Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth

I first came across Philip Roth in his account of his father's illness and death entitled Patrimony. One of the things I liked about that book, apart from its rare tenderness, was its portrayal of Jewish America. An America which to me, is unknowably foreign, when compared to the familiar America of our TV screens.

Portnoy's Complaint is just as Jewish and just as readable as Patrimony. And it makes an interesting prequel. It's also as comic as Patrimony is movingly sad.

It's known as the "masterbation" novel. Often quoted is the critic who wrote: "Yeah, I'd like to meet the author ... but I don't wanna shake him by the hand..."

It's the story of Alexander Portnoy's rage. It's delivered as an exuberant monologue, approximately chronological, detailing the shortcomings of his Jewish upbringing, his parents and the various women in his adult life (yes, it's the "masterbation novel" but there's sex of all other kinds too). Portnoy's paradox as an adult is that the women he esteems are unexciting in bed and the women who excite him sexually disgust him too. Thus does Alexander Portnoy construct for himself an existance filled with self-loathing. It's an excellent book ... bold, showy and engaging.

Two last thoughts. Anyone who believes America doesn't have a class system (is there anyone who still thinks this?) should read the second half of Portnoy. It reeks of class almost as much as it smells of sex.

Secondly, and this is most refreshing after the 1970s dullness of Pirsig's Zen, it reads nothing like a book 30 years old. If you had told me it was published last year and had been hailed as freshest thing in American literature, I would have believed you without hesitation.