This is Roth doing what Roth does best: showing you just how despicable a man could be. I would hate to have had a relationship with this man because his twisted view on masculinity and manhood is just such a riveting read every time, but so damn uncomfortable that maybe you can say it says something more about me.
The book is Roth at its best, Roth at its worst, Roth refusing to take a narrative forward and being mired in the maze of the mind of the 20th-century man. At the same time no one can explore that psyche better than him. While it's an enjoyable read, undoubtedly you sort of hate yourself for enjoying it because we meander through depravity and debauchery, we ask for more, the pages keep turning, and inevitably we find ourselves relating to the main title character, who is just so well written.
I also do like the central ruse of the story in that he tells us the story off the bat and then spends the rest of the narrative unraveling it in a way that keeps us, the reader, on tenterhooks as we grapple with thinking that we know and knowing that we don't know, but defaulting to what we think we know because we don't know enough yet. I do think that Roth does a very good job with that but this character, who I can only imagine is some sort of an autobiographical shadow of the author himself, is just so complex. He's likable and unlikable and the story really lives or dies in the relationships. I think it does a good job.