holds up fantastically (and depressingly) well.

تجربة قرائية فريدة.. مرهقة، صادمة، جريئة… تجعلك تقفين في مواجهة أقصى مخاوفك: هرموناتك التي تدفعك للجري وراء وهم الحب و التحرر.. ومن حيث لا تدرين تسقطين في فخ عبودية الجنس و الرغبة و الوقوع في أسر الحب .. الحب الذي يجعلك لا تستطعين ان تتخذي قرارا الا بوجود رجل في حياتك.. هو ليس حبا، بل وهما بالحب.
كيف يمكن للمراة ان تتحرر؟ ومم؟ ولماذا؟
للحظات ، كرهت الرواية، اذ اعتقدت ان الكاتبة تفضح حياة من حولها، تنشر ادق تفاصيل حياتهم الجنسية و حياتها كذلك.
لكن تبين لي ان الكاتبة استفادت من تجاربها الحياتية ووظفت بعضها دون ان تغرق بالتوثيق المباشر.. وهنا قوة الأدب بل عبقريته: وهو القدرة على تحويل المجال الخاص( التجربة الذاتية) الى فضاء عام ، يستطيع القارئ، أي قارئ أن يتفاعل معه، و يجد بعضا من شظايا حياته، هواجسه، مخاوفه، تساؤلاته، حيرته.. انفعالاته فيه.
العبقرية الثانية:
الجنس و الجسد و تجلياته، وعلاقاته المتشابكة، هو مادة زخمة للكتابة، ولجذب القراء او لتحويل العمل الأدبي الى ( رواية مثيرة للجدل) حسب مصطلح السوشال ميديا المفضل، ليست الكتابة عن الجنس و عملياته بالأمر الصعب اذ امتلك الكاتب مساحة كافية من الحرية، و بذا سيحقق بعض الدعاية لروايته بدءا من العنوان الصادم كأن يكون عنوانها( المنكوح) مثلا، او محتواها الفضائحي و الصادم بدعوى ان في الواقع اضعاف ما في الرواية ، وايضا مثل ما احتوته رواية المنكوح من وصف مبتذل للجنس .
لكن اين تكمن العبقرية؟

تكمن في توظييف الجسد و الجنس في مجال فلسفي، وليس مجرد وصف بقصد اثارة رخيصة للقارئ.
يقول كونديرا في " كائن لا تحتمل خفته" ان في الجنس يتكشف سر الطبيعة البشرية ، وهو خزنتها،.
و فيه تتحرر الذات من قيودها، و تفهم نفسها اكثر، اي يمكن للمرء ان يفهم ذاته عبر تأمل ذاته الجنسية و علاقتها مع الاخر، و علاقتها مع جسدها.
وهذا ما نجحت به الكاتبة، وان كان صادما، صادما جدا، و يتطلب حمولة نفسية كبيرة من الصبر لاحتماله.
توقفت كثيرا مع كل صفحة من صفحات الرواية، اقتبس مقاطع ، افكر، أتأمل، أراسل بعض الاصدقاء واشاركهم ما اعجبني، قد تكون هذه الرواية افضل ما قرات لهذا العام حتى الان، اقولها وانا متخوفة، لانها فعلا ينطبق عليها وصف ( اكرهها و اشتهي وصلها و انني احب كرهي لها)
في لحظات سأمت من الحديث اللاهث لسعي البطلة نحو الجنس… لكنها كانت تعبر عن عصر الستينيات و السبعينيات، عصر انفجار الثورة الجنسية و التحررية ، حتى جاءت خاتمة للمؤلفة تتحدث عن الذكرى الثلاثين عاما على صدور الرواية و تقول، اشفقت على البطلة، اكان عليها ان تجري خلف الجنس بهذا الشكل؟ الان يمكنني ان انصحها ان تاخذ صف يوغا، أو تأمل.
يمكننا القول ان اريكا يونغ هي النسخة الانثوية من هنري ميللر

