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Isadora Wing #2
How to Save Your Own Life
Erica Jong--like Isadora Wing, her fictional doppelganger--was rich and famous, brainy and beautiful, and soaring high with erotica and marijuana in 1977, the year this book was first published. Erica/Isadora are the perfect literary and libidinous guides for those readers who want to learn about-or just be reminded of-the sheer hedonistic innocence of the time. "How to Save Your Own Life" was praised by "People" for being "shameless, sex-saturated and a joy," and hailed by Anthony Burgess as one of the ninety-nine best novels published in English since 1939.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
70 people are currently reading
1490 people want to read
About the author
Erica Jong
118 books859 followersErica Jong—novelist, poet, and essayist—has consistently used her craft to help provide women with a powerful and rational voice in forging a feminist consciousness. She has published 21 books, including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times, the Sunday Times of London, Elle, Vogue, and the New York Times Book Review.
In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (which has sold twenty-six million copies in more than forty languages), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novels—How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. In her three historical novels—Fanny, Shylock's Daughter, and Sappho's Leap—she demonstrates her mastery of eighteenth-century British literature, the verses of Shakespeare, and ancient Greek lyric, respectively. A memoir of her life as a writer, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, came out in March 2006. It was a national bestseller in the US and many other countries. Erica’s latest book, Sugar in My Bowl, is an anthology of women writing about sex, has been recently released in paperback.
Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature. She has also received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, also won by W.S. Merwin and Sylvia Plath. In France, she received the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence and in Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for Literature. The City University of New York awarded Ms. Jong an honorary PhD at the College of Staten Island.
Her works have appeared all over the world and are as popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, China, and other Asian countries as they have been in the United States and Western Europe. She has lectured, taught and read her work all over the world.
A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's Graduate Faculties where she received her M.A. in 18th Century English Literature, Erica Jong also attended Columbia's graduate writing program where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz and Mark Strand. In 2007, continuing her long-standing relationship with the university, a large collection of Erica’s archival material was acquired by Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where it will be available to graduate and undergraduate students. Ms. Jong plans to teach master classes at Columbia and also advise the Rare Book Library on the acquisition of other women writers’ archives.
Calling herself “a defrocked academic,” Ms. Jong has partly returned to her roots as a scholar. She has taught at Ben Gurion University in Israel, Bennington College in the US, Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont and many other distinguished writing programs and universities. She loves to teach and lecture, though her skill in these areas has sometimes crowded her writing projects. “As long as I am communicating the gift of literature, I’m happy,” Jong says. A poet at heart, Ms. Jong believes that words can save the world.
In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (which has sold twenty-six million copies in more than forty languages), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novels—How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. In her three historical novels—Fanny, Shylock's Daughter, and Sappho's Leap—she demonstrates her mastery of eighteenth-century British literature, the verses of Shakespeare, and ancient Greek lyric, respectively. A memoir of her life as a writer, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, came out in March 2006. It was a national bestseller in the US and many other countries. Erica’s latest book, Sugar in My Bowl, is an anthology of women writing about sex, has been recently released in paperback.
Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature. She has also received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, also won by W.S. Merwin and Sylvia Plath. In France, she received the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence and in Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for Literature. The City University of New York awarded Ms. Jong an honorary PhD at the College of Staten Island.
Her works have appeared all over the world and are as popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, China, and other Asian countries as they have been in the United States and Western Europe. She has lectured, taught and read her work all over the world.
A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's Graduate Faculties where she received her M.A. in 18th Century English Literature, Erica Jong also attended Columbia's graduate writing program where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz and Mark Strand. In 2007, continuing her long-standing relationship with the university, a large collection of Erica’s archival material was acquired by Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where it will be available to graduate and undergraduate students. Ms. Jong plans to teach master classes at Columbia and also advise the Rare Book Library on the acquisition of other women writers’ archives.
Calling herself “a defrocked academic,” Ms. Jong has partly returned to her roots as a scholar. She has taught at Ben Gurion University in Israel, Bennington College in the US, Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont and many other distinguished writing programs and universities. She loves to teach and lecture, though her skill in these areas has sometimes crowded her writing projects. “As long as I am communicating the gift of literature, I’m happy,” Jong says. A poet at heart, Ms. Jong believes that words can save the world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
July 25, 2021
So many negative reviews of this book just focus on the obvious. Too much sex. Too many dirty words. Heroine breaks all the rules, yet never takes any chances. Nothing is ever at stake for her, emotionally or even financially. She claims to want love, but expects to be as promiscuous as she wants without committing to anyone or anything. All those points are valid.
But there's a lot more going on than that. On about page three of the novel Isadora receives a "fan letter" which she reprints in full, complete with misspellings. It's supposed to be from some poor little nobody out in Kansas or someplace, and she's supposed to be utterly thrilled and liberated by reading about Isadora's erotic adventures. But what comes across isn't sisterhood. It's condescension. Erica Jong has to let you know that the "little people" are on her side -- but she also makes it very, very clear that they *are* the little people. (Making the woman misspell a simple word like "nice" was an especially cheap shot.)
The point is, this cause Isadora is fighting for isn't feminism. It's class privilege, and it stinks. This is a rich girl from Manhattan who gets fan letters from Kansas (yeah, sure) but she wouldn't be caught dead in Harlem. Nobody from Harlem is sending her any fan letters, either! The reason feminism generated so much backlash at the time, and still does to this day, is because the leaders are all desperate to hold onto social and educational privilege they don't deserve. In Erica Jong's day feminists pretended to care about working-class women, even though they didn't really pretend very hard. But today they don't even pretend to care.
And that's why so many poor white women voted for Trump.
But there's a lot more going on than that. On about page three of the novel Isadora receives a "fan letter" which she reprints in full, complete with misspellings. It's supposed to be from some poor little nobody out in Kansas or someplace, and she's supposed to be utterly thrilled and liberated by reading about Isadora's erotic adventures. But what comes across isn't sisterhood. It's condescension. Erica Jong has to let you know that the "little people" are on her side -- but she also makes it very, very clear that they *are* the little people. (Making the woman misspell a simple word like "nice" was an especially cheap shot.)
The point is, this cause Isadora is fighting for isn't feminism. It's class privilege, and it stinks. This is a rich girl from Manhattan who gets fan letters from Kansas (yeah, sure) but she wouldn't be caught dead in Harlem. Nobody from Harlem is sending her any fan letters, either! The reason feminism generated so much backlash at the time, and still does to this day, is because the leaders are all desperate to hold onto social and educational privilege they don't deserve. In Erica Jong's day feminists pretended to care about working-class women, even though they didn't really pretend very hard. But today they don't even pretend to care.
And that's why so many poor white women voted for Trump.
July 16, 2008
This book charts the daily life of Erica Jong's alter ego, Isadora Wing, as she navigates her way through a maze of work, fans, friends, lovers, and an emotional vacuum of a husband. This is NYC in the 70's, and apparently everyone has a shrink, an avocado plant, and an affair. Isadora is no exception. Jong's writing is witty, candid and fast-paced. She lets you peek into her (I assume it's hers) world of hedonism, confusion and boredom. It's alternately hilarious (I actually laughed out loud 3 times), shocking (blatant adultery, drug abuse, orgies), and sad (divorce, disappointment, shattered dreams).
I highly recommend it to most of the women I know, some specific men, and ALL of my neurotic Jewish girlfriends.
I highly recommend it to most of the women I know, some specific men, and ALL of my neurotic Jewish girlfriends.
