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A review by jobly
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
4.0
Many reviewers seem to concentrate purely on the Rabelaisian qualities of 'Portnoy's Complaint' and it's certainly not for those who are at all squeamish about the sexual or scatological. But Roth's novel is about so much more than this. While Portnoy's monologue to his psychoanalyst is undoubtedly sex-obsessed, what Roth explores most profoundly is the experience of being a Jewish man growing to maturity in mid 20th Century America. It's a novel about identity and belonging, or, perhaps more accurately, identity-confusion and alienation. The novel is at times laugh-out-loud funny, but when dealing with the central character's desperate attempts to find a place for himself in a world he feels so at odds with, the narrative is also extremely sad and moving.
Its also an interesting work in terms of how it deals with issues of maleness more generally. Like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'Fight Club', this belongs to a post-war trend (particularly, it seems, among American Novelists) in literature to explore the theme of masculinity in crisis. Unlike Kesey or Palahniuk, though, Roth manages to avoid being guilty of misogyny. This may not be true of Portnoy himself -his narrative is often reprehensible in how it describes and discusses women - but Roth establishes a clearly unreliable narrator who we are not asked to entirely trust or like. In this way we are allowed to peer through the cracks in Portnoy's tirade and see the narrative's women in a far more complex and sympathetic light than the narrator does. The women here, we come to understand, are also struggling to find firm footing in the world and our sympathy for them grows the more they feature in the narrative. Part of Portnoy's tragedy is that he cannot seem to understand that, in their own way, the female characters are trying to find the same things he is.
It's a novel which will inevitably upset or even outrage many readers, indeed it seems designed to do this, but I'd strongly encourage the reader to see past the scabrous surface and see the wit, thoughtfulness and subtlety that lies beneath.
Its also an interesting work in terms of how it deals with issues of maleness more generally. Like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'Fight Club', this belongs to a post-war trend (particularly, it seems, among American Novelists) in literature to explore the theme of masculinity in crisis. Unlike Kesey or Palahniuk, though, Roth manages to avoid being guilty of misogyny. This may not be true of Portnoy himself -his narrative is often reprehensible in how it describes and discusses women - but Roth establishes a clearly unreliable narrator who we are not asked to entirely trust or like. In this way we are allowed to peer through the cracks in Portnoy's tirade and see the narrative's women in a far more complex and sympathetic light than the narrator does. The women here, we come to understand, are also struggling to find firm footing in the world and our sympathy for them grows the more they feature in the narrative. Part of Portnoy's tragedy is that he cannot seem to understand that, in their own way, the female characters are trying to find the same things he is.
It's a novel which will inevitably upset or even outrage many readers, indeed it seems designed to do this, but I'd strongly encourage the reader to see past the scabrous surface and see the wit, thoughtfulness and subtlety that lies beneath.