I had to read the sentence twice, slowly. I’m a fast reader but not smart enough to understand complex sentences without re-reading.
I like the construction. He put quite a bit of meaning into relatively few words. But I think Bill Cosby said it better: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!”
I think this is more of a case of “I know what all these words mean on their own, but when you string them together like this…” To me it looks like more of an attempt to appear clever than to communicate…which is tedious in fiction. Or any writing that isn’t of a technical nature, really.
I think I finally understand what I was asking about in this thread now. Roth’s style seems to be what RealityChuck refers to as a “A ‘stained glass’ style.”
I haven’t read any Philip Roth, but I liked this a lot. It’s a carefully constructed sentence, doing what it needs to do to get its point across but carrying great nuance and shades of meaning. There are some really nicely turned phrases in there:
“…the pervasive rectitude of the era, whose taboos we’d taken between our teeth at birth…”: Taking the taboos “between our teeth” makes it an almost invasive thing to have these values foisted upon one. He could have said “whose taboos had been shoved down our throats,” but that would have been a cliche, not to mention that Roth’s image adds nuance by making “we” the subject: “we had taken them.” “We” had willingly accepted the values, even though we’d now come to hate them.
“…not least was the enacted ideology of parental self-sacrifice that bled us of wanton rebelliousness…”: Another fine-tuned phrase. “Enacted ideology” takes the parents’ demonstrative acts (or whatever it was) and turns it into a Passion Play, and I love the verb choice: the enacted ideology bled us of wanton rebelliousness, as opposed to beating it out of us or somehow making us choose not to be rebellious. It weakened us until there was no enthusiasm for rebellion. And “wanton” is a great choice, adding a hint of sexuality to the rebellion that was bled out of us.
“…and sent underground almost every indecent urge.” I love this image. It didn’t just “make us hide” the urges. It sent them underground. Underground is where seeds grow and change; it’s metaphorically where society’s outsiders spend their lives. No one ever uses the word “underground” to describe something healthy.
So yeah, I’m impressed, and on the basis of this passage I’m more likely to pick up something of Roth’s.
For a novel, I think it’s fine. A certain type of novel, anyway. It would be annoying in a plot-centered novel (think Tom Clancy), but for something more sophisticated, when you want to enjoy the language, I don’t mind having to read a bit slower to understand densely-packed sentences like that. As jackelope noted, it is quite evocative.
However:
You’ve been reading some godawful textbooks. A good textbook is written in language a 4th-grader could understand. The concepts, probably not. But certainly the language.
I’m reminded of a quote:
I’ve read many of Roth’s books and I’ve enjoyed most of them (Deception was the only one I really really didn’t like). His books are littered with sentences or paragraphs in that style. The ending of** I Married A Communist** is somewhat similar in style but it’s one of my favourite passages in any novel. I don’t know how to spoiler so I won’t post it here.
[ spoiler] put spoiler here.[ /spoiler] but don’t put a space after either of the brackets.
I’m impressed by your analysis. 
Not sure that the writing style is similar, but my impression is about the same as with someone like Joseph Conrad.
Not terribly fun to read, trying to fit accuracy in instead of fluidity, but not so unreadable that you can’t read straight through. Though if you do try to stop and reread the sentences enough to figure out all the radio instructions, you’ll get stuck for a bit and not really glean much more than you would through skimming.
jackelope, thanks for the breakdown. Looking at it again now I have a better appreciation for it.
Absolute, thank you too. The simple distinction you draw between a “plot-centered novel” and something a bit more sophisticated is a succinct way of describing this type of book.
In a way, I find this to be almost anti-Hemingway (who is one of my favorite authors.) They both import tremendous meaning with their words, but Hemingway did it in a minimalist style.
Obligatory 6-word story reference.
Thank you for fighting my ignorance.
It’s not even a sentence. It’s a list of three things with a lot of clauses.
ETA: Although there might be some tertiary definition of “sentence” that might apply.
I like it, but, then, I like Avram Davidson.
Roth used “whose.” It is on page 42 of the 1st. Vintage International edition.
Yep, I confirmed it was my error in post #18.
I agree. The list should have been separated by commas or semi-colons, not switched in the middle. A dash would have been better to set off “who’s taboos we’d taken between our teeth at birth” clause. “Who’s” is incorrecct and who the fuck uses “rectitude”.
Did Hemingway ever really say that, or is it just a myth? I’ve see it referenced a number of times, but never cited.
Sorry, I missed post 18. I searched for “who’s.”
Nothing to apologize about, I only pointed it out out of my own vanity. 
It’s a sentence. There are two complete subject-verb sets, separated by a semicolon. If this is the “tertiary” definition of a sentence, I’m unfamiliar with numbers one and two.
The first clause’s subject and verb are “One was”; the second clause’s are “ideology” and “was,” though they’ve been reversed for effect. If we were going to straighten the second clause out into a simple, linear subject-verb form (thereby destroying the structure and meaning that Roth was obviously careful to put into it), it would read, “the enacted ideology of parental self-sacrifice, that bled us of wanton rebelliousness and sent underground almost every indecent urge, was not least.” But it sounds terrible and doesn’t make as much sense that way, which is why it wasn’t written that way in the first place.
Obviously, the sentence is taken out of context, because we’re not told what the “one” is one of. Presumably the preceding sentence would clear that up.