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April 22, 2006
Contemplations on literature
I've started reading "Portnoy's Complaint." I've been meaning to read Philip Roth for a while, 'cause he's such a lauded 20th century author. Not knowing anything about the book when I picked it up, I was quite surprised to discover that it's a first-person account of a brilliant young Jewish man's sexual disfunction in New Jersey and New York of the post-World War II era. It's a satire, and pretty funny, though it's weird and shocking enough that I'm not laughing at all of the jokes. I like it better than the other shockingly sexual supposedly-great 20th century book I've read, Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," which I actually found kind of dull.
The amazon.com review of the book says that "Along with Saul Bellow's 'Herzog,' Philip Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint' defined Jewish American literature in the 1960s." Roth's depiction of a supposedly quintissential Jewish experience doesn't seem to bear all that much resemblance to the Jewish experiences of people I've known -- though they might disagree. I think it's a book very fixed in a generational moment that has passed. Much of the so-called "Jewish experience" also seems as though it would translate to the experiences of other Americans raised in outsider cultures, perhaps as minorities or as children of immigrants.
Today I went to Wordstock, Portland's annual festival of books and literature, where I heard Ed Hirsch read some poems inspired by his Jewish childhood in Chicago. In many ways, Hirsch's poems seemed to be an answer to the defeatism of Portnoy in Roth's book. But I haven't finished the book yet. It's possible that Roth wrote it as a send-up and answer to the defeatism he himself is depicting.
In any case, it's very interesting stuff.
Now I want to read "Herzog." The only Saul Bellow book I've read is "Henderson the Rain King," and that one really blew me away. I keep thinking about it, months after I put it down.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at April 22, 2006 02:41 PM