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Philip Roth

Portnoy's Complaint Paperback – September 20, 1994

by Philip Roth (Author)

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The groundbreaking novel that propelled its author to literary stardom: told in a continuous monologue from patient to psychoanalyst, Philip Roth's masterpiece draws us into the turbulent mind of one lust-ridden young Jewish bachelor named Alexander Portnoy.

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

Print length

289 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

September 20, 1994
Dimensions

5.19 x 0.6 x 7.98 inches
ISBN-10

0679756450
ISBN-13

978-0679756453
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 25th-anniversary edition of Roth's classic novel features a new afterword by the author.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Roth is the bravest writer in the United States. He's morally brave, he's politically brave. And Portnoy is part of that bravery." —Cynthia Ozick, Newsday

"Deliciously funny...absurd and exuberant, wild and uproarious... a brilliantly vivid reading experience."--New York Times Book Review

"Simply one of the two or three funniest works in American fiction." —Chicago Sun-Times

"Touching as well as hilariously lewd.... Roth is vibrantly talented...as marvelous a mimic and fantasist as has been produced by the most verbal group in human history." —Alfred Kazin, New York Review of Books

From the Inside Flap

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

With a new Afterword by the author for the 25th Anniversary edition.

From the Back Cover

Portnoy's Complaint "n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," "Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.
With a new Afterword by the author for the 25th Anniversary edition.

About the Author

In 1997 Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction. He twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award three times. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ Prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004.” Roth received PEN’s two most prestigious awards: in 2006 the PEN/Nabokov Award and in 2007 the PEN/Bellow Award for achievement in American fiction. In 2011 he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. He died in 2018.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (September 20, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 289 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679756450
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679756453
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.19 x 0.6 x 7.98 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #17,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #75 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- #83 in Jewish Literature & Fiction
- #458 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction

Customer Reviews:
856 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		57%
4 star		18%
3 star		12%
2 star		8%
1 star		6%

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Top reviews from the United States

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RealToast

Loved the book

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

I admit that this book was a random purchase. I had been dealing with insomnia and I thought if I purchased a book of which I had no prior knowledge or information I could just open it up in bed at 2:30 AM and in just a paragraph or two would be lulled to sleep. Mistake.

I ended up laughing out loud and waking my wife.

Loved the book. Especially the nostalgia and sense of being there, real-time, New Jersey in the late ‘60s. Immersive.

48 people found this helpful

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Tom Quinn

A very virulent if comical playing out of familial and sexual degradation andangst

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2020

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This novel is peddled typically as the great novel of masturbation or sexual explicitness as if these constituted Portnoy's "complaint".
But Portnoy's "complaint" is the demonic level of despair he has inherited from his Jewish upbringing, and his Jewishness. Stretched out on the psychoanalytical couch he shrieks this despair (he complains!) in what can be read as high comedy or execrable whine, or both.
I found the sexual elements crass and very nearly inconsequential counterpoints to the horripilating description of family life. His portraits of mother, father, extended family, and a whole host of subsequent girlfriends, as well as his own self-portrait simply make the skin crawl.
Like "the Monkey" and others I craved some demonstration of love from Portnoy but there there were all too few perhaps deluded glimmers. Perhaps that is the point of the relentless sexual aggression and sense of degradation. I liked his girlfriends, don't know what it says about me. I wanted to see them treated better while recognising literature has its imperatives.
Oddly I read this book over forty years ago as a coy Irish teenage boy but could remember nothing about it, nothing, not even the frenzied sexual gymnastry, which should have lived forever with the Irish teenager I was. Returning to it I am certainly more alive to the broader chemistry, the familial degradation and the essential struggle to the sexual death with Portnoy's own inescapable Jewishness. This latter is really what the novel is about.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Portnoy's Complaint is having to acknowledge that written today it would be unpublishable; to begin with it would be considered far too sexually violent and mysogynistic. Writers, especially male ones, who want to write with this intensity of sexual feeling, will soon have to resort to illicit or pornographic presses, as did their counterparts of a century ago. But don't worry, we will always have "Fifty Shades of Grey".
I was torn between three and four stars for this review. While quite early in the novel I felt I did not want to spend time with the people there, I do have to acknowledge the manic intensity and inventiveness of Roth's writing, and his well-earned status as a superior writer. It is not a novel I particularly liked or will reread but I do recognise its value. So four stars it is.

12 people found this helpful

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Barry

Jewish author

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2018

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I read somewhere that Roth resented being called a "Jewish author" - maybe he never had to read his own books! Portnoy, although filled with some good writing, is like a Jewish ethnography. And filled with cliché Jewish humor. And reading about a kid masturbating ad naseum had me throwing the book out after less than 100 pages. (Maybe they should coin a new word - "master bater" - for his character.) The book made him famous only for prurient shock value and I hated to think I was falling for the oldest trick in the entertainment book. If you want to read a great "Jewish author", try Saul Bellow!

13 people found this helpful

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Jennifer Chichester

No Complaint Here!

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2015

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This is my second go-around with Philip Roth. My first read was 'Ghost Writer' for a Holocaust literature course. After a recommendation from my professor for a book to utilize for my Master's thesis (the depiction of psychiatric care in 20th century American literature), I can safely say that my professor knows a good book when he reads one.

Alexander Portnoy is, at times, completely annoying, yet there is something in his complaint that evokes a degree of sympathy and, for some, empathy. Sure, he's got more than enough to make even Freud's head spin, but he isn't wholly detestable. Roth writes this character so convincingly that I imagine the Doctor's reactions as he is sitting there listening to Portnoy ramble on. The issues involved in growing up Jewish dominate the novel, but there are multiple fascinating themes co-occurring as Portnoy's story develops.

