Hey, Roth! What’s with that smug smile on your face?

That satisfied look? Do you think you’re some kind of goy now? Or maybe you’re thinking of a shikse? Are you high? Just because you wrote a bunch of anti-semitic, auto-erotic stuff, you think you’re a bigshot?

What’s the sense in that piece of crap? Don’t you dare turn your back on me, you balding Kike! You wanker! You kosher prick!

Oh, where’s the sense in all this? Come on, mate. Is this really just to ridicule society? What’s the gist, the point, the essence?

To say things nobody has said before? Is it just anger, contempt? Sure, I get the whole idea of defying the boundaries of society, being free from cultural standards.

Freedom from the restrictive paradigm! I understand, I really do. Fuck society. Fuck culture, marriage, family, democracy, capitalism, sexual restraint.

Fuck them all! But is it just that? Why all the girlfriends? I bet that’s just boasting, Philip. Just because you had sex doesn’t mean we want to hear about it.

All you did was give me a boner in some parts. That wasn’t very nice considering all the whining that came with it. You’re an asshole, Roth!

You’re worse. You’re thinking of doing perverse things to your own mother! That’s beyond oedipal tendencies, bud. Are you suggesting we should practice incest because fuck society?

Incest because fuck the law? You motherfucker! That’s gross, man. Is that the point? What about all that wanking?

Is it just to make me want to wank myself? Well, you succeeded, mate. I may have wanked somewhere in between reading your book.

Satisfied, Roth? You corrupted a youth. If someone catches me doing the deed, I’ll tell them I learned it from the venerated Philip Roth.

But I’m telling you, you didn’t succeed with that whole incest thing. You stay out of my family! And really, the liver?

You thought up that it should be fed to a family? I bet you did that in real life. Is this semi-autobiographical?

Because I’m telling you, some things here were a little too graphic to be made up. Come on, bud. Say it. I did all this when I was younger.

There’s a good boy. So you just wanted to share life experiences, eh? No? Then what is it? Ah, I think I’ve got it.

Now, Phil. Mind if I call you Phil? So is this really just another Catcher in the Rye, except with crazy substituting the teenage angst?

Is it really just I’m too good for you stuff? Just another anarchy dude, another all that “my life, my rules” crap.

The world’s your oyster, kid. Joke’s on you, it’s not. What’s with all the sexual stuff? To prove that sex is a natural instinct and shouldn’t be so shameful?

Sure, that’s pretty good. But is that all? Defy life, sex is normal. Is that it? Bullshit, Phil! You may be a chronic wanker, but you’re not stupid enough to write a book about this stuff.

This is all movie crap. This is the bread and butter of scriptwriters, not novelists. You’ve got more pride than that.

You’ve won a Pulitzer for crying out loud! Why write this? What are you trying to tell me? Why all the babble!

Are you a Nazi? Are you trying to justify the holocaust? What is with this book? Is it to make me a better man?

Is it supposed to show the inadequacies of my complaints, the shallowness of it all? Are you using reverse psychology?

It won’t work, boyo. We gentiles are a smarter breed than you give us credit for. You cunt! You sexist, racist, homophobic son of a woman.

Are you trying to show us the thoughts of the superior Caucasian man? Hehe! Now I’m the racist one. Sorry, Phil.

Didn’t mean to hurt you there. But I’m still stumped here. What’s the big picture? What’s it saying to me?

Libido is libertarian? I guess I can work with that. Hahaha! Wait, humor won’t work here, Phil.

You wrote a book and I read it. You have to answer me here. No, you don’t have the right to remain silent.

No, you can’t invoke your right to self-incrimination. Say it! Open up! Spill the beans! Let the cat out of the bag!

Try to see the big picture, you say? Ah! I see! It’s in the punch-line! What, no comment? So it’s about the doctor.

I get it now, sonny. You thought you freed yourself from the chains of society. You broke everything, you howled!

