Cover to Cover: Human Stain by Philip Roth

This installment of Cover to Cover is long overdue--I actually finished Human Stain several weeks ago. I've contemplated not writing it. I honestly didn't care much for the book, and I should have taken a clue from JM when I told him I had picked it up and was going to read it. He said "eh...It's OK." Another surfacing clue was when I would mention what I was reading, most everyone would say "Oh, he wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.'"

There is something, however, that has really stuck with me after reading this book. It is, in fact, exactly what the title suggests: the human stain. On page 244 of my copy of the book (not the one pictured above), it all came to life for me. Sparing you most of the details (but enough so you don't have to go and read it!), there is a story of a "hand-raised crow" (I guess almost domesticated) that somehow escapes to the outside, where it is faced with the hurried attack and harassment from the other (wild) crows. The hand-raised crow "didn't have the right voice," it can't speak crow.

"That's what comes of being hand-raised," said Faunia "That's what comes of hanging around all his life with people like us. The human stain."

I can't get over that feeling of the human stain. Our human stain. My human stain. We leave our mark on everything, there is always a trail of some sort. And the idea that, if we are leaving a stain, it is then assumed that we are foreigners in this environment. I don't think we think of it that way enough. The more power we obtain, the greater the stain.

I'm going to think about my human stain.


Listening To: Travis
Reading: Suburban Safari-A Year on the Lawn by Hannah Holmes