September 5, 2009
Was this the whole of the 70s? I know, I know, not everyone had the financial wherewithal to flounce about the city avoiding their cold husbands and drinking champagne. Still a strangely disturbing portrait of an era when "women's lib" was still a newish concept and a 32 year old woman with a career entirely her own could imagine herself trapped in a bitter-yet-tumultuous marriage.
I get the impression that the whole thing was a big, well executed dig at her second husband, by portraying him as cold, calculating, hypocritical and basically miserable.
"Dear Allen, the whole time we were married, I was sleeping with everyone we knew. Love, Erica. PS. I finally thought of a way to get a rise out of you, which is all I ever really wanted."
A look at Wikipedia suggests that the epilogue isn't much more than a bonus dig at her third husband. ("You were controlling, too, okay?")
I thought it was supposed to be some kind of feminist manifesto but if the only way out of an unhappy marriage is to dive straight into the arms of another man, I'm not buying it. I think that what was groundbreaking was simply that sleeping around didn't ruin her life. Fair enough. It hardly enriched it, though.
For all of that, I couldn't bring myself to hate it. It is a window onto another world and another set of options and opportunities. Caftans and dashikis and a gynecologist with a "clap and birth control pills practice on the Upper West Side." Loft living as a novelty and ... just all kinds of amazing anachronisms.
PS. This is what I get for deciding what to read next by picking novels out of free piles on the basis of name recognition alone.
I get the impression that the whole thing was a big, well executed dig at her second husband, by portraying him as cold, calculating, hypocritical and basically miserable.
"Dear Allen, the whole time we were married, I was sleeping with everyone we knew. Love, Erica. PS. I finally thought of a way to get a rise out of you, which is all I ever really wanted."
A look at Wikipedia suggests that the epilogue isn't much more than a bonus dig at her third husband. ("You were controlling, too, okay?")
I thought it was supposed to be some kind of feminist manifesto but if the only way out of an unhappy marriage is to dive straight into the arms of another man, I'm not buying it. I think that what was groundbreaking was simply that sleeping around didn't ruin her life. Fair enough. It hardly enriched it, though.
For all of that, I couldn't bring myself to hate it. It is a window onto another world and another set of options and opportunities. Caftans and dashikis and a gynecologist with a "clap and birth control pills practice on the Upper West Side." Loft living as a novelty and ... just all kinds of amazing anachronisms.
PS. This is what I get for deciding what to read next by picking novels out of free piles on the basis of name recognition alone.
September 12, 2010
What a sad and demoralizing sequel. Fear of Flying took the stance that women can desire, experience, enjoy, and pursue sex in the same manner as men. It was a groundbreaking stance that spoke to a generation of women who were taught to believe that only women of loose morals could enjoy sex, not a lady. Isadora Wing's guilty yet liberating sex fueled romp across Europe was endearing, relatable, and the voice of an entire generation of women.
So what happened with How to Save Your Own Life? Isadora has become insufferable---a spoiled, self-centered, neurotic, hyprocrite angry at her husband after discovering he had a longterm affair. The "novel" is one long winded rumination after another about how horrible her relationship is with her husband who is indifferent to her whining, selfishness, and neediness. There a lot of potty language and raunchy sex thrown in for shock value and then culiminates with several pages of cringe inducing poetry
Isadora spends her days either whining to her extremely patient friends or screwing one lover, then skipping across town to screw another lover, then slinking back home to angrily screw her husband. Not to mention she also dabbles in some sapphic delights with her lesbian friend (who finally has an orgasm by cramming a champagne bottle up her hoohoo) and participates in a drug and booze fueled orgy. Yet hypocritically she remains angry at her "boring" husband for having an affair. Then Isadora finally finds the guts to leave her husband not through some incredible sense of inner strength but through the arms of another younger man.
So much for feminism. So much for being strong, independent, self-sufficent women who don't need a man to complete them. Isadora is only happy if she has a man, preferably with a large cock.
I really enjoyed Fear of Flying and it's a good thing women have come a long way since the 70s because How to Save Your Own Life sets feminism back at least five steps.
It's no wonder Jong is one of the most revered and reviled feminists of the 20th century.
So what happened with How to Save Your Own Life? Isadora has become insufferable---a spoiled, self-centered, neurotic, hyprocrite angry at her husband after discovering he had a longterm affair. The "novel" is one long winded rumination after another about how horrible her relationship is with her husband who is indifferent to her whining, selfishness, and neediness. There a lot of potty language and raunchy sex thrown in for shock value and then culiminates with several pages of cringe inducing poetry
Isadora spends her days either whining to her extremely patient friends or screwing one lover, then skipping across town to screw another lover, then slinking back home to angrily screw her husband. Not to mention she also dabbles in some sapphic delights with her lesbian friend (who finally has an orgasm by cramming a champagne bottle up her hoohoo) and participates in a drug and booze fueled orgy. Yet hypocritically she remains angry at her "boring" husband for having an affair. Then Isadora finally finds the guts to leave her husband not through some incredible sense of inner strength but through the arms of another younger man.
So much for feminism. So much for being strong, independent, self-sufficent women who don't need a man to complete them. Isadora is only happy if she has a man, preferably with a large cock.
I really enjoyed Fear of Flying and it's a good thing women have come a long way since the 70s because How to Save Your Own Life sets feminism back at least five steps.
It's no wonder Jong is one of the most revered and reviled feminists of the 20th century.
May 23, 2007
This book is incredibly positive, and I really liked the direction in which Erica Jong took her character. The development seemed logical, and necessary. I usually have arguments with the "why" of passionate romances. I did in Fear of Flying. This one, I didn't. In some ways, Isadora seemed less mature than in the first novel, but I think that was a reflection of the love that was introduced here.
Just again, very positive and happy. You'll whip through it in less than three days. I took 24 hours.
Just again, very positive and happy. You'll whip through it in less than three days. I took 24 hours.
April 26, 2009
Her own life, she means. Jong still whining about men and then running to them.
November 17, 2014
If the words “cunt,” “clit,” or “cock” make you uncomfortable, you will be utterly desensitized by the end of Erica Jong’s How to Save Your Own Life. I considered counting the number of times “cunt” appeared (perhaps a dozen times per chapter) but I eventually gave up.
About seven years ago, I read Jong’s first novel, Fear of Flying, featuring the feminist and lustful Isadora Wing. It’s a wonderful novel about the sexual lives of women in the sixties, hard-hitting commentary on the politics of marriage and relationships. How to Save Your Own Life is the second installment in the story and, holy crap, what a disappointment. Written in the seventies, with a distinct nostalgia for the sexual freedoms of “bisexual chic” and orgies, we join Isadora once again as she grapples with the ending of her marriage.
Isadora has become truly nauseating, a bourgeois writer with nothing better to do than complain about her husband, have countless affairs, and go on incessantly about the guilt. Most of the characters in the entire book are incredibly difficult to like. And yet, I kept turning the pages. I wanted to see if she could actually “save her own life.” Honestly, I was more curious to know what Erica Jong’s interpretation of the phrase would be.
I’m sad to say that Jong’s idea of saving one’s life means jumping from one dysfunctional relationship to another. For nearly three hundred pages, Isadora laments about her cold and unresponsive husband, Bennett. He doesn’t understand her, or her “art,” her “writing,” or her sexual appetite. Sure, he’s a jackass. I can’t argue there. Indeed, he’s dismissive, patronizing, and surprisingly unfaithful. But – so is she! Isadora doesn’t see any fault in her own character, which is amazing considering the amount of guilt she experiences. Perhaps it’s a strange grand of virgin guilt, and it’s somehow unattached to destructive behavior. Instead she wallows extensively in her anger, but doesn’t do anything about it. And by the time she actually finds love, her idea of the concept is so fu*ked up, it’s impossible to see Josh (husband number two) as the savior. He’s just another Bennett, in a different form.