You didn’t give a crap about anything. Heck, you even tore the tag off the mattress! But really, you weren’t freed.

The fact that you were talking to a shrink proved that you thought something was wrong with you. You say you didn’t give a shit, but you put yourself under observation.

You say you lived big, but you confined yourself with a mental-health professional. You were under invisible chains, your freedom was an illusion.

Why the silence now, Phil? Say something. What? I’m confusing you with Portnoy? But you wrote it, mate.

Doesn’t that sort of identify you with the protagonist? What? I’m an asshole? Alright, whatever. You’re the man.

I’m just saying, freedom from societal norms is an illusion. Sometimes, all we can do is complain. Am I right, Phil?

I've been indulging in a significant amount of smut lately. However, it's not because I'm some kind of insatiable horndog. Well, actually, upon further reflection, that might very well be the reason.

So, I decided to give this particular piece a try. I had heard that it was rather dirty, and indeed it is. But here's the thing, it's not sexy at all.

It's really quite a letdown.

Mimi proposed an interesting thought. She suggested that perhaps this is one of those books that must be read at a young age or not at all. That actually sounds like a fairly decent point.

Maybe there's something about the naivety and inexperience of youth that makes such content more appealing or at least more understandable.

As I get older, it seems that my perspective on these things has changed, and what once might have been titillating now just comes across as rather dull and unappealing.

**"Roth sei tutti noi (me)" - A Reflection on "Lamento di Portnoy"**

Roth sei tutti noi (me)

In the late 1960s, a young Jewish New Yorker lies on a psychoanalyst's couch, engaged in a long monologue. This is the essence of "Lamento di Portnoy," where he complains about the chaos of his life, dominated by parental figures and a lack of affectivity that sublimates into an infinite sexual longing.

If you have the (un)fortunate experience of coming from a traditionalist society with a strong family influence, if you have (un)lucky parents who are overly concerned, a mother who is affectionate but suffocating and authoritarian, if you are a man in such a society where much (too much) is expected of you, then you will have little trouble understanding this book and what it says.

As a satisfied southern immigrant, I meet many of the above conditions. So, I had no difficulty identifying with the book and seeing myself in the character of Alexander Portnoy (in truth, I see more of my older brother in him; being the third child saved me: I grew up more capafrésca with less attention, and thus less interest and fewer expectations around me). From the parental figures to the sexual rivalry (the mental map of the USA to be colonized state by state is not too different from the one I had in mind in the early 2000s), through the discomfort of one's own origins that turns into a reason for superiority in an external environment (study the category of terroni fuggiaschi to understand what I mean), the hidden love for one's own cuisine, the non-economic but social affirmation in a "right" role, and so much more. In short, so many, too many things during reading seemed familiar or even autobiographical, to the point where I asked myself if I wasn't the reincarnation of at least a part of Roth's soul (for me, the novel is autobiographical, I bet whatever you want) given that he is still alive.

Of course, the differences are not lacking. My father is not constipated, nor is my mother so melodramatic (although some phrases are clichéd), and neither of them can be considered ignorant; quite the opposite. Nor do I have the lack of affectivity in relationships like Portnoy. Nor can my origins be traced back to populations with legendary intelligence (I assure you, however, that I'm not stupid). But, I must admit, despite Portnoy being a bit of an asshole, hypocritical, and selfish, I just can't help but have a feeling of sympathy for him.

And in the end, Roth's message is clear, using the psychoanalytic device: you cannot break away from your origins; imprinting is something you carry with you throughout your life and with which you must live wherever you are. But you also cannot resolve your conflicts by going back to the starting point, as it has become something else for you.

“But all catharsis were in vain for that man.”

“But all catharsis were in vain for that man.”

I read Philip Roth for the first time. Last year, while browsing in a shop, I came across some of his books and flicked through a few pages. Among them was this one, and the other title that caught my eye was ‘The Breast’. I thought to myself, these writers are so clever in choosing such titles to seduce ignorant readers like me. What a wily tactic!