If you don't mind reading about penises and vaginas on every page and can tolerate an often abundant usage of Caps to emphasize Portnoy's mental duress, you should consider picking up this witty and thought-evoking read.

16 people found this helpful

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Happy Reader

Sex, sex, sex

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018

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If I hadn't been reading this book for my book club, I would have quit after the second chapter. If I hadn't been leading the discussion for my book club, I would have quit at about the fourth chapter. I wanted so slap Alexander Portnoy. I also wondered if his mother did his laundry! The scene is Israel was not more than attempted rape. He would have lost his job today.

5 people found this helpful

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Thomas R. Moorer

This allows the airing of some pretty intimate details and hangups without seeming gratuitous to most ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2014

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This is a book that was considered scandalous when it came out. (It actually mentioned masturbation, more than once) The literary device is that the whole book is a one-sided conversation with Portnoy's psychiatrist. This allows the airing of some pretty intimate details and hangups without seeming gratuitous to most people. The book is also funny but requires some appreciation of the humor and pathos of the ethnic background, which should be no problem since the entertainment industry has been heavily influenced by jewish humor and verbal style. The "story" keeps the readers interest. My "review" is more of an impression or opinion than a full review, but there are several available I'm sure.

12 people found this helpful

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Bluecap

A work of pure brilliance

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017

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A mix of bawdy humor and remarkable insight. A work of pure brilliance. The book is explicit in tone, and tests the reader's capacity for the outrageous throughout, but isn't that what great fiction is all about. Roth is clearly a genius. One of the legends of our era. His novels are easily among the greatest in popular literature.

7 people found this helpful

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Skywriter

Just ok

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2021

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I purchased this book as it has been listed as a, “classic” of American literature. I was disappointed with the writing which was often disjointed. These were my own personal observations. Your mileage may vary.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Martin Jones

Giving My Opinion Even Though I Wasn’t Asked For It

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, published in 1969, is the story of Jewish American bachelor Alex Portnoy, as told in a long, intense monologue, apparently to a therapist. The therapist is effectively invisible, saying nothing, serving as a device to let Portnoy talk. Sometimes a book allows you to identify with a central character. Since, in this case, the reader is identified with a silent therapist, there’s a feeling of being separate from the narrative, listening to this intense individual talking in ruthless detail about his Jewish childhood and subsequent relationship history.

So what did I learn through my patient listening? There was some interesting stuff. Identity was a big thing. Much of the book is informed by what is to be Jewish, even though it’s also about trying to escape such labels. If I could get a word in edgeways I would have said that was interesting.

Even more interesting was the idea of guilt. Alex lives in a society which trains you to be obedient through arbitrary rules, often dietary. The idea is that when the time comes to follow rules that are really important, you’ll be ready. But by then you’ve been so confused by arbitrary regulations, and so bruised by capricious punishment, that it’s hard to tell the difference between valid and ridiculous restrictions.

So, that was thought-provoking. But why am I saying these things? This narrator wasn’t waiting for me to say anything. I was there to listen, not offer an opinion. That summed up a feeling around the book that I didn’t enjoy. Portnoy was so self involved. On one occasion he is amazed that a young woman is upset when he breaks up with her, because it’s really only his feelings that count. You can enjoy the quick-fire anecdotes, and laugh at the scandalous humour, but after a while you want to put the book down and talk to someone less self centred - someone who might actually ask your opinion:

“How’s that Philip Roth book you’re reading?”

“Well, thanks for asking. In my view, it’s funny, unsettling, sometimes nauseating, often interesting, and highly self regarding.”

4 people found this helpful

Ian Jones

Not that funny in the context of modern society

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

Was looking forward to reading this as it seemed to upset the feminists on Radio 4 who thought it portrayed a poor attitude towards women (feminists). Most of the humour is based around Alex Portnoy who finds relief from his constrictive Jewish upbringing from within the refuge of an experimental sex life that deviates from the norm. The females that feature in the book participate willingly with full consent and are equally deranged so it hardly fits into the #metoo category, unless of course they regret it many years later in the sequel, if there is one. Anyway, didn't find it funny.

6 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Oh weh!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

Spoken to a shrink by a sex-obsessed, wisecracking Jewish manhood it leaves little to the imagination. Hysterical! That at least is the opinion of a sympathetic male reader, it would indeed be enlightening to hear women readers comment as it gets fairly near the bone, exploitatively. Not to say it's sexploitation, for all its candour it's hardly titillating. Depends,one supposes, on engagement with the narrator who tries to be and is made funny.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Another Philip Roth success!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is my fourth Philip Roth and I am totally hooked. Alex Portnoy is a typical product of Jewish parents, especially his mother, who is overbearing and on the other hand some what cruel. Poor Alex can't do anything right, even though he always gets A grades at school. This book is largely written through his eyes during a visit, or several, to his Psychologist. He rants and raves and there is a lot of humour too.I haven't quite finished it yet but definitely has not disappointed. Be warned though, part of Portnoy's complaint has to do with what teenage boys do with their nether regions! Oh and his father's chronic and ever present constipation.

7 people found this helpful

Andyb

Don't bother

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

The most tedious ramble I’ve ever experienced. I had heard that it was a good book but was very sadly misled. It goes on and on about nothing with a few words you wouldn’t want your mum to hear you using, thrown in to try and make it interesting – it failed miserably. I kept going in the hope that it would improve but it didn’t and by the time I got almost half way through I gave up. If it was a physical book I would of thrown it away but as a Kindle download, that’s not possible, I will just delete it.

5 people found this helpful