BOOK
EVER
That is all.
"Framed as a couch side confessional by 33-year-old Jewish-American Alexander Portnoy to his psychiatrist, Portnoy's Complaint recounts the war raging within Portnoy. Portnoy is a guilt-ridden man whose seemingly blameless public persona - first as a loving and devoted child, then as a gifted scholar and finally as New York's Assistant Commissioner of Human opportunity - is mirrored by a private life dominated by his obsession with sex and driven by his need to indulge, frequently and obsessively, in everything from masturbation to oral and group sex. Ranging back and forth in time between Portnoy's past and the immediate events that led him to the psychoanalyst's couch, the book explores the root cause of his 'affliction' - the suffocating attentions of his parents, especially his mother, the pressures imposed by his Jewish heritage, and his crippling inability t relate to women in any way except through sex.
Portnoy's Complaint is a sexually explicit, scaborously funny and splenetically angry exploration of Jewish identity that caused a storm of controversy when it was published in 1969."
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Yeah? It'll be splenetic. Sexy and splenetic. Yeah.
Here's last months, still lots to yap about, don't be shy: http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4200014
By the way, if you've got any book suggestions, just post below or PM me. I'm still looking for a copy of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl but when I do, that'll be one. Plus, a couple of upcoming ones are Rabbit, Run (Updike) and The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald).
BOOK
EVER
That is all.
I've wanted to do this for ages for my er, meatspace book club but obviously people suggest other stuff and we'll never get around to it. Might re-read it for DiS though!
I remeber my overriding feeling was that Jews are very hung up on sex.
Perhaps. The joke is all about how the stereotype of a middle class Jewish American was terrified of vulgarity as it sullied the basis of his religion.
So yes; we're meant to think that they're very hung up on sex.
I'm reading too many other things right now, but this sounds really interesting, and I've missed far too many months, besides.
She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.
my copy is all weird because i kept laughing loads and dropping it in the bath.
portnoy's mother is the best domineering mother in the history of literature :D
I like it, it's pretty funny. There are so many! exclamation points! though! doctor! It's driving me crazy!
Did you ever see me try to smoke a cigarette? I look like Bette Davis.
I've a feeling that girls will enjoy this more than boys.
You know how some girls love that film Swingers? I think it's a similar phenomena.
Just found him intensely annoying. In fact, I think nearly everyone in it was annoying on some level.
Highlight: The suicide note. I guffawed good and hard at that.
Think I'll have another short sabbatical this month. Got lots on plus a bunch of genre novels to get through over the Christmas period.
Back in January with The Collector by John Fowles
(I heard it being discussed on Radio 4 last night and it made me want to read it again)
I watched Made for the first time the other week; same guys but with the added bonus of PETER FALK and Sam Rockwell :-D
Good choice!
Top film.