After reading a few pages, it was obvious to me that Philip Roth is a famous American novelist and story composer, known for his sensual ingenious style and provocative prose. I had also accidentally read Charles Bukowski some time ago. When I started this book, I wondered if it would be as filthy in content as Bukowski's works. However, the author proved my conjecture wrong right away. The narrator began telling his story of his mother, father, and sister in a distorted humorous way. From the outset, the prose was very candid and voguish. I assumed it would be a bold family tale.

Now wait!

These two paragraphs were written by me immediately after completing this book in July last year. But I couldn't finish adding all my thoughts because an unavoidable reading-writing slump was impending. It eventually came, and I got lost in worldly affairs. So, I am writing it today, almost a year after reading this book. I also read the first chapter of "The Ghost Writer" this afternoon, which impelled me to complete my thoughts on this first book of Philip Roth that I read last year.

Portnoy’s complaint is a long monologue of a man named Alexander Portnoy, who is in a therapeutic session with his therapist. The content of this book is outright bold, controversial, and has a high probability of creating conflict outside. There is a constant tussle in the narration. The narrator talks about his sexual obsessions and carnal frustrations, and at times he confesses his relationships that verge on moral abasement. The dark humor he presents in this narration sometimes makes it lighter, sometimes even graver from an ethical standpoint.

If a reader is uncomfortable with the subject matter, he should avoid the book. But as a reader, I am giving high points to the book for its writing. The reason is its obsessive and engaging storytelling. Even from the first few pages, I was arrested by Roth's prose. His way of telling about his obsessions and confessions was quite unique for me and reminded me of some of the Russian masters, whose prose was likewise highly psychological. The way he presents the domineering nature of his parents and his own identity struggles and those guilt-ridden alliances was also amazing.

His prose is intrepid and provocative, yet I must say he is such a writer that I am going to explore more. I am hopeful to finish 'American Pastoral' and 'The Ghost Writer' this year.

Caramba! What a litany of grievances and causes for complaint! How many hatreds that I didn't even suspect existed! Is it because of the therapy, doctor, or is it simply what is called "the material"?

I do nothing but complain, the repugnance seems endless, and I start to ask myself if after all I'm not going too far.

Alexander Portnoy, an American Jew, lives divided between the perfection imposed by his parents and his desire for freedom and breaking with Jewish traditions.

This book is a monologue of Alexander in front of his psychiatrist, where with great humor and no filter he tells about his childhood, adolescence, his sexual adventures, the turbulent relationship with his parents and his pessimism regarding the institution of marriage and the perpetuation of the Portnoy name.

Through the character of Alexander, Philip Roth, with his mastery, manages to give us an ironic vision of what it is like to be Jewish in America and how their choices are often made based on the beliefs and traditions that are taught from an early age, choices that are made for better or for worse.

It's a complex and engaging exploration of identity, family, and the struggle between the old and the new in a modern context.

The 68th book I read in 2021 was by Philip Roth.

I've always had a bit of a thing with Roth. Every time I spot one of his books in a charity shop or on sale, I can't resist buying them. Over the years, I've amassed maybe 5 or 6 of his novels, yet until now, I hadn't read a single one. I'd take one off the shelf and think, "I haven't got this one, I must read some Roth, I must read this." So I kept buying them but never managed to get around to reading. According to Penguin, "Portnoy's Complaint" is the best novel to start with. It's not his first novel, but it's the one that catapulted him to literary stardom. The novel is presented as a nearly 300-page monologue from Portnoy to his psychoanalyst, Dr. Spielvogel.