Isadora appears to be doomed, sexually and romantically. While the social climate of gender politics certainly comes into play here, she’s convinced herself that Josh is the soul mate she’s been searching for. Unfortunately, in the Epilogue, we get a glimpse of their married life and – sweaty, Herculean sex aside - we come to realize there is something wrong with the picture Jong paints in the final pages. Horribly wrong. They play an odd game together, a power struggle of the most masochistic kind.
Perhaps this is simply the environment of marriage, and no matter how many times you escape one demented relationship, your fate is to fall into another. In David Finch’s interpretation of Gone Girl, all relationships are apparently doomed to become a power struggle, reduced to nothing but mind games between people who used to love each other. Maybe we are hardwired to play these games. That could be the case here, but I don’t think so.
The divide between Isadora/Bennett and Isadora/Josh is not nearly as wide as she might think. But, by jumping from one man to the other, she never has to make a decision one way or another. She doesn’t have to worry about being alone, nor does she have to sacrifice her sexuality, which seems to have been so intertwined with her identity that losing it would likely result in losing her mind.
To Jong’s credit, this book made me think. It made me angry, and frustrated and outright annoyed. It seems insane to become one-hundred percent dependent on the experience of our bodies to keep us happy. Regardless, the prose is painfully honest. Isadora speaks for the women of a generation who felt trapped by the social expectations of their culture, and shamed by any desire deemed “unladylike.”
However, a book like How to Save Your Own Life doesn’t work very well in 2014. It feels like Jong was trying too hard to connect the dots for us. We didn’t need to be hit over the head with a steel pipe to understand her argument. Throwing around the word “cunt” hundreds of times doesn’t make your reader see the issue more clearly. Even if the word had been “rainbow,” overuse doesn’t do anyone any favours. Maybe Jong was trying to re-appropriate the term from something traditionally offensive to powerful, feminist sexual vocabulary; a noble effort, but ultimately troublesome and completely lost on me.
About seven years ago, I read Jong’s first novel, Fear of Flying, featuring the feminist and lustful Isadora Wing. It’s a wonderful novel about the sexual lives of women in the sixties, hard-hitting commentary on the politics of marriage and relationships. How to Save Your Own Life is the second installment in the story and, holy crap, what a disappointment. Written in the seventies, with a distinct nostalgia for the sexual freedoms of “bisexual chic” and orgies, we join Isadora once again as she grapples with the ending of her marriage.
Isadora has become truly nauseating, a bourgeois writer with nothing better to do than complain about her husband, have countless affairs, and go on incessantly about the guilt. Most of the characters in the entire book are incredibly difficult to like. And yet, I kept turning the pages. I wanted to see if she could actually “save her own life.” Honestly, I was more curious to know what Erica Jong’s interpretation of the phrase would be.
I’m sad to say that Jong’s idea of saving one’s life means jumping from one dysfunctional relationship to another. For nearly three hundred pages, Isadora laments about her cold and unresponsive husband, Bennett. He doesn’t understand her, or her “art,” her “writing,” or her sexual appetite. Sure, he’s a jackass. I can’t argue there. Indeed, he’s dismissive, patronizing, and surprisingly unfaithful. But – so is she! Isadora doesn’t see any fault in her own character, which is amazing considering the amount of guilt she experiences. Perhaps it’s a strange grand of virgin guilt, and it’s somehow unattached to destructive behavior. Instead she wallows extensively in her anger, but doesn’t do anything about it. And by the time she actually finds love, her idea of the concept is so fu*ked up, it’s impossible to see Josh (husband number two) as the savior. He’s just another Bennett, in a different form.
Isadora appears to be doomed, sexually and romantically. While the social climate of gender politics certainly comes into play here, she’s convinced herself that Josh is the soul mate she’s been searching for. Unfortunately, in the Epilogue, we get a glimpse of their married life and – sweaty, Herculean sex aside - we come to realize there is something wrong with the picture Jong paints in the final pages. Horribly wrong. They play an odd game together, a power struggle of the most masochistic kind.
Perhaps this is simply the environment of marriage, and no matter how many times you escape one demented relationship, your fate is to fall into another. In David Finch’s interpretation of Gone Girl, all relationships are apparently doomed to become a power struggle, reduced to nothing but mind games between people who used to love each other. Maybe we are hardwired to play these games. That could be the case here, but I don’t think so.
The divide between Isadora/Bennett and Isadora/Josh is not nearly as wide as she might think. But, by jumping from one man to the other, she never has to make a decision one way or another. She doesn’t have to worry about being alone, nor does she have to sacrifice her sexuality, which seems to have been so intertwined with her identity that losing it would likely result in losing her mind.
To Jong’s credit, this book made me think. It made me angry, and frustrated and outright annoyed. It seems insane to become one-hundred percent dependent on the experience of our bodies to keep us happy. Regardless, the prose is painfully honest. Isadora speaks for the women of a generation who felt trapped by the social expectations of their culture, and shamed by any desire deemed “unladylike.”
However, a book like How to Save Your Own Life doesn’t work very well in 2014. It feels like Jong was trying too hard to connect the dots for us. We didn’t need to be hit over the head with a steel pipe to understand her argument. Throwing around the word “cunt” hundreds of times doesn’t make your reader see the issue more clearly. Even if the word had been “rainbow,” overuse doesn’t do anyone any favours. Maybe Jong was trying to re-appropriate the term from something traditionally offensive to powerful, feminist sexual vocabulary; a noble effort, but ultimately troublesome and completely lost on me.
March 26, 2011
In Erica Jong's follow-up to her iconic "Fear of Flying," we once again meet Isadora Wing, her "fictional doppelganger," who is representative of the times in which she lives. It is the 1970s, that time of quest: searching for lust set against a backdrop of hedonistic innocence. In some ways, Isadora is a metaphor of the times: she is on a sexual journey, but also trying to find her freedom from a stultifying marriage to Bennett, a cold, detached, dominating psychiatrist. Second-wave feminism is an influential factor, as she acknowledges that the controlling aspects of her husband are "holding her down;" but like any escape from tyranny, making the decision to break out of the chains is only the first step.
She starts "leaving" at the beginning of the book, and then she leaps into affairs as a way of propelling her forward. It takes the length of the book—and many months—for the leave-taking to happen, but it's a journey, a process, and there is guilt, pain, fear, and all kinds of negative emotions that accompany her along the way.
The final impetus is a younger man whom she meets in Hollywood, while on a trip to turn her bestselling novel into a movie. He is like her "second half," and they can almost read each other's thoughts. He seems to be her perfect mate. On her way home, with her plan to really leave motivating her, she thinks about the different lifestyles between New York (her home) and LA (her lover's home). I like this passage:
"The flight from Los Angeles to New York takes only five hours, but the real distance should be measured in light years. Los Angeles is more different from New York than New York is from London or Stockholm or Paris. Someday scientists will discover the invisible gas that fills the air in Southern California, making the most uptight, cynical Easterners relax, take off their clothes, lie in the sun, divorce their spouses, build swimming pools, take up Zen meditation, visit spiritualists, and in general behave as if they've found God through sex, nudity, and sun-worship.
"To return to New York from Los Angeles is always to experience a profound psychic shock...."
So what will Isadora discover about herself in this journey? Will she learn that living with her love match can be the idealistic escape she had imagined? Will she remake marriage to include experimentation and openness? Or will she find that the same old problems come back in new versions, taking shape in different ways, but still just a repetition of old patterns?
