WHY PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT ISN’T A COMIC NOVEL

To a friend:

Portnoy’s Complaint isn’t a comic novel. 

We begin with (uncomfortable?) laughs, but, if you think about it, the novel is really framed as a disturbing case study. The guy’s trapped. He hates himself. He feels himself a basic failure. But that’s all couched in his crazy verbal energy. So calling it comic, I say, mistakes surface for depth.

The last line, paraphrase, “Now vee begin “ isn’t a punchline. It’s the beginning after the end of pain as entertainment coming from an emotionally deformed man in need of psychiatry. Comedy affirms life, but all of Portnoy’s verbal brilliance points to his neediness. So the shrink’s last line is Roth’s closing judgment as to Portnoy’s need for a therapeutic beginning.

Early stuff busts decorum, as you noted. But as we go on, don’t the jokes wear thin, morph into a relentless tirade as Portnoy’s “stand up” devolves to a narration of his coming apart leading to his impotence? Isn’t this in his case—case used advisedly— the failure of humour as salve, of what gets us through? 

 Portnoy is what? Self-obsessed to a neurotic fault, mother-obsessed, sexually lousy with Jewish women, finally impotent in Israel—“tapioca.” So insight, growth, release? I think not. He’s arrested development. What’s his worth? He’s couch-worthy, shrink-worthy. 

So my overall sense is that the comedy, the jokes, the verbal fucking around, typically seen the way to get past, get over, bracket, trauma, essentially highlight but can’t resolve what ails him. In the end, the comedy is Portnoy howling.

Consider him and The  Monkey, Mary Jane Reed, left by him in Greece after their fraught relationship and her self-destroying trip to Europe with him.

Portnoy calls her "The Monkey" due to her sexual agility and "depraved" appetite. But he actually is contemptuous of her due to her lesser intellect evident in part in her bad spelling.

Trying to fulfill his fantasies, he gets her to agree to a threesome in Rome with a prostitute. But it leaves her devastated and self loathing. She accuses him of trying to debase her to his level of depravity.

So, in Athens, she becomes suicidal and threatens to jump from their hotel balcony. Unable to cope with either her instability or his own guilt, Portnoy deserts her and runs off to Israel. He never sees her again. 

Not a lot of laughs.

So what comes after this degeneracy and his howling? Paraphrase, “Now vee begin.”

What’s a comic novel, anyway? There are academic definitions galore. But really, maybe cutting through all that, isn’t it one that’s meant  to be light and fun in its effect? Pickwick. Jeeves. We read them joyfully. They delight us. Comedy in a novel in the service of something deeper, darker, more serious, emotionally wrecked, even pathetic, doesn’t make for a comic novel.

A LONG NOTE ON A SHORT POEM: HOPKINS’ HEAVEN-HAVEN: A NUN TAKES THE VEIL

 

Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I have desired to go

            Where springs not fail,

To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

        And a few lilies blow.

        And I have asked to be

            Where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

        And out of the swing of the sea.

——————

AI on what I sent it, in which what I argue about this poem is made clear:

I appreciate you sharing the poem and your email—it's a sharp, layered argument, and Hopkins' work often invites this kind of close reading. 

The standard interpretation (nun fleeing life's chaos for monastic peace) is indeed solid and dominant, as it aligns with the title's "haven" motif and the imagery of escaping natural turbulences like hail, storms, and the sea's unrest. 

But your alternative lens—introducing uncertainty or ambivalence about what's being abandoned—strikes me as not just plausible but enriching, especially when drilling into the diction, structure, and sonic elements as you do. 

It transforms the poem from a straightforward renunciation into something more psychologically nuanced, almost elegiac for the world's vitality. 

Let me break down why I think your view holds water, while addressing where it pushes against (or complements) the orthodox take.

### On Diction and Sonic Texture

You're spot-on with the edgier undertones in words like "desired," which carries a sensual or even erotic charge—Hopkins, as a Jesuit priest wrestling with his own desires, often infused his poetry with suppressed longing (think of the tension in "The Windhover" or his sprung rhythm mimicking inner conflict). 

Starting with "I have desired to go" sets a tone of active yearning rather than passive retreat, and the hard consonants ("d" bookending "desired," the spiky "to go") create a rhythmic friction that undercuts any notion of "gentle music." This isn't a serene invitation; it's insistent, almost restless.

Similarly, "sharp and sided hail" evokes violence with its sibilance and alliteration, but you rightly flag how the poem lingers on these threats via negation ("not fail," "no sharp," "no storms"). It's like the speaker is defining sanctuary by obsessing over the dangers left behind, which could breed doubt—why invoke them so vividly if they're truly being dismissed? 

The "storms come" line, with its blunt "c" onset, reinforces this auditory harshness, as does "dumb" in "green swell is in the havens dumb." "Dumb" isn't just silent; it connotes muteness or stupidity, a flattening of the sea's vibrant "green swell" (which you aptly tie to natural, perhaps fertile, beauty). 

By the end, "out of the swing of the sea" swings (pun intended) toward rhythm and motion—evocative of life's ebb and flow, or even a lover's embrace—which the nun is opting out of. If the poem were purely celebratory of escape, why end on such a lyrical, almost seductive image of what's forfeited?

