Alexander Portnoy is a neurotic Jewish son of midcentury, smothered by his mother, shrugged off by his father, caught between 5,000 years of tradition and the anything-goes permissiveness of postwar America. Few novels have such energy, the pure headlong squawk of torment. I’d say it fits in the bottom half – with his more forgettable works. How did it fit in the Roth canon, this rich, blazing torrent? When he died last month, I thought I’d revisit his first major bestseller, “Portnoy’s Complaint.” I’d read it sometime in my early 20s - 30 years ago! - and I’m sure much of the humor (and more of the sex) was lost on me. The descriptions of glovemaking in “American Pastoral” the funhouse wit of “The Counterlife” the haunting boldness of “Everyman” – in recent years, as I finished a Philip Roth book (even ones I tired of, such as the latter volumes of the Zuckerman trilogy), I thought that he was an author of boundless talent. His books routinely leave me impressed, even awestruck, at his sheer facility with words. Philip Roth is one of my favorite authors. (Review lowered to three stars from four.)
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