I was anticipating sex, but I wasn't quite prepared for the level and humour of it. This long section from page 18 shows Alexander Portnoy beginning to describe his masturbation addiction. He has some rather vivid and vulgar descriptions, like the incident with the cored apple and the piece of liver. It's vulgar, but it's also humorous, and Portnoy has a strong narrative voice. The beginning is mainly about his overprotective and overbearing Jewish parents and his obsession with sex, imagining sex, and masturbation. There are scenes where he's locked in the bathroom trying to masturbate while his parents are trying to barge in and ask him what's wrong.

Once Roth has had his fun talking about sex and shocking the reader (it probably wasn't as shocking for us now as it was in 1969), Portnoy delves deeper into his family life, his upbringing as a Jew, and so on. There's a lot of bitterness about the latter. Eventually, the novel comes back to sex as Portnoy explains some of the long relationships he had in his adult life, none of them very "normal". I recently said in my review of "Batlava Lake", which is also a monologue, that novels like these need to have a moment that breaks through all the comic value/sex/humour and strikes something deeper to find the point of it all. In "Portnoy's Complaint", we get a glimpse of what Portnoy maybe really wants, like dignity, health, love, and more. And we also get a female character berating him near the end of the novel for all she believes Portnoy is. It really hit me in the end that his problems with girls and masturbation are really problems in general, in life, in America, with the modern man, with money, with ambition, and so on.

Roth loves using exclamation marks, and this novel is full of them. I remember a professor at university telling me that using more than 1 on a page was sloppy writing. But Roth uses hundreds. I didn't count, but I wonder how many are really in this 274-page novel. Somehow, it works. Portnoy's lamenting is the whole point of the novel, and without the exclamation marks, it would be worse off. It's a brilliant, vulgar, and bizarre novel. I'm glad I finally read Roth, although I still have about 4 other of his novels on my shelf.

“questa è la mia vita, la mia unica vita, e la sto vivendo da protagonista di una barzelletta ebraica” (Alexander Portnoy). Alex Portnoy, the archetype of the protagonist in all of Philip Roth's novels, dominates the entire book from the title. The book doesn't have a linear story, a temporally coherent development, or a smoothly polished and satisfying narrative form. It's a diatribe, an outburst, a confession in front of the imagined astonished psychiatrist, a veritable "Lament" that overwhelms every rational resistance in the interlocutor and the reader.

During Roth's career, there are subsequent works that are much more complete and perfect from a literary point of view, precise in the description of places, environments, and characters, and in the succession of events. But in none of them has the author been able to (or wanted to) pour out as much enthusiasm and passion, from the first word to the last, unleashing, when the "Lament" landed on the American literary scene, a furor in the academic world, the Jewish community, his own family (and probably also within himself).

And if, half a century later, the effect is still so fully alive and pulsating, it is a sign (besides of a talent already developed at 35 years old, although destined to take another 40) of how much of himself Roth was able to infuse into these pages without shame, without pity for himself and his parents, without hesitation for religion, not only his Jewish religion, but any religion, the very concept of religion or a God to turn to.

It makes little sense to extrapolate from the burning core of this book its strongest components, such as sex, of course, the figures of the mother, the model of all Jewish mothers, invasive, possessive, passionate, and castrating, who pervade American cinema, theater, and recent narrative, of the father and the other family members, the countless uncles who in turn appear in various forms in Roth's bibliography, the women, characterized precisely and mercilessly (the Monkey, the Melon, the Lieutenant) or taken as a genre in themselves (the shikses). It makes little sense because everything is mixed in this deluge of sensations and feelings that arouses emotion and anger, laughter and melancholy, indignation and complicity. In two words, life...

Let's take a modern literary genius, endow him also with practically perfect irony, and feed him an inner drama stuffed with family/social neurosis. Result: Masterpiece.

Even if we were to overlook the unachievable literary quality, it would still be worth reading just for the fact that at the time it aroused the condemnation and criticism of so much of the well-intentioned society, which is precisely the minimum requirement to become a masterpiece.