I loved "How to Save Your Own Life," as it reminded me of some of my own journeys during those idyllic times. Looking back, I don't regret my journey, any more than Isadora (or her creator) does. We learned a lot about ourselves and the nature of love, and even when we were disappointed, as we often are in life, we are happy to have taken the leap of faith into new experiences that ultimately defined us.
Five stars.
She starts "leaving" at the beginning of the book, and then she leaps into affairs as a way of propelling her forward. It takes the length of the book—and many months—for the leave-taking to happen, but it's a journey, a process, and there is guilt, pain, fear, and all kinds of negative emotions that accompany her along the way.
The final impetus is a younger man whom she meets in Hollywood, while on a trip to turn her bestselling novel into a movie. He is like her "second half," and they can almost read each other's thoughts. He seems to be her perfect mate. On her way home, with her plan to really leave motivating her, she thinks about the different lifestyles between New York (her home) and LA (her lover's home). I like this passage:
"The flight from Los Angeles to New York takes only five hours, but the real distance should be measured in light years. Los Angeles is more different from New York than New York is from London or Stockholm or Paris. Someday scientists will discover the invisible gas that fills the air in Southern California, making the most uptight, cynical Easterners relax, take off their clothes, lie in the sun, divorce their spouses, build swimming pools, take up Zen meditation, visit spiritualists, and in general behave as if they've found God through sex, nudity, and sun-worship.
"To return to New York from Los Angeles is always to experience a profound psychic shock...."
So what will Isadora discover about herself in this journey? Will she learn that living with her love match can be the idealistic escape she had imagined? Will she remake marriage to include experimentation and openness? Or will she find that the same old problems come back in new versions, taking shape in different ways, but still just a repetition of old patterns?
I loved "How to Save Your Own Life," as it reminded me of some of my own journeys during those idyllic times. Looking back, I don't regret my journey, any more than Isadora (or her creator) does. We learned a lot about ourselves and the nature of love, and even when we were disappointed, as we often are in life, we are happy to have taken the leap of faith into new experiences that ultimately defined us.
Five stars.
April 16, 2020
This book reads more like the diary of a sex addict than a traditional novel. Marital sex, adulterous sex, friends-with-benefits sex, lesbian sex, self-gratification sex, group sex, revenge sex, make-up sex… It is all here, and, quite frankly, some of it is rather repulsive.
Not that there is anything wrong with writing about sex, but a successful novel is both style and substance, and unless you are writing the Kama Sutra, it helps to have an interesting story line to go along with it.
Despite the plethora of four-letter words that jump out at you from every page, I do give the author credit for her lively and imaginative writing style, and I wish I could say the same for the novel's substance.
The narrator is a smart, talented writer trapped in a joyless marriage to an uncommunicative, anal-retentive, cheating husband. Isadora contemplates leaving her husband, but fear, self-doubt, and a lingering sense of loyalty toward her husband prevent her from ending the marriage and going it alone as a single woman. Meanwhile, she spends much of her time hopping from bed to bed seeking fulfillment in the arms of multiple sex partners until finally she meets the man of her dreams, who supplies the physical and emotional support---both in and out of bed---that is lacking in her marriage. All of this is vaguely reminiscent of the Twentieth Century novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was considered obscene in its day and later dubbed a literary masterpiece. It takes an extraordinary talent to pull this off, and Erica Jong, while a gifted poet and novelist, is no D.H. Lawrence.
The concept of a woman unable to find fulfillment except through the love of a man is nothing new, and it is one that might set the teeth of feminists on edge. If this is the only way for a woman to "save her own life", I think I would rather be dead.
Not that there is anything wrong with writing about sex, but a successful novel is both style and substance, and unless you are writing the Kama Sutra, it helps to have an interesting story line to go along with it.
Despite the plethora of four-letter words that jump out at you from every page, I do give the author credit for her lively and imaginative writing style, and I wish I could say the same for the novel's substance.
The narrator is a smart, talented writer trapped in a joyless marriage to an uncommunicative, anal-retentive, cheating husband. Isadora contemplates leaving her husband, but fear, self-doubt, and a lingering sense of loyalty toward her husband prevent her from ending the marriage and going it alone as a single woman. Meanwhile, she spends much of her time hopping from bed to bed seeking fulfillment in the arms of multiple sex partners until finally she meets the man of her dreams, who supplies the physical and emotional support---both in and out of bed---that is lacking in her marriage. All of this is vaguely reminiscent of the Twentieth Century novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was considered obscene in its day and later dubbed a literary masterpiece. It takes an extraordinary talent to pull this off, and Erica Jong, while a gifted poet and novelist, is no D.H. Lawrence.
The concept of a woman unable to find fulfillment except through the love of a man is nothing new, and it is one that might set the teeth of feminists on edge. If this is the only way for a woman to "save her own life", I think I would rather be dead.
September 21, 2015
In French, when you want to address an elder you will use 'vous', which grammatically is the same as when you are addressing second-person plural. In English, YOU, is plural and singular, and in Croatian is the same as in French. We use 'vi' as a respect and as second person plural, and 'ti' for second person singular.
What am I trying to say? I am addressing Erica Jong with 'vous' because I don’t want to be disrespectful. We don’t really have common topics but there is a certain understanding between us – part of it being age gap and me being accustomed to zipless fuck. We were eyeing each other, we were aware of each other but we kept our distance and showed only our greatest politeness and manners. And that is perfectly fine and enough.
What am I trying to say? I am addressing Erica Jong with 'vous' because I don’t want to be disrespectful. We don’t really have common topics but there is a certain understanding between us – part of it being age gap and me being accustomed to zipless fuck. We were eyeing each other, we were aware of each other but we kept our distance and showed only our greatest politeness and manners. And that is perfectly fine and enough.
February 18, 2008
The sequel to Fear of Flying, this is a barely fictionalized telling of the author's decision to leave her husband of eight years in the sex-happy '70s. In it she demonizes him and rationalizes herself and visits her friends to complain and have sex and generally comes off as immature and hypocritical. The writing is first-drafty and unremarkable; she mostly seems like a talkative type who types. Still, it's entertaining in the way reading through someone's diary could be, the scenes are lively, and somehow it's hard to put down until you finish it, even when your eyes are rolling.
April 20, 2024
Fortsetzung des Bestsellers "Angst vorm Fliegen".
Die Ich-Erzählerin Isidora Wing ist inzwischen eine erfolgreiche Schriftstellerin. Aber leider recht unglücklich. In dem Roman geht es offenbar in erster Linie darum, wie sie sich dem Ende ihrer Ehe entgegenquält.
Ach ja, ne Menge Sex scheint es später auch noch zu geben.
Nach 30 Seiten war nicht zu übersehen, dass ich hier fehl am Platz war.
Die Ich-Erzählerin Isidora Wing ist inzwischen eine erfolgreiche Schriftstellerin. Aber leider recht unglücklich. In dem Roman geht es offenbar in erster Linie darum, wie sie sich dem Ende ihrer Ehe entgegenquält.
Ach ja, ne Menge Sex scheint es später auch noch zu geben.
Nach 30 Seiten war nicht zu übersehen, dass ich hier fehl am Platz war.
August 13, 2014
Much like listening to your narcissistic friend complain about her miserable relationship until you want to yell "Just leave already!" There is some smut and an orgy, but the navel-gazing spoiled the fun.
March 4, 2021
I've just finished How to Save Your Own Life, sever years after having read Fear of Flying.
Reading it has been a massive throwback into Isadora's life, into the 70s, into edonism.
