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Nov 02, 2010

Malbadeen rated it:

It's recently been brought to my attention that my book reviews frequently are not actually about the book. And I'm wondering why would you want to know about the book when all you have to do is click on the little blurb about the book and then get on with the fascinating reading about...oh, say where I bought my milk last Tuesday or my fondest/most traumatic childhood memory, etc, etc.
And, yet. I aim to please so here is my sincere attempt to tell you something about this book. It (the boo More...

26 comments like (31 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2012

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Earlier today I grossly contradicted myself by stating that I'd enjoyed all the books I'd read which were written by Philip Roth. Then I realised I'd forgotten about Portnoy's Complaint.

There is a school of thought which says to write well you have to write about what you know. On that basis I know I definitely did not like this book, although that unfortunately does not guarantee that I will excel at writing about it. With that in mind Philip Roth is official King of writing about w More...

14 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Yulia rated it:

It's a miracle: I've finished this thing, this book. I thought to read the end as a commenter noted it was a shaggy dog story, which made me wonder what the punch-line was, but as I read about this woman he called "the monkey," I became so furious in how he wrote of her with such hatred that I had to know more about their relationship, which took me back another section, and then another, till I'd finally been led to read the entire dang book.

And while I was sure I'd wri More...

11 comments like (11 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2009

Daniel rated it:

I have a vague memory that when I first read "Portnoy's Complaint" as a teenager -- I was probably 16 or 17 at the time -- I either carried my paperback copy with me to my grandmother's condo, or perhaps just mentioned to her that I was reading the book. What a mistake. She was displeased with my choice in reading material, and wasn't shy about letting me know. This was many years before Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize, making him somewhat more respectable to the American Jewish com More...

33 comments like (23 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2011

Mariel rated it:

I would have walked away in the conversation at the point of Portnoy proclaiming that he slept with the women that he did (anyone who would have him) as a way of conquering America. Essentially those who would not have him like historically against Jewish peoples (dude, you work for the mayor and are educated! You do what you want!). I am not Jewish and I wasn't alive in the '60s. Somewhere anyone is going to feel like that they don't belong. What I really liked about Portnoy's Complaint is the More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2009

Evan rated it:

I'm in the mood for this now and it's reading like a breeze. God, it's probably shameful to admit that I AM PORTNOY, but it would be just like me to say that very thing and mirror the guilt of the guy in the book. You wish your parents could read this, especially my neat freak, worrywart mom. I think a lot of Catholic households and Jewish households are not a lot different. This shit is funny and real and insightful. If the rest of the book is as good as the first 50 pages then we shall be quit More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Tyler rated it:

This entertaining and smartly written book managed the difficult task of amusing and impressing me. The protagonist, too Jewish to be American yet, in the end, too American to be Jewish, reeled me in with his humorous, potent stream of consciousness that tapped into my own musings and assured me that I'm not alone in dwelling upon, uh, inglorious imagery.

The humor comes across at times like stand-up comedy. You can see, then, how easily the author's concept could have gone flat. And More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2008

Andrew rated it:

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 maint More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2008

Henry rated it:

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 the sexually o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Caleb rated it:

Roth is coming farther into his own voice here, and exploring his ideas, skimmed in other books, in a more, uh, penetrating fashion. Funny, embarassing, but sickeningly relatable. I'd go as far as to say it's a must read in Modern American Literature.

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 28, 2011

Lisa rated it:

Portnoy’s Complaint is Philip Roth’s third novel and the one that made him a celebrity. It’s an hilariously funny satire on Jewish guilt, and it’s very rude, with coarse language and frank sexual themes not for the faint-hearted. It explores Jewish identity in America and in particular, the secular Jewish son trying to escape the tyranny of tradition and find a place for himself outside suffocating family expectations.
To read the rest of this review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2010/0... More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2009

Misha rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

Philip Roth is the kind of writer that just doesn't seem to show up anymore. He is unflinching, fearless and unafraid. He doesn't mind getting really messy, since his topic - being human - is one of the most messy there is.

'The most outrageously funny book about sex yet written' is quotes 'The Guardian' on my cover, which is misleading (but, of course, the publisher is trying to grab the brower's attention, I realise...). It's not 'about sex', unless you're being very broad and Fre More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 07, 2010

rachel rated it:

After hating and abandoning The Plot Against America, I wanted to give Philip Roth another try.