بعض الاقتباسات التي يمكنني مشاركتها دون الشعور بالحرج:
❞ كان أدريان قد سأل: «لِمَ لا تنسين الحب وتكتفين بعيش حياتك الخاصة؟». وجادلته. ولكنْ لعلّه كان على حق أصلاً. ماذا منحني الحب غير الإحباط؟ أو لعلي بحثتُ عن الأشياء الخاطئة في الحب. لقد أردتُ أنْ أذوب في رجل، أنْ أُلغي نفسي، أنْ أنتقل إلى الجنة على متن جناحَين مُستعارَين. كان ينبغي أنْ أدعو نفسي إيزادورا إيكاروس. والجناحان المُستعاران لم يثبتا في مكانهما عندما احتجت إليهما. ربما كنتُ في الحقيقة في حاجة إلى تنمية جناحين خاصين بي. ❝

❞ إنَّ الناس لا يُكمِّلوننا؛ نحن نكمِّل أنفسنا. فإنْ لم تكن لدينا القُدرة على إكمال أنفسنا، فإنَّ البحث عن الحب يتحوّل إلى بحثٍ عن تدمير الذات؛ وحينئذ نحاول أنْ نُقنع أنفسنا بأنَّ تدمير الذات هو حب. ❝

❞ إنْ كنتُ أسيرة، فأنا أسيرة مخاوفي. كان رعبي من الوحدة هو مُحرّك كل شيء. أحياناً كان يبدو أنني مستعدة لأية تسوية، أنْ أتحمّل أي خزي وألازم أي رجل شريطة ألا أبقى وحدي. ولكن لِمَ؟ ما الشيء الرهيب في الوحدة؟ حاولي ❝

⁠‫«انظري – لماذا لا تكفّين عن البحث عن الحب وتحاولين أنْ تعيشي حياتك؟».

⁠‫«لأنه أي حياة سأعيش إذا لم أحب؟».

⁠‫«لديك عملك، وكتابتك، وتدريسك، وأصدقاؤك…».

⁠‫قلت في نفسي، رتابة، رتابة، رتابة

في كل الأحوال، إنَّ كتاباتي كلها هي محاولة للحصول على الحب. أعلم أنَّ هذا جنون. أعلم أنَّ نتيجته الإخفاق. ولكن هذا هو الواقع: أنا أريد أنْ يحبني كل رجل».

⁠‫قال أدريان: «ستخسرين».

⁠‫«أعلم، لكنَّ معرفتي لا تغيِّر أي شيء. لِمَ لا تغيِّر ❝

❞ لماذا؟ فقط لأنني أقول الحقيقة؟ اسمعي – أنت تريدين الحب، تريدين الوفرة، تريدين المشاعر، تريدين القُرب – فماذا أعددتِ لهذا؟ المعاناة. على الأقلّ معاناتك وافرة… إنَّ المريضة تعشق طبيبها. ولا تريد أنْ تَشفى».
2022

I found this boring, self-absorbed and rather pathetic. If the main character wanted to do something to express herself as a strong woman, and help the feminine cause, why not train as a biochemist or architect or police officer?

Instead this neurotic woman has sex, and rather bad sex too, on the brain. Why not try to find love with a man who will treat you as an equal, instead of wasting your energy? You'll never be long-lasting happy and fulfilled with sex replacing love.

And by the way, foul language doesn't make you look strong. It makes you look cheap.

One of the most satisfying and soul nourishing books I’ve read in a while. It almost goes without saying that, yes, there are some ~problematic~ elements (“Indians are stinky!”) and ultimately the protagonist relies on a man to free her from her relationship…with a man. But to make the observation that this book is very “man centered” would be to miss the point entirely. Of course it is. Women’s lives were (and still are??) largely centered upon men. (Thinking about “My Husband” and how the narrator decorates her living room in such a way that will situate her husband closer to her in space.) We just still use men as tools for liberating ourselves, and it’s precisely what makes this book so frustrating and affirming to read.

But god I love writing from the 60s/70s/early 80s so much— she’s got that Tom Robbins-esque liberated stream-of-consciousness quality where she’s not afraid of pseudo-psychology or diversions into memory or sometimes lapsing into cheesy French phrases—it sounds like a read to say she writes like she doesn’t care what the reader thinks but it feels true, and I think that’s only a read in today’s climate but maybe not in the 70s. I think the fashion with books written now is a tightness in tone that is very satisfying to read but can sometimes feel artificial or overly curated to me. We are all trying very hard to come off as indifferent, I think, in the present moment, and Jong’s ok risking a certain level of coolness in a genuine pursuit of voice and truth and reality.