It has felt a bit out of time reading it now, but extremely fascinating nonetheless. It's a catching read, fast paced and well written. Highly enjoyable!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Reading it has been a massive throwback into Isadora's life, into the 70s, into edonism.
It has felt a bit out of time reading it now, but extremely fascinating nonetheless. It's a catching read, fast paced and well written. Highly enjoyable!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 15, 2021
I've just finished How to Save Your Own Life, sever years after having read Fear of Flying.
Reading it has been a massive throwback into Isadora's life, into the 70s, into edonism.
It has felt a bit out of time reading it now, but extremely fascinating nonetheless. It's a catching read, fast paced and well written. Highly enjoyable!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Reading it has been a massive throwback into Isadora's life, into the 70s, into edonism.
It has felt a bit out of time reading it now, but extremely fascinating nonetheless. It's a catching read, fast paced and well written. Highly enjoyable!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 4, 2024
ALLORA
non ho capito bene cosa volesse dirmi
mi ha disturbato il linguaggio: l’autrice/alter ego protagonista dice di voler parlare del sesso sostanzialmente per rompere il tabù, ma lo fa in modo talmente volgare che il tabù non fa altro che alimentarlo
non so
non ho capito bene cosa volesse dirmi
mi ha disturbato il linguaggio: l’autrice/alter ego protagonista dice di voler parlare del sesso sostanzialmente per rompere il tabù, ma lo fa in modo talmente volgare che il tabù non fa altro che alimentarlo
non so
August 20, 2016
Hm. Got this at a library book sale and was intrigued by the dust jacket: "Erica Jong was rich and famous, brainy and beautiful, and soaring high with erotica and marijuana in 1977, the year this book was first published." It's sort of a female Bildungsroman that takes place at age 33, which is inspiring to me as someone who has not yet "come of age" at 29. (At one point, Isadora decides that it's better to be 25 at 33 then never to be 25 at all.) A story of sex, experimentation, pain, marriage, affairs, feminism, success. Also some extremely graphic sex so heads up!
One of my favorite parts:
"I never want to hear you use that word painful again," he said. "Do you know what they said about Whitman?...'A pig rooting among garbage.' That was the review when Leaves of Grass came out. Do you read Leaves of Grass?"
"Yes. I love it."
"And have you ever heard of that review?"
"No," I confessed.
"So don't let me catch you saying 'painful.' Pain is not something you waste on newspaper hacks. In face, I've never seen the point of pain at all. The trick is not how much pain you can feel - but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses. When you wind up in bed at the age of eighty-seven like me, the only pain you'll feel is got all the useless pain you felt, all the times you let yourself not do something because of fear and cowardice, all the times you let the bastards and the kibbitzers and the life-shrinkers hold you back. Watch out for the death-people, do you see what I mean?...They need you - or they have nothing to write about - but you don't need them. Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I hate this word painful?"
One of my favorite parts:
"I never want to hear you use that word painful again," he said. "Do you know what they said about Whitman?...'A pig rooting among garbage.' That was the review when Leaves of Grass came out. Do you read Leaves of Grass?"
"Yes. I love it."
"And have you ever heard of that review?"
"No," I confessed.
"So don't let me catch you saying 'painful.' Pain is not something you waste on newspaper hacks. In face, I've never seen the point of pain at all. The trick is not how much pain you can feel - but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses. When you wind up in bed at the age of eighty-seven like me, the only pain you'll feel is got all the useless pain you felt, all the times you let yourself not do something because of fear and cowardice, all the times you let the bastards and the kibbitzers and the life-shrinkers hold you back. Watch out for the death-people, do you see what I mean?...They need you - or they have nothing to write about - but you don't need them. Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I hate this word painful?"
August 20, 2009
This book pretty much picks up where Fear of Flying ended. A continuation of Isadora's story. I enjoyed it but definitely suggest you read FoF first if you haven't already. My edition of the book had a nice little afterword from Jong about her reactions to re-reading this story, some 30 years after writing it. It may be my favorite part of the book, actually.
some excerpts:
"The fact is - you can't really write about somebody you don't love. Even if the portrait is vitriolic, even if the pen is sharpened with old grudges, there has to have been love somewhere along the line, or the sheer, brute energy of pushing that pen across the page will not be there. And writing takes energy - more energy than you ever think you have. And energy comes from love."
"What a revolution it would be if all the people who led fragmented, lying, sneaking lives - justifying themselves with talk of realism, compromise, homage to the superego, civilization and its discontents - finally decided to throw off their self-imposed shackles and live according to their honest feelings! They would not immediately start fornicating in the streets and killing each other promiscuously. Not at all. But they would have to face the responsibility for their own happiness or unhappiness."
"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. ...It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
also. she REALLY loves the word "cunt." haha
some excerpts:
"The fact is - you can't really write about somebody you don't love. Even if the portrait is vitriolic, even if the pen is sharpened with old grudges, there has to have been love somewhere along the line, or the sheer, brute energy of pushing that pen across the page will not be there. And writing takes energy - more energy than you ever think you have. And energy comes from love."
"What a revolution it would be if all the people who led fragmented, lying, sneaking lives - justifying themselves with talk of realism, compromise, homage to the superego, civilization and its discontents - finally decided to throw off their self-imposed shackles and live according to their honest feelings! They would not immediately start fornicating in the streets and killing each other promiscuously. Not at all. But they would have to face the responsibility for their own happiness or unhappiness."
"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. ...It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
also. she REALLY loves the word "cunt." haha
October 2, 2012
Before I met with Book Club the other week, I'd have given this one star. But talking it over and realizing that Jong and this novel are, without question, a product of their political context made me realize that it has merit as a piece of history if not as a successful piece of fiction (or of writing in general).
Why did I find it unsuccessful, you ask? Because the narrator is a whining, pretentious, and wholly unlikable specimen of a human being and of a woman. I am, even after talking to the BC, irritated that she is even in part representative of an era of women's literature. I've never read the word "cunt" so much and after the first fifty times it kind of loses its shock factor. And then it just sounds dumb. And like Jong is trying way, way, way, way too hard.
Why else didn't I like it? Oh, because the plot is non-existent and although the protagonist seems to feel that there is a lot at stake, to me there didn't seem to be anything. She doesn't change or evolve as a character and I found the entire trial pretty dull.
But the BC girls say to read Fear of Flying first to lay the groundwork for the marital relationship at the heart of this book. So do that, and then read this one at your own risk.
Why did I find it unsuccessful, you ask? Because the narrator is a whining, pretentious, and wholly unlikable specimen of a human being and of a woman. I am, even after talking to the BC, irritated that she is even in part representative of an era of women's literature. I've never read the word "cunt" so much and after the first fifty times it kind of loses its shock factor. And then it just sounds dumb. And like Jong is trying way, way, way, way too hard.
Why else didn't I like it? Oh, because the plot is non-existent and although the protagonist seems to feel that there is a lot at stake, to me there didn't seem to be anything. She doesn't change or evolve as a character and I found the entire trial pretty dull.
But the BC girls say to read Fear of Flying first to lay the groundwork for the marital relationship at the heart of this book. So do that, and then read this one at your own risk.
April 23, 2007
I recently bought this book in paperback with fancy color cover after a decade of borrowing from my writing mentor the hardback with a black and white dust jacket.
The book is a straight forward tale about a woman who finally decides to recognize that her marriage has failed, that her husband is a bad fuck and a lousy person, and that only she can decide what she wants to do, or as LouEllen aka Eddie, paraphrases and says to me, "Get off the razor blade and stop cutting your pretty cunt."
