Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth

Awhile ago, I was listening to NPR, and a writer mentioned a few books on human sexuality... namely John Updike's Couples and Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. Being a fan of Roth, and never having read anything by Updike, I bit, and picked up both from Amazon.

As I was familiar with Roth and a fan of his work, I jumped into his book first.

And Roth did not disappoint. From the get go, his Alex Portnoy recounts his various sexual, spiritual and familial dilemmas in vivid, explicit detail. An early section that had Portnoy describing his obsessive masturbatory practices had me literally spitting up my beer. Another, where Portnoy explains the illiteracy of his underwear model goy girlfriend, had me laughing like a monkey, shaking my head, near tears.

But all isn't fun and games for Portnoy. Though much of the book is funny, and Portnoy's complaint seems wildly, at times exhaustingly hyperbolic, there's something bigger going on here. According to some critics, Roth's Portnoy, along with Bellow's Herzog, are the two most quintessential Jewish characters in American literature.

And on that point, I must agree. Roth spends much of his time dwelling on what it is to be Jewish in America: a stranger in a strange land. Portnoy is a man sometimes outwardly hostile to his faith and upbringing; yet, at the same time, he admires the old Jewish men, wants to marry a woman like his mother, and speaks so much Yiddish that Portnoy's Complaint could qualify as a bilingual book.

But perhaps the most important part of the book comes at the end, where Portnoy runs to Israel and... well, I'm not going to give that away. You'll have to read it for yourself.

Roth just has a mastery of words that you cannot ignore. Yet he doesn't overwhelm the reader with the ten dollar words. Rather, he keeps things simple and direct. And Portnoy's Complaint is written in a conversational tone (literally Portnoy talking to his therapist). So, it's quite easy to read.

Portnoy's Complaint, for all it's simplicity, often borders on annoyance, because Portnoy just won't shut the hell up. He keeps going on and on about masturbation this and threesome with an Italian whore that. Sure, it's hilarious. And absolutely worth reading. But if you've got a weak constitution for whining, you might want to take Portnoy in short doses.

Me? I ran through it in a couple days. Thoroughly enjoyable.

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