A companion volume that enhances appreciation of the novel.
A spirited engagement with the 1969 breakthrough novel that brought Philip Roth both renown and notoriety.
It would be easy to form misleading impressions from this critical analysis of Portnoy’s Complaint. The fact that it’s an academic study from a celebrated university press might suggest that this book would drain all the fun from Portnoy. To the contrary, this critical work, written by a friend of the author, is very much in the spirit of the book to which it responds. Harvard Business Review contributing editor Avishai (The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last, 2008, etc.) ventures far and wide over literary, philosophical and other cultural touchstones, providing a context for Roth’s novel that encompasses James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Jackson Pollock and Judd Apatow. Avishai proves both an informed and engaging guide to the novel and its legacy. In a deft turn of critical praise, he writes of the novel’s expressing “the dirt of desire after the hygiene of childhood.” He explains how the novel is very much of its time yet transcends its time, and of how it has been perceived as quintessentially Jewish yet is ultimately emancipating in the way it resonates so far beyond the Jewish experience. Drawing on interviews with Roth and access to his notes, Avishai deals with the issue that has long been central to Roth: the blurring of fact and fiction, of novel and confession. Avishai builds a strong case that Portnoy is not Roth, and that the protagonist might even be the object of the author’s satire, along with psychoanalysis and pretty much everything else the novel addresses. “The joke was on everybody—parents, lovers, tribes, patients, psychoanalysts—which is another way of saying it was on the act of reading itself,” he writes, while elsewhere describing the progression of Portnoy “from a great farce into an unnerving mystery.”
A companion volume that enhances appreciation of the novel.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-300-15190-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
