YMMV / Portnoy's Complaint

• Funny Moments:
  • Alex often imagines the embarrassing things that could happen to him appearing in the headlines. When he talks his girlfriend into giving him oral, she complains "it's getting big. I'll suffocate." Alex imagines the headline: "JEW SMOTHERS DEB WITH COCK, Vassar Grad Georgetown Strangulation Victim; Mocky Lawyer Held"
  • Alex meets one of his old schoolmates, who asks him about his sex life:
    "I have affairs. And, and I beat my meat."
    Mistake, I think instantly. Mistake! What if he blabs to the Daily News? ASST HUMAN OPP'Y COMMISH FLOGS DUMMY, Also Lives in Sin, Reports Old School Chum .
• Values Dissonance: Many modern readers don't find Alex's profligate nature and openly misogynist views of women as appealing or funny as contemporary readers did, even if Roth portrays him as a very dark anti-hero.