Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint (1969) is American writer

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Philip Roth's fourth and, to date, still most popular novel, with many of

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its characteristics (ribald, comedic prose; themes of sexual desire

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and sexual frustration; a self-conscious literariness) having gone on

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to become Roth trademarks.

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Structurally, Portnoy's Complaint is a continuous monologue as

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narrated by its eponymous speaker, Alexander Portnoy, to

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his psychoanalyst, Dr. Spielvogel. This narration

Related Topics:
Psychoanalyst - Narration

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weaves effortlessly through time and describes scenes from each stage

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in Portnoy's life, with every recollection in some way touching upon

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Portnoy's central dilemma: his inability to enjoy the fruits of his

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sexual adventures even as his extreme libidinal urges force him to

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seek release in ever more creative (and, in his mind, degrading and

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shameful) acts of eroticism. Roth is not subtle about defining this

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as the main theme of his book. On the first page of the novel one

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finds this clinical definition of "Portnoy's Complaint", as if ripped

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from the pages of a manual on sexual dysfunction:

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: Portnoy's Complaint: A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature...

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Other topics touched on in the book include the assimilation

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experiences of American Jews, their relationship to the Jews of

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Israel, and the pleasures and perils (most prominently,

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emasculation) inherent in being the son of a Jewish family.

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Portnoy's Complaint, in addition to its purely literary status as

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a "comic masterpiece", is also emblematic of the times

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during which it was published. Most obviously, the book's sexual

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frankness was both a product of and an inspiration for the

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sexual revolution that was in full-swing during the late 1960s. And the

Related Topics:
Sexual revolution - 1960s

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book's narrative style, a huge departure from the stately, semi-Jamesian prose of Roth's earlier novels, has

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often been likened to the stand-up performances of

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'60s comedian Lenny Bruce.

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