Honestly, I did not expect to like this at all. Roth is an author that always gets lumped into that little club of male writers who write from a very male perspective. Casual literary male privilege often leaves me cold and maybe a little angry. But this book was different: while Portnoy can be violently misogynistic, it's very clear that he is not a sturdy, stable man even though he d More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2008

Dale rated it:

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 childhoo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2008

Tony rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 11, 2007

Grant rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 22, 2007

Caroline rated it:

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 Po More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Kat rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2008

Lavinia rated it:

i tried. i really did. but it was more than i could bear. thank God i didn't buy the book. philip roth, i'll give you another chance, someday. but i'll pick something else.

15.10.08

Persians, Greeks, now Jews. First person narrative, Portnoy's confessions to his therapist are funny and witty. And yes, he's obsessed with sex, but I won't let this interfere with me enjoying a good reading. :D

16.10.08

"Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents al More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

marg rated it:

I took a reluctant break from 13th Tale to read PC for my heights book club. I compare this book to a well made dish that ends up being spiced too heavily-you can't appreciate what is good because your too turned off by the flavoring. Personally, I think Roth is a very talented writer - I am not one of those who says oh he hates Jews and is perverted. I mean he does and he is but that doesn't mean he can't write. However, this book was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too graphic and felt like Auslander does More...

5 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2012

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Regular readers will remember that I'm in the middle of a long-term literary project right now, to read all eleven novels making up Philip Roth's autobiographical "Zuckerman cycle" in order to better understand the Postmodernist Era they discuss, from its start (right around Kennedy's a More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2011

Brown.carolyn rated it:

This is a comedic work from the late 1960s about the American Jewish Male Experience. It contains (I think) hilariously explicit descriptions of sexual misadventures that readers will either laugh at or be offended by, or, I suppose, just find not for them. If that is the case, this book is probably not for you. The central character is a neurotic, self-obsessed young man who sees women as objects (much like the piece of liver he defiles in his adolescence) to bring him sexual gratification. You More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Arlie rated it:

I didn't actually finish this book - it was that terrible. I picked it up because Chapter's put it on their list of 50 books that would change my life. Well, as far as I can tell, the only thing this book has to offer is sexually explicit material. Portnoy's complaint is "a disorder in which strongly felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature". I pushed through his disturbing account of his adolescence, much of More...

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Aug 10, 2011

Bev rated it:

Just to start off...The best part of the book? The "Afterword to the Twenty-fifth-Anniversary Edition" by the author. Seriously. What I enjoyed most was learning that Roth has used a piece of paper emblazoned with 19 typewritten sentences that he found in a local diner back in 1956 to come up with the opening line for his first 19 novels. Being a budding author myself, I'm going to be on the look-out everywhere I go for a similar little bonanza--particularly if it's going to produce be More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Garrett rated it:

A brilliant view of manhood from a master of American Jewish Fiction. This was one of my favorite books that I have ever read because of its utter riskiness and fearlessness, spitting in the face of conservative America. To read this book as a man is to experience the things that you have always thought in your head, but never managed to share with anyone because of the impossibility of doing so. Portnoy is an everyman, in his disgusting thoughts and perverted behavior. Men, we are all Portn More...

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Jun 17, 2011

Jo rated it:

I wonder if Portney's Complaint is relevant in 2011? After all, the big controversy with the book was that Portney masturbated with a piece of liver. Twice. Of course, back then, I probably couldn't use the word masturbate in a published article, either.

But with the American Pie movies a fading memory from way back in the 1990s, we've now seen that, done that (mastubated with food) so that it no longer shocks. Yeah, yeah, sex with food, yawn.

Portney is complaining (whinin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 06, 2011

Lori rated it:

This book was released in 1969. At the time, it was hugely controversial, and it’s not hard to see why as it is when one reads some formerly controversial novels with the eyes and sensibilities of today (ever read Peyton Place? Not so shocking). Some sections of this book definitely made me go “DAY-um.” Steeped in the sexual revolution, this is still Roth’s most famous book even given his forty years of acclaimed output that followed it. Reading his books in order as I am, I’m struck by thi More...

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Apr 05, 2011

Jen rated it:

It is awful and hysterical. I'm not sure that I liked it, but I think I might have loved it (which is extremely appropriate, trust me). At any rate, I know I loved the way it ended - hence the review. I'm not quite ready to stop thinking about it.

The character, Alexander Portnoy is probably easier to hate than to love (though I can admit that it might be the other way around if I weren't a chick), and the reader follows him through a loooong rant about everything and anything. From a More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Titus rated it:

Can a graphically sexual book be both outstanding literature and hilarious comedy? Of course, if handled by a truly gifted stylist. "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth is definitely such a book. There are few novelists as gifted as prose stylists as Roth, and Portnoy's Complaint is essentially one man's long running rant. The book is so brilliantly and insideously crafted that the reader becomes a sort of ersatz psychoanalyst with Portnoy as patient each time one picks up the book to More...

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