Allusions To The Title
The popularity of the novel has caused the title to become a sort of shorthand for any form of sexual malaise or activity. In his autobiography, Dick Cavett wrote that on one occasion when a male guest was unable to appear on his talk show, Cavett jokingly told the studio audience the guest could not attend because he was "suffering from Portnoy's Complaint", a comment which the network censors decided to cut from the broadcast tape. Gore Vidal once quipped to Claire Bloom, Roth's second wife: "You have already had Portnoy's complaint . Do not involve yourself with Portnoy."
In the September 8th 2010 edition of the Daily Show, as part of an extended segment on the amount of violence in major religious texts, Jon Stewart and John Oliver have a debate wherein Stewart claims the book as the main text of Judaism, in response to Oliver's demand of disavowal regarding the violence depicted in portions of the Hebrew bible.
Read more about this topic: Portnoy's Complaint
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance to him.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)