Ultimately the book was about relationships and identity. Alexander Portnoy through a series of monologues tells tales of growing up in a Jewish community in 40s, his sexual awakening (rarely would I use the term with men. men don't seem to "awaken" slowly like women's sexuality in fiction, but it seems to spring fully formed and seemingly out of control. With men it's more of a sexual suppression so that you can function as a member of society) and his interactions with a series of women.
Starting with his mother. Very stereotypical but I understand that it's true to life for a number of of people. Overbearing with good intention and insane with potential worries (there is an extended segment about a conversation wherein Portnoy's parents beg him to not ride in a convertable car and list all the ways in which he could be crippled or murdered). There is a degree of sexual fear which comes from his mother's overbearing attitude and abnormal normality with regards to body issues and boundries.
There is also The Monkey, based loosely on the author's first wife. This is a non-Jewish woman from a West Virginia coal mining town who fled there to go to Vegas (where she may or may not have been a whore, Portnoy is an unreliable narrator), who went to NYC who Portnoy managed to pick up off the street. She's sexually adventurous and willing to please but also undereducated which makes Portnoy have a air of superiority (sections talking about how she was going to be his project that he would teach her to hate her ancestors for what WASPs have done to other races and religions). She is unhappy, Portnoy is unhappy and because Portnoy refuses to treat her as anything other than how he sees her, he takes out his aggravation on her, which causes her to retreat (multiple suicide attempts and the like) until they split.
To inform the reaction to The Monkey, there is a segment wherein Portnoy discusses his first college girlfriend, The Pumpkin (so named for her ass). She's from the Midwest, intelligent, articulate, educated, and pretty much perfect except she won't go down on Portnoy, so he savagely sabotages the relationship which causes it to end. She is probably the most balanced woman he could have had and his own pomposity doesn't let him see it.
There is a final segment which is a trip to Israel in the 60s, where in he meets and falls in love with the final woman, an American by birth whose family moved to Israel during the postwar Exodus so she is slightly foreign and very socialist. Portnoy surrounded by Jews for the first time since his childhood goes a little bit mad and falls in love with and attempts to rape this woman when she refuses to marry him.
I stand by my original assessment that the book is a bit overlong perhaps by about 25-50 pages. I would have liked to have focused a bit more on his life outside of the sexual longing and even stronger the reconciliation of self perceived sense of "self" versus who he actually is.
Of course, in our autobiographies, we are all the hero.
If you have few days, give it a read. It's alternatively horrific and hilarious and to me it struck bit close to home.
