Portnoy's Complaint
by Philip Roth
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Read in September, 2006
for me what this book is about is the struggle one faces to live up to others' expectations of a shared ethose simply because they happen to belong to the same group. most especially when the groups' expectations of lifestyle choices and ideals are not held by the individual. the group says why don't you accept your roots? the individual answers, because i had no choice in them, and now i have a choice. here the protagonist is not choosing against bieing jewish, but against being the jewish m...more
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Read in August, 2008
Portnoy's Complaint has become known as "the sex book" by Philip Roth, and without a doubt it is not a book for those squeamish about frank & honest sexual portrayal. The book features Portnoy, a 30-something Jewish man from Newark, NJ apparently unleashing a 300 page tirade on his shrink as he describes his shortcomings in becoming the expectation of a Jewish man. He still struggles with what he deems juvenile, if not downright animalistic, sexual longings and impulses, yet he m...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
On the 6th night of Chanukah my older brother gave me a copy of Portnoy’s complaint. As I tore open the wrapping paper my brother repeated statements along the lines of “prepare for your life to be completely changed” and “this is not so much a book as it is a right of passage”. While I don’t believe that reading Philip Roth’s most famous novel changed my life I did thoroughly enjoy this book. More specifically I enjoyed the books protagonist Alexander Portnoy. He is very much ...more
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Read in March, 2008
I had a love/hate relationship with this book.
On one hand, his honesty is incredible. He shares the inner workings of a pretty deplorable mind without pulling any punches, and it seems likely that much of this stuff is semi-autobiographical. He's very open about the Jewish culture he grew up in, focusing mostly in this book on all their faults, including hatred of any other race but their own and a constant fear of the world. Much of this behavior he credits to generations of diaspora, whic...more
On one hand, his honesty is incredible. He shares the inner workings of a pretty deplorable mind without pulling any punches, and it seems likely that much of this stuff is semi-autobiographical. He's very open about the Jewish culture he grew up in, focusing mostly in this book on all their faults, including hatred of any other race but their own and a constant fear of the world. Much of this behavior he credits to generations of diaspora, whic...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Not for the sexually squeamish
Portnoy's Complaint is exactly that; the long first person complaint of an Alexander Portnoy, Port-Noir to goys, of how his Jewish upbringing has paralyzed him.
At 33 years of age Alex is still hopelessly devoted to jerking off and other lewd sexual acts. Much to the chagrin of his devoted, doting, if not smothering Jewish parents he is not interested in marriage, least of all producing such re-ver-ed grandchildren.
Phillip Roth is masterful with his execution of Portnoy's complaining;...more
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Read in January, 2008
Portnoy's Complaint is another one of those books that I feel has always been buzzing around on the periphery of my pop culture consciousness, so since there happened to be a copy lying around the house and I happened to need a new book to read, I picked it up. It was a nice, quick, moderately amusing good read.
Alexander Portnoy is neurotic, Jewish, and obsessed with sex. The book, in turn, is a kind of therapy confessional where he meanders back and forth across his young childhood, adole...more
Alexander Portnoy is neurotic, Jewish, and obsessed with sex. The book, in turn, is a kind of therapy confessional where he meanders back and forth across his young childhood, adole...more
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Read in January, 2008
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Read in April, 2008
Hmm. Since hearing an interview with Roth on NPR a few days ago on his birthday I thought I'd give him another try. After reading The Human Stain a few years ago and needing to take a hot hot hot hot shower to cleanse myself of the yuckiness I felt upon finishing it, I gave Roth up as a misogynist and a self-loather. But after hearing his charming interview with Terry Gross I felt I needed to give him another shot.
Well, Portnoy required the same hot shower afterwards, as it may be the dir...more
Well, Portnoy required the same hot shower afterwards, as it may be the dir...more
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Philip Roth is the most lauded writer in America, having won (in succession, in the 90s) all four major American literary awards. He went on to win some of them a second time, among numerous other honors and distinctions.
This was his first book to really be noticed. It is the confessions of Alexander Portnoy, a brilliant Jewish man who suffers from "A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perv...more
This was his first book to really be noticed. It is the confessions of Alexander Portnoy, a brilliant Jewish man who suffers from "A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perv...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommended to Kim by:
Book club pickrecommends it for: Those who love Jewish humor or adore the author
Portnoy's Complaint, a onetime bestseller by Philip Roth, is an anecdotal account of Alexander Portnoy's upbringing in a crowded Jewish-American neighborhood in New Jersey during the 1940's??.
In any case, Portnoy's parents smother him with attention and obsess over every detail of his adolescent years. Every Jewish stereotype is contained in this book, and while this seems funny at first, by the end of the second chapter it began wearing thin, and eventually I could barely stand to read it....more
In any case, Portnoy's parents smother him with attention and obsess over every detail of his adolescent years. Every Jewish stereotype is contained in this book, and while this seems funny at first, by the end of the second chapter it began wearing thin, and eventually I could barely stand to read it....more
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Read in March, 2008
This book is a lot like a grown-up, sexualized version of The Catcher in the Rye. The main character, Alex Portnoy, spends the book talking to his psychologist, musing and crying and shouting about growing up permanently guilt-tripped, struggling with his parents and with his Jewish heritage, and ending up miserable in matters of love, in no small part because he makes his own misery for himself.
