It was always controversial, but as the position of Jews in American society changes, rereading Philip Roth’s landmark 1969 novel feels uncomfortable for different reasons.

(JTA - PHILISSA CRAMER) Back when Portnoy’s Complaint was published, the sexual ribaldry that brought it notoriety genuinely alarmed members of the older generation.

These European-born Jews knew the dangerous outcome of cartooning that cast the Jew as corrupter. They could not grasp that Philip Roth was writing this book as the freest Diaspora Jew who had ever taken pen to paper, revelling in the liberation of language and libido.

His timing was perfect. It was because he was not living in Germany, because Goebbels and his family had been driven to suicide, and because American culture was becoming so pagan

But then, just try imagining Roth publishing this a little later in his career, say, during the #MeToo movement. Which of the two would have been coming after him first today — the feminists or the antisemites?

Had Jews continued to feel at home in America, Portnoy’s Complaint might have become a once-hilarious literary landmark that had lost its explosive power. Instead, attitudes toward free expression, humour, sex, and the Jews have changed so dramatically that even quoting from it has become uncomfortable.

What trigger warning should we issue to Christians before that “potentially disturbing content”? Humour may be a protected outlet for aggression, but not even in Yiddish, their internal language, would European Jews have allowed themselves such fun at Gentile expense.

Although the sexual content of this book got all the attention, inviting questions about Roth’s misogyny, the anti-Christian zingers aim deeper, as if he were releasing payback that had been stored up against the Gentiles for two millennia. The word “goyim,” which is etymologically neutral to designate the nations among whom Jews have always lived, becomes for Roth almost what “kike” was for the anti-Jews.

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Rereading: Philip Roth: Portnoy’s Complaint (Sapir)

Image: Poster from the 1972 film based on Roth’s book.