Also I respect the hell out of how unafraid she is of grotesque female sexuality. I feel like female sexuality is so stylized at the present moment—we’re becoming comfortable with the display of female sexuality in media as long as it’s sanitized, aesthetic, feminine sexuality: the resurgence of smut on target shelves, the “empowerment” of sex toys and lingerie and all the things we consume for “sensuality’s” sake. Jong talks about the grossness of the female body with a freedom that feels honestly revolutionary. Like no smut books written now are talking about all the weird juices and wishing you had a penis to penetrate a man with. But like I want to talk about the juices. Why is no one talking about the juices??

This book also makes me want to formulate a unifying theory of the self annihilating force of female desire (maybe because I watched Nosferatu recently)—the desire to lose oneself in a lover, to eliminate the self (out of self hatred, or just out of laziness). To cease to be oneself is tempting for anyone but perhaps especially for women, with the limited escape routes we have out of our suffering. So becoming consumed by a man is an extremely compelling narrative. (Why Nosferatu is a story of female desire, not a horror story.)

But yeah my copy of this book is underlined to shit and I can already tell this is my new Bible that I will be referencing for years.

For whatever reason (possibly because someone I recommended it to wasn't that thrilled by it), I feel a bit like I need to defend this book lately, and since I reviewed it when I first joined this site and most people were writing shorter reviews, I'd like to give it a better write-up.

The premise of Fear of Flying is fairly simple: Isadora White Wing is in a marriage she isn't exactly happy with. Her husband isn't especially warm to her, nor is he incredibly supportive of her career (like Jong, of course, she's a writer).

While on a trip in Vienna, Isadora fantasizes about being with another man, and this book is more or less about those fantasies - what they mean in the context of her marriage, her entire love life, what they mean for women in general.

It's true, the writing isn't exactly high brow. It's incredibly self-indulgent and narcissistic, and you will, from time to time, feel like you could have written it, and maybe even done a better job.

That, however is not the point of this book. It's not about the way she writes, but the fact that she wrote it in the first place.

You'd think, after books like The Awakening - which was written in motherfucking 1899, by the by - that society would've gradually accepted that women have sex drives. Sexuality is important to women, women want pleasure, women have fantasies, sometimes women, too, just want to get down and dirty and out the door.

But no! Even today, 109 years after Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening, people are still coping with feminine sexuality.

The importance of Fear of Flying is Jong opening up the female mind, showing people: this is what we think about, worry about, these are the problems we have, these are things on our minds where men, careers and lives are concerned. You may not always agree with her or have the exact same problems, but I would be astounded if any woman gets through this book without finding anything she can relate to.

As I see it, there are two major dilemmas going on here, which are both issues that many women I know - myself included - have faced.

The first is sort of what the two men she debates between represent to her and her life. There's comfort and stability, represented by Bennett, her (second) husband. Then there's passion and intensity represented by Adrian Goodlove (yeah, a real dumbdumb name, but I kind of love it because of that). A LOT of women often feel like they're forced to choose between these two extremes at one point or another. I definitely have, and most women I know have, too. I know someone sorting through a similar pair of men at this very moment in time.

The second is a dilemma that's just as applicable to men as it is to women, and that's the idea of freedom and independence, and struggling to maintain that within the framework of a relationship. She wants to be strong and able to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, both in terms of love and her career, but at the same time, she wants support, companionship. Is there anyone who hasn't struggled with this - even if only on a small scale - at some point or another?

There are also other issues within the context of those issues - Do women have to get married? Why do we feel we have to? Etc.

Again, I have to stress that this book is more about what she says as opposed to how she says it. I imagine she had a hunch that this book would elicit a controversial response and was probably concerned a lot more with content than she was style. Honestly, I think that's allowable in these circumstances. She wanted to encourage women to go out and explore their sexuality and what it meant to them, and with such a noble cause, I can forgive her the rudimentary approach. She's not perfect, and I don't see why she has to be. I think that's also part of this book's charm. She isn't perfect, she knows it, and she learns to accept it - another conundrum plenty of people face in one way or another - and I'd say that's true of both the character and the author.