The book is funny and could be w...more
The book is funny and could be w...more
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Read in June, 2007
This book was interesting. More delving into psychology. It feels of the same heritage as "Catcher in the Rye" (narrator is speaking to his therapist) and also "Augie March." In fact, it has some narrative details quite similar to Augie, but it's better - wittier, smarter in style. It also creates an American vernacular experience that's more persuasive (for me). It tries for less than Augie. Written 20+ years later than Augie, it's possible that Roth was making reference t...more
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Read in January, 2007
Alex Portnoy’s got a complaint. He may have a 168 IQ, and as the Assistant Commissioner of Human Opportunity for the City of New York, a career on the up-and-up. But all Portnoy can think of is cunt (his word, not mine). It started in adolescence. Alex was stuck between the Jewish girls he didn’t want, and the goyish girls who wouldn’t have him. So, he did what any sexually frustrated adolescent boy would do.
He masturbated. A lot. Five to six times a day.
He masturbated into his s...more
He masturbated. A lot. Five to six times a day.
He masturbated into his s...more
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Read in May, 2008
I've had a bad run lately, but I liked this book. You'll have to put up with the relentless stream of consciousness and tendency to talk his points to death, but the humor and audacity are pretty worthwhile.
The main character is a recovering Jewish child who's acting out his mommy issues through a progression of guilt ridden sexual encounters. His self-therapy starts in adolescence as a devoted onanist and continues into his adulthood as he gains partners in crime.
Roth manages to captu...more
The main character is a recovering Jewish child who's acting out his mommy issues through a progression of guilt ridden sexual encounters. His self-therapy starts in adolescence as a devoted onanist and continues into his adulthood as he gains partners in crime.
Roth manages to captu...more
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Read in October, 2007
This book has probably been the weirdest book i have ever read in my life. Everything in this book has to do with Alexander Portnoy complaining and always talking about his past problems to his pychologist, Dr. Spielvogel. Alexander talks about his extreme sexual addiction very much, and how he cannot control it, even though he knows it is bad for him. Through out this entire book, Alexander explains all about his life as a youthful person to him as an adult. (Which was a really weird part...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
people not easily offended.
It is in the modern library's top 100 works of fiction and has been on NPR multiple times this month, so I felt that it was time to finally check out Phillip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. I have read a fair amount of Jewish literature back in high school when Laird Loomis presented a full semester of some of the best books I have ever read. This said, maybe my expectations for this book were too high. I believe that the structure of the novel is well developed; Roth goes back and forth between ...more
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This dark, dirty, and quite disturbing novel--written in the late 60s when Philip Roth was in the early 30s--was narrated by the protagonist Alexander Portnoy (last name seems to be made up of porn and noir) who has a huge appetite for sex in various forms yet at the same time can't seem to be satisfied. In fact, the whole novel is made up of Portnoy's formless, flaming rants about the precarious perils of being Jewish-American, the sexual frustrations of being young in the 60s, and the deep lo...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
Woody Allen fans
Upon finishing this book, I heard myself say aloud (without warning): "that sucked."
There's a lot to recommend Roth as a writer and I think he's fully in control of what he's doing I just wish he were doing something else blah blah. This book is a 300-page monologue by a character who annoyed the crap out of me. Whatever fabulous edgy points Roth might have been making about the self-aggrandizement and self-congratulatory pseudolessons of psychotherapy, whatever incisive criticis...more
There's a lot to recommend Roth as a writer and I think he's fully in control of what he's doing I just wish he were doing something else blah blah. This book is a 300-page monologue by a character who annoyed the crap out of me. Whatever fabulous edgy points Roth might have been making about the self-aggrandizement and self-congratulatory pseudolessons of psychotherapy, whatever incisive criticis...more
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Read in July, 2006
Oh, I love this guy. I really do.
Though I read alot, Roth is the writer I keep coming back to - and when I do, it's a wonder that I ever read anything else. No matter when I come back and read one of his books, it's a new and amazing experience that fuses perfect subject matter with (stylistically) some of the best writing I've ever read. Even with Portnoy, Roth might be the only writer who can produce a novel that is simultaneously very much descriptive about the humor of sexuality and ver...more
Though I read alot, Roth is the writer I keep coming back to - and when I do, it's a wonder that I ever read anything else. No matter when I come back and read one of his books, it's a new and amazing experience that fuses perfect subject matter with (stylistically) some of the best writing I've ever read. Even with Portnoy, Roth might be the only writer who can produce a novel that is simultaneously very much descriptive about the humor of sexuality and ver...more
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Read in June, 2008
So, Alex Portnoy is obsessed with sex - I guess in that way, the book is at least a decent portrait of guys who take an excessive amount of time to shake their teen obsession with tail.
But, of course, when I thought of Portnoy's Complaint, I thought of the controversy - the way the Jewish community lashed out at Roth when it was published, and so I expected a certain amount of... I don't know - uncomfortable truth? In a post-Seinfeld world, there's just not much to get worked up about in Port...more
But, of course, when I thought of Portnoy's Complaint, I thought of the controversy - the way the Jewish community lashed out at Roth when it was published, and so I expected a certain amount of... I don't know - uncomfortable truth? In a post-Seinfeld world, there's just not much to get worked up about in Port...more
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