5/12/2023 0 Comments Roth portnoy's complaint![]() ![]() They range from the comical to the disgusting. His descriptions of Portnoy’s sexual depravity from puberty to adulthood are very bold and clear. ‘Good Christ, a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen year-old boy,Īnd will remain a fifteen year-old boy till they die’.įor a novel written in 1969, Roth doesn’t hold back. It is more of a confession in places rather than a complaint as Roth details the suffocation he felt as a kid at the hands of his overbearing Jewish parents as he goes through puberty and tries to take hold (literally) of his sexual needs and integrate (seduce) his non-Jewish neighbours. The style can take a while to get used to but it allows Roth to fully flesh out the depravity of his protagonist by giving us an insight into a brutally honest conversation between doctor and patient, one that lacks social propriety. The novel is one long monologue by Alexander Portnoy about his sexuality and frustrations in life directed at his psychiatrist. ![]() ![]() The latter one will take me a bit longer to ingest but Portnoy’s Complaint is a relatively short novel. Roth’s work struck me as something that would complement my love for Kundera so I brought a couple more of Roth’s books: Portnoy’s Complaint and The Plot Against America. I read Philip Roth’s The Professor of Desire earlier in the year and although it is a little impenetrable in places, I found the character and storyline very compelling. ![]()
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