LouEllen loaned it to me to read when I was going through the first of a series of bad relationships with men who were okay in bed and that was the best thing going for them (just okay and only okay). It was a manual of sorts for me and certainly helped guide me to making swifter decisions that have always been dead on since. Never again will I sit on the razorblade cutting my pretty-
It's a more interesting read than Fear of Flying, which I find a little dull. Given the erection Fruits and Vegetables gave me when I first read those poems, this was reassured me that sex, love, marriage like writing and anything else worth pursing is trial and error and a whole lot of practice.
The book is a straight forward tale about a woman who finally decides to recognize that her marriage has failed, that her husband is a bad fuck and a lousy person, and that only she can decide what she wants to do, or as LouEllen aka Eddie, paraphrases and says to me, "Get off the razor blade and stop cutting your pretty cunt."
LouEllen loaned it to me to read when I was going through the first of a series of bad relationships with men who were okay in bed and that was the best thing going for them (just okay and only okay). It was a manual of sorts for me and certainly helped guide me to making swifter decisions that have always been dead on since. Never again will I sit on the razorblade cutting my pretty-
It's a more interesting read than Fear of Flying, which I find a little dull. Given the erection Fruits and Vegetables gave me when I first read those poems, this was reassured me that sex, love, marriage like writing and anything else worth pursing is trial and error and a whole lot of practice.
July 10, 2012
I put this book aside to read some book club reads, and I really had to force myself to finish. Once I got out of the swing I had trouble getting back into Isadore's head. I planned to read "Fear of Flying" which is apparently a pre-cursor to this book, but I don't think I'll waste my time. "How to Save Your Own Life" is supposed to be about a woman who finds herself, realizing she has self-worth without a man and comes through divorce a better person. This book has lots of needless swearing, crude sex talk, and a few too many chapters of the main character blaming her boring, controlling husband for "forcing" her into repeatedly cheating on him. I realize I'm too young to have experienced the bra-burning-let's-shatter-the-glass-ceiling-sisterhood-feminism revolution, but in what world is it someone else's fault that you can't "keep it in your pants" so to speak? Then, upon confirmation (she already knew, but was in denial) that her husband cheated on her, Isadore is PISSED and wants us to pity her self-imposed victim status. Sorry, babe. Not in this girl's lifetime.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 24, 2021
I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley.
Isadora Wing, the 1970's, NYC... What could be better?
Except it could definitely be better
I read FoF years ago (and I recommend reading it before reading this. I recommend reading FoF even if you don't read this.). Isadora Wing is back and not better than ever. There might be elements of the book that resonate. I myself can't relate to a rich woman going about her daily life jet setting to Europe and the West Coast at the drop of a dime. But as a woman, I can definitely relate to how a relationship can gradually disintegrate until there is nothing left. Isadora is searching for something she might have found. We follow along as she meets quite cast of characters. She's restless, she's bored and she's been betrayed by her husband. But I found the "character" to be unlikable and selfish in this sequel. The 70's was a hedonistic time. That is captured fairly well. I raced through it as it is a fast paced read. I laughed out loud a few times. But didn't feel any particular way at the end.
Isadora Wing, the 1970's, NYC... What could be better?
Except it could definitely be better
I read FoF years ago (and I recommend reading it before reading this. I recommend reading FoF even if you don't read this.). Isadora Wing is back and not better than ever. There might be elements of the book that resonate. I myself can't relate to a rich woman going about her daily life jet setting to Europe and the West Coast at the drop of a dime. But as a woman, I can definitely relate to how a relationship can gradually disintegrate until there is nothing left. Isadora is searching for something she might have found. We follow along as she meets quite cast of characters. She's restless, she's bored and she's been betrayed by her husband. But I found the "character" to be unlikable and selfish in this sequel. The 70's was a hedonistic time. That is captured fairly well. I raced through it as it is a fast paced read. I laughed out loud a few times. But didn't feel any particular way at the end.
August 19, 2012
During: I don't really know what to think about this book [as I'm reading it]. It's vivd, and kind of morbid. The woman is trying to 'save her own life' starting with leaving her husband, which she thoroughly retells, event for event. Some parts are depressing, others are funny. Definitely adult content all around.
After: Okay, this book was like one half porno, one half self help book... Sometimes it just felt really demoralizing, other times it was really interesting. When the main character started to get her life together, I was actually really excited for her, even though the rest of the time I was thinking that she was just reallyf*cking stupid.
Anyway, I'm not sure, but I think the epilogue just kind of ruined the entire book... whatever. The whole thing was kind of a drag.
The poems at the the end were nice, it just sucks that I can't really read them to anyone, considering they're somewhat pornographic.
After: Okay, this book was like one half porno, one half self help book... Sometimes it just felt really demoralizing, other times it was really interesting. When the main character started to get her life together, I was actually really excited for her, even though the rest of the time I was thinking that she was just really
Anyway, I'm not sure, but I think the epilogue just kind of ruined the entire book... whatever. The whole thing was kind of a drag.
The poems at the the end were nice, it just sucks that I can't really read them to anyone, considering they're somewhat pornographic.
March 4, 2008
Loved the title--obviously. Great 70's feminist awakening type stuff.. and I tend to enjoy and agree with Jong's blogging on Huffington Post... but after about 160 pages, frankly, I was done. She's already had two ongoing affairs with guys named Jeffrey, experimented with a lesbian affair (didn't really like being on top, but was DETERMINED to make her lover come--how goal oriented and male), turned down the opportunity for a three-way in a hot tub in LA, and is now happily in love and "winging it" with a "younger man." If this chick is going to save her own life, I guess all that that's left is to figure out that sex is not love and the younger guy isn't the answer. I don't care if she stays with her husband or not... but my guess is she doesn't.
January 17, 2008
I've been wanting to read Erica Jong for a long time. I've read a few of her short stories, mostly in anthologies of erotic literature. I found this book on sale for $2.99 at McNally and couldn't pass it up.
Her writing feels so honest. It felt more like reading a friend's diary than a novel. I know that she fictionalized a lot even though much of it was based on her own life. It's a 32 year old woman's story of how she eventually came to leave her husband of 9 years.
Her honesty and willingness to put so much of herself out there, including her sexuality, reminded me a lot of Alexis's writing.
Her writing feels so honest. It felt more like reading a friend's diary than a novel. I know that she fictionalized a lot even though much of it was based on her own life. It's a 32 year old woman's story of how she eventually came to leave her husband of 9 years.
Her honesty and willingness to put so much of herself out there, including her sexuality, reminded me a lot of Alexis's writing.
October 24, 2020
Inizialmente fastidioso per via delle volgarità e della storia in sé, apparentemente banale (moglie insoddisfatta desidera evasione), si è rivelato pagina dopo pagina un gioiello che non voglio nemmeno definire femminista, visto che alcune femministe lo hanno criticato. Credo sia un libro che dovrebbero leggere tutte le donne, affinché si liberino non tanto di mariti indigesti quando di convinzioni errate e sensi di colpa. Le pagine migliori, secondo me, riguardano le dritte su come salvarsi la vita: eliminando i sensi di colpa, sì, ma anche e soprattutto, preparandosi ad avere 87 anni.
April 7, 2025
i literally could not get through this book it’s so incredibly self indulgent and obviously a vomit pile of narcissism on the part of the author with pages upon pages of shitty and meandering stream of consciousness prose on the part of the main character that does nothing to propel the plot or character development. it’s an insult to literature and feminism and queerness all in one however-many-paged steaming mound of unreadable garbage.