We can imagine this literary genius, with his sharp and ironic pen, delving deep into the complex and often troubled world of human relationships. His work not only exposes the flaws and contradictions within families and society but also forces us to confront our own prejudices and assumptions.

Despite the initial backlash and criticism, this work has stood the test of time and has become a classic. It continues to resonate with readers today, inviting us to explore the depths of our own inner lives and the social structures that shape us.

In conclusion, whether we appreciate it for its literary excellence or for its ability to challenge and provoke, this work is truly a masterpiece that has earned its place in the canon of modern literature.

Smart, funny, outrageous - these are just some of the words that can be used to describe this work. It is also completely irreverent when it comes to parents, religion, and of course, sex. And this was especially true for 1969.

Even though a vast amount of material has been written about these subjects since then, this book still doesn't seem outdated. However, Roth wasn't the only one dealing with such topics at that time. Although he was probably the funniest.

In the early sixties, in conservative Catholic Ireland, John McGahern had the courage to face the anger of the entire country. He dared to state some unpleasant truths about the brutality of parents, the hypocrisy of religion, and the sexual obsessions of teenage boys in books like 'The Barracks' and 'The Dark'. Both of these books were banned for several decades.

Somehow, Portnoy's overly protected childhood in Newark seems quite ordinary when compared to McGahern's experiences. It makes one wonder about the different lives and struggles that people have faced throughout history and how these experiences have shaped their works.

It's Not My Problem

“With a life like mine, Doctor, what good are dreams to me?”

What defines me as a human being, first and foremost? The will to live and be free, Alexander Portnoy seems to assert. This aspiration is predominantly expressed in the environment created by the dialogue between social and family characteristics, and individual desires and qualities: in this case, sexuality, Judaism, bourgeois society, and intellectualism. And so, writing, in the form of a psychoanalytic monologue, becomes a flow that is a metaphor for life, for the sexual act as the liberation of energy, for professional affirmation as proof of male potency, for sarcasm towards others, and for solipsism as a defense against narcissism and self-contempt. “What happened to the common sense I had at nine, ten, eleven years old? How did I become such an enemy and scourge of myself? And so alone! Oh, so alone! Nothing but myself! Shut up inside myself! What words does Portnoy choose to save himself from this forced isolation, what theater does he stage to represent his emancipation from the slavery of impotence? Meshuggener, an incurable man of success and culture, has only one objective in mind: to live large and pursue, between baseball and erotica, every shikse who will introduce him to her graces and welcome his insatiable hunger for women, in a fantasy of the fica, the passera, where the woman is the subject of fantasies, the female body the object of love and hate, veneration and curse, dependence and ecstasy: Portnoy is a being at the mercy of libido and impulses, all directed towards femininity, towards the female sex, in an orgiastic mythology where the shlong, the putz, the male organ, is the mediator and totem of a meeting that becomes a linguistic parody of Freudian psychology and the despotism of tradition tout court. Between farce and Oedipal tragedy, Portnoy reveals himself as, at times, a lost infant with the nostalgia of a mother who threatens to castrate him with a kitchen knife, a young male who sees erection as a state of divine captivity and becomes the subject of necessary education in unrestrained masturbation, a virile and dominant adult man who raises the idol of the prohibited against Puritan repression, a negative choice that leads to a pansexual and hedonistic morality. In his chronic dissatisfaction, in his repeated failures, Portnoy thinks of himself as a madman with a significant and dignified suffering, an unhappy Jew who despises himself, where exaggeration is elected as an existential style. Every boundary is a prejudice, life is an unlimited desire, the relationship a narcissistic unfolding: writing is the place where an anarchic inversion of reality can take shape, avoiding negation and overcoming, in dissipation, the fear of growing in a Dionysian delirium characterized by desecrating orality and invective against vulgarity. “The point of my reasoning, Doctor, is that it's not so much a matter of sticking my dick into these girls as it is of sticking it into their social environments... as if by fucking I wanted to discover America. Conquering America, that's perhaps more correct”. The pleasure of the senses is the antidote to the suffocating anguish of the daily routine, and the irrepeatability of the sexual experience acquires a liberating and ritual function, in the triumph of an antivitalistic irony. The Complaint of Portnoy is a confessional novel full of visceral comedy, with a hybrid and uncertain American hero, irregular and antisocial even in success, in a satirical story that is more complex and versatile than it appears; it generates laughter and catharsis, deals with guilt and transgression, resolves, on different levels, the conflict between conscience and instinct, suggesting, in the impossible and disastrous search for the other, the existence of a vital and painful value that can at least partially restore the meaning of one's fullness. In the passionate scandal and the intense pathos, a curious and never resigned interrogation.

