Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Vintage, 253pp, £8.99, 2016
ISBN 978 0 099 39901 8
Philip Roth died in May this year, and that news made me realise that I had not read any of his books. I’m not sure why, but there was something almost intimidating about his work: books with intimidating covers on the shelf and titles like American Pastoral and The Human Stain. The themes that he appeared to touch upon seemed familiar but also alien to me: the experience of being American, being Jewish. However, I thought that I would give one of his books a try, and it was perhaps his most well-known (and controversial) novel, Portnoy’s Complaint, that I chose. Portnoy’s Complaint is a monologue, delivered by the title character, Alexander Portnoy, a Jewish American who is talking to a doctor (possibly a psychiatrist) and telling the story of his life: a life that has been dominated by sex, guilt, and Jewishness.