March 15, 2010
I can't get enough of Erica Jong. It surprises me sometimes that this was written in the 70's and yet I feel she touches something inside of me several decades later. I particularly appreciated this book more than fear of flying, because as she says so herself, she takes a much more optimistic approach at love, an idea she might have turned me onto.
February 6, 2024
Tragic and hilarious; Jong goes between pontificating on literature, expressing disgust at psychiatry and discussing sex in terms that are poetic, brutal, mechanical and everything inbetween. Whilst I think the sex scenes are what got a lot of attention from the book when it was published, it's the description of her apatheic marriage and approach to others that really stands out "I had wanted to leave my marriage for years, had saved it up like a sweet before bedtime, like a piece of bubble gum put on the childhood bedpost, like the evening out you promise yourself after day of writing." the elements discussing her writing and the nature of writing itself also stand out as whilst not universally true but absolutely honest "Even autobiography is not interesting if it is only about its subject. Unless that subject becomes everywoman, unless that story becomes myth, it is of no interest to anyone but the subject-and perhaps her mother. And once it becomes myth-it is no longer merely autobiography. Or merely fiction"
The blurb promises one of the funniest lesbian sex scenes in writing which I think might be a method of titalation and sales but absolutely delivers "I tried. I put my best tongue forward and took the plunge. You'll get used to the smell, told myself. said to myself, Self, you smell the same; but it was not much use. Rosanna took forever to come, and my nose felt like it had spent its entire life in there. I was nibbling her clit as she had done for me, sliding two fingers in and out, trying not to think of the smell, the hairs getting stuck between my teeth, and the fact that my
wrist was getting tired from moving back and forth, forth and back. How long had it been? An hour? Two? I began to sympathize with Bennett's not wanting to go down on me; I began to understand what it meant to be a man, fumbling around - is this the right place or is that? -getting no guidance from one's subject (who is too polite and ladylike to tell) and won-
dering, wondering if she is going to come now, or now, or now-or has she already, or will she next summer, or what? Help! I need some guidance This is uncharted territory If I keep sliding these two fingers in and out and revolving my tongue on her clit and nibbling with my teeth, will she eventually come?Will she come by 1984? Will she tell me when she does? Do WASPS moan?"
Choice Notes
Why is it harder to leave a loveless marriage than a loving one? Because a loveless marriage is born of desperation, while a loving one is born of choice....
While the whole world is fucking away behind closed doors, all I do is write, write, write!"
"`Why a condom? Don't you have a diaphragm?"
"I do but how can I use the same one with my husband and with a lover?"
"You use the same cunt, don't you?"
'Everybody knew.'
This reopens my wounds. They bleed invisibly.
'Everybody?"
"Yeah. It used to kill me when I saw you and Bennett and Penny jogging around the track in your sweatshirts. Everybody knew about it but you. And Robby, I think. But then, he was having an affair with his secretary... Frankly, I thought Bennett was immensely cruel to you.'
"Why didn't you say?"
" Nobody in their right mind messes with anyone else's marriage. You know that.'
I hung my head. "I thought DeeDee treated you cruelly too.'
"'And you didn't tell me either. In fact, you drove her into town to meet her lover on one occasion.'
"I had to, she...'
"Don't explain I'm not blaming you
"You were always getting into accidents to deprive me ..." he said, as if he hadn't the slightest idea what he was implying psychologically.
"To deprive you! Youl We were skiing on ice, if you remember. And it was your ideal"
"So I had an affair--big deal. Doctor Steingesser doesn't think that's any reason to break up our marriage.
"What marriage?" I shrieked. "What marriage are you talking about? Your marriage to Doctor Steingesser or my purgatory with you?"
Old pals in the literary world accusing you of having "sold out." Ah, the literary world. They hate failure and despise success. They have contempt for authors whose books go unread and sheer hatred for authors whose books are too much read. Try to please the literary world and you will spend your life in a state of rage and bitterness. But Hollywood is simple, almost pure-if total venality is a form of purity. There, nothing at all matters but making money. And the more you make the better you are. And the end justifies any means at all.
If I do it once, I'm a philosopher
If I do it twice, I'm a pervert
(WITH APOLOGIES TO VOLTAIRE)
I came- thinking of Josh (with whom it was so hard to come). Oh Doris Lessing, my dear-your Anna is wrong about orgasms. They are no proof of love-any more than that other Anna's fall under the wheels of that Russian train was a proof of love. It's all female shenanigans, cultural mishegoss, conditioning, brainwashing, male mythologizing.
What does a woman want? She wants what she has been told she ought to want. Anna Wulf wants orgasm, Anna Karenina, death. Orgasm is no proof of anything. Orgasm is proof of orgasm. Someday every woman will have orgasms- like every family has color TV - and we can all get on with the real business of life
The blurb promises one of the funniest lesbian sex scenes in writing which I think might be a method of titalation and sales but absolutely delivers "I tried. I put my best tongue forward and took the plunge. You'll get used to the smell, told myself. said to myself, Self, you smell the same; but it was not much use. Rosanna took forever to come, and my nose felt like it had spent its entire life in there. I was nibbling her clit as she had done for me, sliding two fingers in and out, trying not to think of the smell, the hairs getting stuck between my teeth, and the fact that my
wrist was getting tired from moving back and forth, forth and back. How long had it been? An hour? Two? I began to sympathize with Bennett's not wanting to go down on me; I began to understand what it meant to be a man, fumbling around - is this the right place or is that? -getting no guidance from one's subject (who is too polite and ladylike to tell) and won-
dering, wondering if she is going to come now, or now, or now-or has she already, or will she next summer, or what? Help! I need some guidance This is uncharted territory If I keep sliding these two fingers in and out and revolving my tongue on her clit and nibbling with my teeth, will she eventually come?Will she come by 1984? Will she tell me when she does? Do WASPS moan?"
Choice Notes
Why is it harder to leave a loveless marriage than a loving one? Because a loveless marriage is born of desperation, while a loving one is born of choice....
While the whole world is fucking away behind closed doors, all I do is write, write, write!"
"`Why a condom? Don't you have a diaphragm?"
"I do but how can I use the same one with my husband and with a lover?"
"You use the same cunt, don't you?"
'Everybody knew.'
This reopens my wounds. They bleed invisibly.
'Everybody?"
"Yeah. It used to kill me when I saw you and Bennett and Penny jogging around the track in your sweatshirts. Everybody knew about it but you. And Robby, I think. But then, he was having an affair with his secretary... Frankly, I thought Bennett was immensely cruel to you.'
"Why didn't you say?"
" Nobody in their right mind messes with anyone else's marriage. You know that.'
I hung my head. "I thought DeeDee treated you cruelly too.'
"'And you didn't tell me either. In fact, you drove her into town to meet her lover on one occasion.'
"I had to, she...'
"Don't explain I'm not blaming you
"You were always getting into accidents to deprive me ..." he said, as if he hadn't the slightest idea what he was implying psychologically.
"To deprive you! Youl We were skiing on ice, if you remember. And it was your ideal"
"So I had an affair--big deal. Doctor Steingesser doesn't think that's any reason to break up our marriage.
"What marriage?" I shrieked. "What marriage are you talking about? Your marriage to Doctor Steingesser or my purgatory with you?"
Old pals in the literary world accusing you of having "sold out." Ah, the literary world. They hate failure and despise success. They have contempt for authors whose books go unread and sheer hatred for authors whose books are too much read. Try to please the literary world and you will spend your life in a state of rage and bitterness. But Hollywood is simple, almost pure-if total venality is a form of purity. There, nothing at all matters but making money. And the more you make the better you are. And the end justifies any means at all.