“Doctor, maybe his other patients dream – but me, look, things really happen to me, all of them. I have a life without latent content. Dreams happen to me! Doctor, I couldn't get it up in the State of Israel! Well, what does he think of this as a symbol, bubi? Can he show me someone who can do better, eh? Someone who can't maintain an erection in the Promised Land!”

Amo Roth. His way of storytelling fascinates me and wins me over to his books. This is also thanks to a clear, limpid, and unadorned writing style, precise and calibrated. This novel had the same effects on me as the previous ones I read, but it didn't excite me. It doesn't reach the heights of "American Pastoral" or "The Human Stain".

We read a long monologue of the young American Jewish lawyer Alex Portnoy on the analyst's couch. It's a kind of stream of consciousness from which emerges the interior dichotomy of this man, a misfit unable to love (and be loved). He tries to bring to light, with a lament that rises like a cry for help, the causes of his being this way: in public life, a model student, the top of his class, then an excellent lawyer dedicated to the defense of the dispossessed and minorities, a collaborator of the mayor of New York; in private, a masturbator, morbidly obsessed with sex but unable to establish a stable emotional relationship with a woman. Growing up in a Jewish family with an overprotective mother, a dispenser of ironclad rules to be respected and of deep feelings of guilt for their violation, Alex harbors a rebellious spirit against the hypocrisy that governs the Jewish religion. However, he finds himself more "Jewish" in his soul than he thinks, thanks to the maternal education so firmly rooted in him. The MOTHER, here is the most unforgettable character that Alex has known. "She was so deeply rooted in my consciousness that I think I believed throughout the first year of school that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise." The mother, who embodies and symbolizes, in my opinion, the Jewish religion, towards which Alex, an adult who remains a child, harbors an Oedipal love-hate relationship, which is expressed in finding faults in every woman he dates because she is far from the ideal of a Jewish wife and mother, and at the same time in the desire to penetrate non-Jewish girls, American girls descended from the Pilgrim Fathers who landed with the Mayflower on the shores of the USA, "as if by fucking I wanted to discover America. To conquer America."

As usual, Philip Roth's books stimulate in me broad reflections and thoughts. Therefore, I conclude by explaining the "I liked it but...": the "but" is represented, in my opinion, by the excessive repetitiveness of the situations described in the book and in the reflections of the protagonist, which risk tiring, although they always generate a smile in their Woody Allen-like irony. In any case, Roth is and remains among my favorite writers. I already miss him!

Credo possa definirsi la storia di una lotta.

It is not a fight against an imaginary enemy, but against the attempt by the received (imposed) family education, the repression of bourgeois values, and the subtle veil of hypocrisy that prevails everywhere to shape the mind of the poor protagonist according to a model that he does not feel at all his own.

The prevailing erotomania then becomes an almost unconscious attempt to break one of the main taboos: the attempt to reaffirm one's free individuality in the face of a world that would like to lock up every individual behind the false walls of massification.

This struggle is not an easy one. It requires the protagonist to have the courage to face the challenges and resist the pressures from society and family.

He must find his own way and define his own identity, not being influenced by the external forces.

Only in this way can he truly break free from the constraints and achieve his own liberation.