter Tarnopol . In later books Zuckerman is given a less indentured form of existence, starting with the 1979 novel The Ghost Writer, where he is the story's protagonist, a writing apprentice on a pilgrimage to cull the wisdom of the reclusive author E. I. Lonoff. In Zuckerman Unbound he is an established novelist and must deal with the fall-out from his ribald comedic novel Carnovsky. Though wildly successful, the novel has brought to Zuckerman unwanted attention both from readers and his family. The obvious parallels to Roth's own life as a novelist signaled Roth's burgeoning interest in the relationship between an author and his work.
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Release date:October 29, 2003

Directed by:Robert Benton

Rated:

Runtime:106 minutes

The Human Stain is a 2003 American drama film directed by Robert Benton. The screenplay by Nicholas Meyer is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Philip Roth. The film stars Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman. In the late 1990s, writer Nathan Zuckerman has settled in a lakeside New England... cabin following his second divorce and a battle with prostate cancer. His idyllic life is interrupted by Coleman Silk , a former dean and professor of classics at local Athena College, who was forced to resign after being accused of making racist remarks in class. Coleman's wife died suddenly following the scandal, and he wants to avenge his loss of career and companion by writing a book about the events with Nathan's assistance. The project is placed on the back burner when Coleman has an affair with Faunia Farley , a considerably younger, semi-literate woman who supports herself by working at menial jobs.
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A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and... in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century. Further definition of the genre is historically difficult. The construction of the narrative, the plot, the way reality is created in the works of fiction, the fascination of the character study, and the use of language are usually discussed to show a novel's artistic merits. Most of these requirements were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to give fiction a justification outside the field of factual history. The individualism of the presentation makes the personal memoir and the autobiography the two closest relatives among the genres of modern histories. The fictional narrative, the novel's distinct "literary" prose, specific media requirements , a characteristic subject matter that creates both intimacy and a typical epic depth can be seen as features that developed with the Western market of fiction.
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