If I do it once, I'm a philosopher
If I do it twice, I'm a pervert
(WITH APOLOGIES TO VOLTAIRE)
I came- thinking of Josh (with whom it was so hard to come). Oh Doris Lessing, my dear-your Anna is wrong about orgasms. They are no proof of love-any more than that other Anna's fall under the wheels of that Russian train was a proof of love. It's all female shenanigans, cultural mishegoss, conditioning, brainwashing, male mythologizing.
What does a woman want? She wants what she has been told she ought to want. Anna Wulf wants orgasm, Anna Karenina, death. Orgasm is no proof of anything. Orgasm is proof of orgasm. Someday every woman will have orgasms- like every family has color TV - and we can all get on with the real business of life
September 23, 2021
Erica Jong’s sequel to the bestseller ‘Fear of Flying’ tells the next part of her life story via the character Isadora Wing. Isadora is married to Asian-American psychiatrist Bennett Wing; Erica was married to Asian-American psychiatrist Allan Jong. Isadora is Jewish, grew up in New York, and spent three years in Heidelberg with Bennett; Erica, well, you get the idea. The story picks up from when Bennett/Allan had forgiven her for her adultery and taken her back. Not surprisingly, their marriage still has issues, and when Bennett/Allan reveals his own indiscretions from the past, Isadora/Erica takes it very hard, even though she’s kept on having her own flings on the side. Dealing with this, as well as her new-found fame for her first novel, creates a crisis in her life. After making the rounds to her friends who dispense advice and in a couple of cases sex (and offers for a future together), she flies out to Hollywood to see about a possible film deal. There she meets Josh Ace/Jonathan Fast.
I find Jong compelling and I enjoyed this book to the end, but she does get a little repetitive and comes across as whining at times. I don’t think it’s a problem that the book is highly autobiographical (and with a rather complete cast; Britt Goldstein = sleazy Hollywood producer Julia Phillips, Jeannie Morton = suicidal poet Anne Sexton; Kurt Hammer = Henry Miller, etc.), and in fact that’s a somewhat interesting aspect of it, but it slips too often into reading like a journal without enough indirection or polish.
Jong has a reputation for explicitly sexuality and lives up to it here, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, this book is not for you. Trying to draw the line between expressing sexuality in an honest way and not going too far is tricky, particularly as every reader’s taste is going to vary. In this case, I felt she did well for most of the novel, but got a little too graphic towards the end, starting with an orgy scene. It’s not that the descriptions of the sex offended me, but they just seemed unnecessary and in there to titillate and sell books.
On the other hand, Jong is honest in her writing, and truly pushed boundaries for women. She’s well-read, cultured, and intelligent. She leaves herself bare on the page, both in terms of liking sex, which took a lot of guts to write about, but also in her soul searching about love and marriage. She captures the spirit of the 70’s, replete with psychotherapy, astrology, and the “new” expression to describe the culture in California: “laid-back”, which I smiled over.
However, after her breakthrough first novel which I loved, this one comes across as derivative, and a bit like ‘pop literature’ when she could do better – and did do better in her next novel, which was her version of Fanny Hill.
Here are a couple representative passages to give you an idea of her writing; the first, on her problem with her husband:
“How had we drifted so far apart? Or were we apart from the very beginning? Does eight years of marriage erode all points of contact between two people – or weren’t they ever there? I no longer knew. I only knew that I never looked forward to going on a vacation with him – or being alone with him at night – and that I filled my life with frenetic activity, hundreds of friends, casual affairs (which, of course, I felt guilty about) because being alone in his company was so curiously sterile. Even when we were home together, I was forever retreating to my study to work. Surely some of this was my fierce ambition (or, as my astrologer-nut friends would say, typical Aries woman married to a typical Cancer man); but surely some of it was a desire not to be with Bennett. His presence depressed me. There was something life-denying about his very manner, carriage, and monotonous way of speaking. How could one create life with someone who represented death?”
And this one, a small snippet but an example of her writing at its playful best:
“’Possibly you want to take me to bed?’ (My heart started pounding with astonishment at my own chutzpah
‘Bed?’ he said, as if he’d never heard the word before, as if the object itself were unfamiliar to him, an archaeological find, a household item from early Greece no longer in use today and unknown except to specialists.”
Lastly, a note on the connection discovered to the book I read previously, which was Vasily Shukshin’s ‘Stories from a Siberian Village’; from Jong: “It was harsh – but not as harsh as the fates of some of the other kids growing up during the Second World War.” After having just read this, among other things, from Shushkin, who was one such child: “But then the war broke out and our other father was no more, he was killed in the Kursk encirclement. Once again, hard times came upon us…”
I find Jong compelling and I enjoyed this book to the end, but she does get a little repetitive and comes across as whining at times. I don’t think it’s a problem that the book is highly autobiographical (and with a rather complete cast; Britt Goldstein = sleazy Hollywood producer Julia Phillips, Jeannie Morton = suicidal poet Anne Sexton; Kurt Hammer = Henry Miller, etc.), and in fact that’s a somewhat interesting aspect of it, but it slips too often into reading like a journal without enough indirection or polish.
Jong has a reputation for explicitly sexuality and lives up to it here, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, this book is not for you. Trying to draw the line between expressing sexuality in an honest way and not going too far is tricky, particularly as every reader’s taste is going to vary. In this case, I felt she did well for most of the novel, but got a little too graphic towards the end, starting with an orgy scene. It’s not that the descriptions of the sex offended me, but they just seemed unnecessary and in there to titillate and sell books.
On the other hand, Jong is honest in her writing, and truly pushed boundaries for women. She’s well-read, cultured, and intelligent. She leaves herself bare on the page, both in terms of liking sex, which took a lot of guts to write about, but also in her soul searching about love and marriage. She captures the spirit of the 70’s, replete with psychotherapy, astrology, and the “new” expression to describe the culture in California: “laid-back”, which I smiled over.
However, after her breakthrough first novel which I loved, this one comes across as derivative, and a bit like ‘pop literature’ when she could do better – and did do better in her next novel, which was her version of Fanny Hill.
Here are a couple representative passages to give you an idea of her writing; the first, on her problem with her husband:
“How had we drifted so far apart? Or were we apart from the very beginning? Does eight years of marriage erode all points of contact between two people – or weren’t they ever there? I no longer knew. I only knew that I never looked forward to going on a vacation with him – or being alone with him at night – and that I filled my life with frenetic activity, hundreds of friends, casual affairs (which, of course, I felt guilty about) because being alone in his company was so curiously sterile. Even when we were home together, I was forever retreating to my study to work. Surely some of this was my fierce ambition (or, as my astrologer-nut friends would say, typical Aries woman married to a typical Cancer man); but surely some of it was a desire not to be with Bennett. His presence depressed me. There was something life-denying about his very manner, carriage, and monotonous way of speaking. How could one create life with someone who represented death?”
And this one, a small snippet but an example of her writing at its playful best:
“’Possibly you want to take me to bed?’ (My heart started pounding with astonishment at my own chutzpah
‘Bed?’ he said, as if he’d never heard the word before, as if the object itself were unfamiliar to him, an archaeological find, a household item from early Greece no longer in use today and unknown except to specialists.”
Lastly, a note on the connection discovered to the book I read previously, which was Vasily Shukshin’s ‘Stories from a Siberian Village’; from Jong: “It was harsh – but not as harsh as the fates of some of the other kids growing up during the Second World War.” After having just read this, among other things, from Shushkin, who was one such child: “But then the war broke out and our other father was no more, he was killed in the Kursk encirclement. Once again, hard times came upon us…”
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