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A review by lpm100
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
Book Review
Portnoy's Complaint
-1/5 stars
"I just don't know what the hell this book is about."
*******
It must be a testament to the sparkling Ashkenazi Jewish verbal ability that one such can write a book filled with a couple of hundred pages of ranting about NOTHING and still be published and still be remembered.
Maybe this type of content was edgy/novel several decades ago when it was written (gratuitous use of the "c-word" and graphic descriptions of sexual acts), but that was LONG before the days of the internet.
These days, you can do a single search in something like OnlyFans or PornHub and see everything that this guy talked about actually done at any moment of the day. (I'm willing to bet the value of a latte at Starbucks that there is a porn genre of Jewish men sullying gentile women; Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy and James Deen have been extremely prolific; Or the reverse: Abella Danger has been billing herself as "Jewish" for some time, even though she's.......not.)
It seems that a lot of this book was the character's/author's guilt about his obsession with non-Jewish women. (Maybe you have to be genetically Jewish to understand this guilt; I am not, and so maybe this book was not written for me.)
How many men are obsessed with some type of trim that is 180° different to what they grew up with?
How many black guys do you see select overweight white ladies, and vice versa?
How many guys are big into Asian girls? (Judging from the higher rates paid to Asian adult film actresses, I'd have to say quite a few.)
Something like 70% of American Jewish people are partnered with non-Jewish people--and it has been this way for a very long time.
So now what?
Using evolutionary biology arguments, doesn't it seem healthy that you would want things that are genetically is far from you as possible? (Need I remind you that the Habsburgs died out because of inbreeding?)
*******
Lots of unhelpful stereotypes--from a Jewish author, of all people.
The Neurotic Jew
The Devouring Jewish Mother
I live with Jewish people every day (I am one, but not quite in the same sense that the others around here are, nor this author).
And for the life of me, this is just not the way I see them.
I see:
The Jewish businessman
The Jewish scholar
The Jewish soldier
The Jewish Man of Words
The Jewish Physician
As far as Jewish women:
I think if you normed the sample set of all white women such that the average was a 5.00, the average Jewish lady would probably be 7.00-7.25.
Remember, this is the race of people that have created beauties such as:
Sarah Silverman
Jen Selter (callipygian!)
Madeline Weinstein
Aly Raisman
Kat Dennings
Abby Shapiro
Jennifer Connelly
Then again...... maybe I really DO hope that there are more people like the Neurotic Portnoy--because then that thins out the competition for my sons in the market of Ashkenazi Jewish ladies. (If my kids ended up cranking out kids with women of caliber such as the aforementioned, then that will be definitive proof that my davening was taken seriously.)
The truth may be somewhere between the fictional theatricality of this book and my lived experience.
It is true that I see on a regular basis EXTREMELY OVERMOTHERED SONS- but not to this degree. (On the TV show "Big Bang Theory," one of the characters observed that "an adult Jewish male living with his mother is so common as to border on sociological cliché.")
The other thing that makes this book particularly bad is that it is a lot of repackaging of that bullshit discipline known as "Freudian psychology"-- the one where everybody was overwrought with suppressed sexual conflicts toward one/both parents.
In this conceptual space (that no one believes anymore), mothers get 99% of the blame for everything. (Schizophrenogenic mother et al. There is even a reference here to "neurasthenia.")
I think I found my way into this book because I noticed it was cross referenced in another book that I read "A Seat At The Table."
It was intended as a palate cleanser, because it's fictional and there is less content than some of these heavier books that I read.
It seemed to be thoroughly read and reviewed on Amazon and is contained within a book called "Great Books of the 20th Century," so there was some hubbub about it. (For the record, there was also a lot of hubbub about "50 Shades of Gray.")
Verdict:
Not recommended.
EMPHATICALLY not recommended.
Portnoy's Complaint
-1/5 stars
"I just don't know what the hell this book is about."
*******
It must be a testament to the sparkling Ashkenazi Jewish verbal ability that one such can write a book filled with a couple of hundred pages of ranting about NOTHING and still be published and still be remembered.
Maybe this type of content was edgy/novel several decades ago when it was written (gratuitous use of the "c-word" and graphic descriptions of sexual acts), but that was LONG before the days of the internet.
These days, you can do a single search in something like OnlyFans or PornHub and see everything that this guy talked about actually done at any moment of the day. (I'm willing to bet the value of a latte at Starbucks that there is a porn genre of Jewish men sullying gentile women; Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy and James Deen have been extremely prolific; Or the reverse: Abella Danger has been billing herself as "Jewish" for some time, even though she's.......not.)
It seems that a lot of this book was the character's/author's guilt about his obsession with non-Jewish women. (Maybe you have to be genetically Jewish to understand this guilt; I am not, and so maybe this book was not written for me.)
How many men are obsessed with some type of trim that is 180° different to what they grew up with?
How many black guys do you see select overweight white ladies, and vice versa?
How many guys are big into Asian girls? (Judging from the higher rates paid to Asian adult film actresses, I'd have to say quite a few.)
Something like 70% of American Jewish people are partnered with non-Jewish people--and it has been this way for a very long time.
So now what?
Using evolutionary biology arguments, doesn't it seem healthy that you would want things that are genetically is far from you as possible? (Need I remind you that the Habsburgs died out because of inbreeding?)
*******
Lots of unhelpful stereotypes--from a Jewish author, of all people.
The Neurotic Jew
The Devouring Jewish Mother
I live with Jewish people every day (I am one, but not quite in the same sense that the others around here are, nor this author).
And for the life of me, this is just not the way I see them.
I see:
The Jewish businessman
The Jewish scholar
The Jewish soldier
The Jewish Man of Words
The Jewish Physician
As far as Jewish women:
I think if you normed the sample set of all white women such that the average was a 5.00, the average Jewish lady would probably be 7.00-7.25.
Remember, this is the race of people that have created beauties such as:
Sarah Silverman
Jen Selter (callipygian!)
Madeline Weinstein
Aly Raisman
Kat Dennings
Abby Shapiro
Jennifer Connelly
Then again...... maybe I really DO hope that there are more people like the Neurotic Portnoy--because then that thins out the competition for my sons in the market of Ashkenazi Jewish ladies. (If my kids ended up cranking out kids with women of caliber such as the aforementioned, then that will be definitive proof that my davening was taken seriously.)
The truth may be somewhere between the fictional theatricality of this book and my lived experience.
It is true that I see on a regular basis EXTREMELY OVERMOTHERED SONS- but not to this degree. (On the TV show "Big Bang Theory," one of the characters observed that "an adult Jewish male living with his mother is so common as to border on sociological cliché.")
The other thing that makes this book particularly bad is that it is a lot of repackaging of that bullshit discipline known as "Freudian psychology"-- the one where everybody was overwrought with suppressed sexual conflicts toward one/both parents.
In this conceptual space (that no one believes anymore), mothers get 99% of the blame for everything. (Schizophrenogenic mother et al. There is even a reference here to "neurasthenia.")
I think I found my way into this book because I noticed it was cross referenced in another book that I read "A Seat At The Table."
It was intended as a palate cleanser, because it's fictional and there is less content than some of these heavier books that I read.
It seemed to be thoroughly read and reviewed on Amazon and is contained within a book called "Great Books of the 20th Century," so there was some hubbub about it. (For the record, there was also a lot of hubbub about "50 Shades of Gray.")
Verdict:
Not recommended.
EMPHATICALLY not recommended.