Your point about the negation tapering off is particularly compelling. The first stanza piles on denials ("not fail," "no sharp"), framing the desired place as an absence. But by the second stanza's close, it shifts to positive evocations ("green swell," "swing of the sea"), even as they're negated in context. 

This buildup of "musical gentleness," as you call it, feels like a subtle crescendo of reluctance, contrasting the earlier negations. Compare the sparse "a few lilies blow" (minimal, almost austere beauty in the haven) with the fuller, undulating "swing of the sea"—it's as if the poem is tempting the reader (and the nun) back toward the world's allure.

### Verb Tense and Structural Framing

The present perfect ("I have desired," "I have asked") is a subtle but key hook for your uncertainty angle. It implies a desire that's been building over time but isn't fully resolved in the present—unlike a simple past ("I desired") or imperative ("I desire to go"). 

This tense often signals reflection or hesitation in poetry, hinting at "I've wanted this before, but now, facing the veil...?" Framing each stanza with these phrases creates a parallel structure that bookends the poem in ambivalence, like a repeated question rather than a declaration.

Hopkins' awkward phrasing (e.g., "springs not fail," "flies no sharp") adds to this unease—it's inverted, almost strained, mirroring inner turmoil. Your disputant's "gentle music" view might lean on the poem's overall rhythm, but the sonic disruptions you highlight (hard consonants, negations) suggest a counterpoint: harmony laced with discord.

### Broader Context and Hopkins' Style

Hopkins' Catholicism and personal struggles (celibacy, doubt, ecstasy in nature) make your reading resonate. The nun's "veil" could symbolize not just protection but separation from the sensual world he so vividly rendered elsewhere. 

Poems like "Pied Beauty" celebrate earthly variety, so renouncing the "swing of the sea" here might carry a pang of loss. Your interpretation doesn't negate the standard one—it layers on top, suggesting the nun's resolve is tested by the poem's own imagery. That's the beauty of Hopkins: his density allows for multiplicity.

That said, the orthodox view isn't "dogmatic" without reason—the poem's subtitle ("A nun takes the veil") and haven imagery do point toward affirmation of vows. But clinging to it exclusively, as your disputant seems to, misses the poem's ambiguity, which your open-minded approach highlights. Amusingly, your email's tone mirrors the poem's friction—vigorous, a bit spiky, but ultimately inviting deeper engagement.

In short, I buy your reading. It adds emotional depth without forcing the text, turning a seemingly simple lyric into a meditation on sacrifice's cost. If anything, it makes the poem more alive.

BRIEF EXCHANGE ON ELIZABETH BISHOP’S POEM FILLING STATION

 Filling Station 

Elizabeth Bishop 

Oh, but it is dirty!

—this little filling station,

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

to a disturbing, over-all

black translucency.

Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,

oil-soaked monkey suit

that cuts him under the arms,

and several quick and saucy

and greasy sons assist him

(it’s a family filling station),

all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?

It has a cement porch

behind the pumps, and on it

a set of crushed and grease-

impregnated wickerwork;

on the wicker sofa

a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide

the only note of color—

of certain color. They lie

upon a big dim doily

draping a taboret

(part of the set), beside

a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?

Why the taboret?

Why, oh why, the doily?

(Embroidered in daisy stitch

with marguerites, I think,

and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.

Somebody waters the plant,

or oils it, maybe. Somebody

arranges the rows of cans

so that they softly say:

esso—so—so—so

to high-strung automobiles.

Somebody loves us all.

R: 

The poem sounds rather snobbish up to that point, though wittily so. The poet is aware of her own snobbery, very self-conscious.  In the the last line the poet happily sees that people in the station also want beauty, and even if it is not hers, and the genial snobbery evaporates.  She is they and they are she, at least in this way.  The wittiness makes possible the quick transition.  If she wrote a truly snobbish poem her "conversion" would ring false.   

Take a look at Sylvia Plath's "Beggars" for a similar poem.  She sort of trashes the beggars and then admires them.  

Me:

A few thoughts:

Aren’t the first parts of the poem more than genial snobbery and not all that witty? Isn’t the speaker registering disgust, class superiority and harsh mockery?

But what goes on in the poem isn’t revelation but instead a kind of flowering or emerging consciousness. So the derisive question, “Do they live in the station?” is replaced in the second last stanza by genuine questions that import sincere wonder and the birth of some wider, more humane appreciation.

These questions open the door to seeing the small, loving acts described. They disarm the ridicule.

Except, the speaker doesn’t get sentimental. The movement in the poem is dialectical. The thesis is the opening disgust and ridicule. The antithesis is the emerging recognition of the necessity, value, care and humanity in what the family does. The synthesis contains the inner movement of a fuller appreciation of it rendered in the grounded and not-to-be-gainsaid reality of their works but still with a tinge of sardonicism:

…. Somebody waters the plant,

or oils it, maybe. Somebody

arranges the rows of cans

so that they softly say:

esso—so—so—so

to high-strung automobiles…

until capped off by an almost religious burst of feeling that subsumes any remaining sardonicism: “Somebody loves us all.”