101 Books

I need a shower.

No, really, I need a shower. I know that I started off my review of Dog Soldierswith the same phrase. But that was a joke. A ha-ha funny, lame joke.

But when I finished Portnoy’s Complaint, I literally needed a shower. My skin felt like it was covered in yuckiness, nastiness just from exposing my cranial tissue (is that something?) to that novel.

What’s so sad about this is how much I loved my first experience with Philip Roth’s writing: American Pastoral was outstanding. But Portnoy’s Complaint, despite Roth’s engaging and funny writing style, was just too much.

As I mentioned in my post, How Many C Words Is Too Many C Words?, reading this novel seems similar to what reading the transcript of a porn movie might be like. A literary, highly-acclaimed porn movie, but a porn movie nonetheless.

Let me…

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