gioxe

This book is a lot like a grown-up, sexualized version of The Catcher in the Rye. The main character, Alex Portnoy, spends the book talking to his psychologist, musing and crying and shouting about growing up permanently guilt-tripped, struggling with his parents and with his Jewish heritage, and ending up miserable in matters of love, in no small part because he makes his own misery for himself. The book is funny and could be worked into some good stand-up comedy. I understand if you decide you can't put up with his spoiled whining, but if you can, Roth has got a lot of uproarious, bittersweet, painful anecdotes to tell about Portnoy's life, which most importantly (and probably effectively as far as the humor goes) have a sort of ring of truth to them, like they were things that actually could have happened, you can imagine being there and seeing the narrator reacting as he does. (Maybe the book has some autobiographical element to it.) Unlike for Holden Caulfield, nothing really gets resolved for Portnoy; the books just carries his wailing and storytelling to the end, and this does get repetitive sometimes even if you don't object to the overall tone. There's no character development here and that kind of prevents the book from going places. Regardless, it's worth picking up for the solid laugh alone.

2022-11-14 18:40