Portnoy’s Complaint

ONE OF THE THE ATLANTIC'S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS

Portnoy's Complaint scandalized-and forever changed-American literature." -The Washington Post

“Deliciously funny . . . absurd and exuberant, wild and uproarious . . . a brilliantly vivid reading experience”—The New York Times Book Review

"The novel that made Roth a literary superstar, and it remains his most controversial." -Esquire

"Simply one of the two or three funniest works in American Fiction." -Chicago Sun-Times

Portnoy’s complaint (pôrt´-noizkm-plānt´ ) n . [after Alexander Portnoy (1933– )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: ‘Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient’s “morality,” however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.’ (Spielvogel, O. “The Puzzled Penis,” Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. xxiv, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.