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Can't believe how tedious it is. I'm guessing it was a sensation when new because of all the sexual talk, but by modern standards (or my standards, anyway), what a bore. The writing is vivid and energetic, but apart from that, not much.
Also, weirdly, there's a character named Babaloo Mandel, and there really is a writer with that name, so I'm guessing that Roth had the poor judgment to use the guy's real name.
Can't believe how tedious it is. I'm guessing it was a sensation when new because of all the sexual talk, but by modern standards (or my standards, anyway), what a bore. The writing is vivid and energetic, but apart from that, not much...
I can remember reading it when it first came out....massively boring was my reaction. As for the sexual talk, I thought he suceeded in making it as interesting as a recipe for oatmeal gruel.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cida
Also, weirdly, there's a character named Babaloo Mandel, and there really is a writer with that name, so I'm guessing that Roth had the poor judgment to use the guy's real name.
Actually, that's how Babaloo Mandel got his nickname. His name is Marc Mandel but his writing partner, Lowell Ganz, started calling him "Babaloo" because of the character in Portnoy's Complaint.
Funny, huh? It's like a "what came first? the chicken or the egg" thing.
PS. The only book by Philip Roth that I was able to finish was Patrimony, a true story about his father.
Actually, that's how Babaloo Mandel got his nickname. His name is Marc Mandel but his writing partner, Lowell Ganz, started calling him "Babaloo" because of the character in Portnoy's Complaint.
Funny, huh? It's like a "what came first? the chicken or the egg" thing.
PS. The only book by Philip Roth that I was able to finish was Patrimony, a true story about his father.
I'm kind of glad to hear that about Babaloo Mandel. I was horrified at the idea that maybe Roth was using the real name of a real person.
I remember trying to read it many years ago. I wanted to kill myself and then, remembered I could simply take the book back to the Library.
LOL. I've tried to read a few books that left me feeling that way.
The only Roth book I read was Goodbye, Columbus. I liked the movie better. I did try to read I Married a Communist but it was so filled with hate that I couldn't stand it. I thought it would be good because it was his response to the autobiography Claire Bloom wrote in which she nuked him to morbid. Nah, the first chapter wore me down.
I never read Portnoy, but I have read a couple other Roth books ("Indignation" most recently), and found them to be better than average among the well known writers of that period. Writers of that era wrote a great deal more deliberately than they do now, with less intensity to keep the plot boiling.
Certainly not a bad writer, or a mediocre one ... but ...
... not in the same league as Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote, Joyce Carol Oates, E. L. Doctorow, or Edmund White.
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