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Philip Roth
The famous confession of Alexander Portnoy who is thrust through life by his unappeasable sexuality, yet held back at the same time by the iron grip of his unforgettable childhood.
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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 received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He has twice won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005, Philip Roth will become the third living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. The last of the eight volumes is scheduled for publication in 2013.
topAbout the Book
The famous confession of Alexander Portnoy who is thrust through life by his unappeasable sexuality, yet held back at the same time by the iron grip of his unforgettable childhood.
topPhilip Roth interview/review
Philip Roth rarely gives interviews. He did, however, agree to answer some faxed questions about his work from Robert McCrum of The Observer.
- The Observer, July 2001 Do you think sex is the Western novel’s deepest theme?
I don’t know.
- So what is the purpose of fiction?
God only knows.
- What do you mean by ‘the pornography of jealousy’?
The sexual imaginings that are inspired by jealousy. The pornography that is a torture to watch rather than a pleasure, because, as Kepesh says, ‘you identify yourself not with the satiate, with the person who is getting it, but with the person not getting it, with the person losing it, with the person who has lost’.
- What is the most encouraging feature of contemporary American culture?
I’m not good at finding ‘encouraging’ features in American culture. I think we’ve got a substantial group of original and talented writers who’ve been at work in America for the past 20 or 30 years, but their readership gets duller and smaller by the year. I doubt that aesthetic literacy has much of a future here.
- Who are the writers – alive or dead – whom you most admire?
To my mind, the greatest American writers of the last century were William Faulkner and Saul Bellow. Together they form the backbone of twentieth-century American literature. I don’t write like either of them. Who could? But I read them again and again. As I Lay Dying and The Adventures of Augie March. It’s hard to think of two better novels written in this country in any century.
- What are you working on now?
The beginning of a new novel. I’m hoping that it takes me the rest of my life to finish it. I can’t take starting from scratch one more time.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Portnoy’s Complaint is a novel much concerned with truth and lies, but are we totally convinced of Portnoy’s honesty in what is supposed to be a confession. Does Roth actually want us to be convinced of it?
- Portnoy’s psychoanalyst, Dr Spielvogel, only makes fleeting appearances in the narrative. How significant to Roth’s purpose and how important to the novel’s structure, is the psychoanalytical framework that carries the book?
- A large part of the earlier part of the novel is devoted to Portnoy’s relationship with his parents, in particular his mother. Contrast his descriptions of his mother with those of his father. Does he mock them both equally, or is his attitude to his father different, more sympathetic? What are the long-term influences each has on Portnoy, both real and perceived?
- Portnoy treats each of his girlfriends badly, but how does he describe them – in depth or purely physically? Is he in the end blaming his long succession of girlfriends for his problems or does he take responsibility on himself?
- Does the frequent sexual symbolism that appears throughout the novel – the mixing of kosher and menstrual blood; Portnoy’s mother dressing seductively in front of him – have any wider significance in the book?
- Portnoy’s Complaint is a sexually explicit, funny and angry exploration of Jewish identity that caused a storm of controversy when it was first published in 1969. Was this a novel contrived to shock, and does the shock value still work in today’s society?
Other Books by Philip Roth
American Pastoral
Seymour ‘Swede’ Levov – a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man,…
Deception
A famous writer, named Philip, and his mistress meet in a room without a bed…
Everyman
Philip Roth’s twenty-seventh book takes its title from an anonymous fifteenth…
Exit Ghost
Like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, …
Goodbye, Columbus
Philip Roth s award-winning first book instantly established its author s r…
I Married A Communist
Radio actor Iron Rinn is a big Newark roughneck lighted by a brutal personal…
Indignation
It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-a…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Mighty Walzer ~ Howard Jacobson
- Good As Gold ~ Joseph Heller
- Call It Sleep ~ Henry Roth
- Jake’s Thing ~ Kingsley Amis