As for how it fits in modern times, I do think it's still applicable. It might seem a bit closeted to women who feel they've fully embraced their sexuality or have read more of the modern musings on female pleasure first. None-the-less, the issues I mention above that Isadora struggles with are still very much current.

Are there books that approach these issues that might be more modern? Sure. But I also think there's importance in knowing the kind of novel that shocked America in the '70s, a time when most of us from a younger generation think of free love and hippies and feminism and what not. For a modern woman, there isn't anything shocking about this. The fact that it was shocking is what's so damn upsetting. The '70s were not that long ago! And people were thrown back by the fact that women had dreams of random sexual encounters! It's appalling. Of course, at the same time, despite the fact that if this book was released today, it probably wouldn't be considered a revelation, I'm sure Isadora would still get labeled cruelly. Which is also kind of upsetting.

None-the-less, if you like the topic but not the writing style of Fear of Flying, I definitely suggest The Awakening, which is a little more high-brow.


Original review:
I kindofsortof hate it when people say things like "this book changed my life," but if I was going to say that about just one book, I would say it about this one.

Yes, it's neurotic, yes, it's self-obsessed. But I like it that way, and there's still plenty to take from this book even for those who don't especially enjoy writing like that. There are also plenty of modern writers who do the same thing and are praised for it (cough Dave Eggers cough).

In the simplest overview, there's nothing particularly revelatory about her observations and conclusions -- everyone goes through the struggle of wanting to be independent and wanting to be loved, and most of us learn this rather early on. But there's something about the way that she approaches this, the way that she handles it, that makes it hit you like a truck. I dare you to come away from reading this book without thinking about it for at least the next week.

Though this book is obviously marketed towards women, I think it's just as important reading for men.

I love books like this, books that challenge my views, ideas and expectations and the reputation of this book alone did that so there was every chance that this would be a let down. But it wasn't. Yes it challenged many aspects of my thoughts and opinions and there were times where I just wanted to shake Isodora back to reality but by the end she had a point, a confusion, a sense of chaos that many of us have felt about various things (and everything) at times that we haven't been able to voice or act upon. I sense this is one of those books that every reader will get something different from and possibly that the same reader will get different things from at different times in their lives. Either way Jong has captured the sense of chaotic freedom that embodied feminism in the 70's and even today as we are still held to ideals and expectations that don't quite fit with how we want to live.

Read this many a moon ago, whilst I was searching for the zipless fuck, or whatever the equivalent is.

It is entertaining in places, disappointingly heavy-going in others and it occupies a place on my shelf reserved for books read as a rite of passage.

It was a real delight to plunge back into the 70's through Isadora's eyes. Erika Jong's Fear of Flying explores the aspirations and fears of an American writer. This woman has spent numerous years into analysis (her husband is a psychologist), and tries to find answers to the life she lives as an artist, a jewish woman. She explores her sexuality, and tries to find a way to fulfill her goals unspite of the pressure of the society, it's view on women.
This brilliant book is deeply feminist, witty, and funny but it's also quite bitter and made me cringe several times.
It's interesting how 50 years after thiw book was written, the society both evolved and regressed. The weight of political correctness hadn't ravaged creativity yet. I am not saying that it shouldn't exist, but merely that I greatly enjoyed the refreshing tone of this novel.
n  "If you were female and talented, life was a trap no matter which way you turned. Either you drowned in domesticity (and had Walter Mittyish fantasies of escape) or you longed for domesticity in all your art."n

Read this long ago don't remember much.

20 million copies sold? A seminal feminist classic? I am nothing short of incredulous. I'd say it was the pseudo-intellectual self-absorbed ramblings of a spoilt 29-year-old 'poet' that does not stand the test of time.

But let me first say, I'm not one to dole out 1* reviews. This is my first, and as an author myself, I've wondered what can motivate a reader to such an action. But now, thank you Erica, I have seen the light! It's when the distance between the reader's expectations and what is delivered are such poles apart as to provoke a huge desire to redress the balance for the sake of anyone stumbling upon these reader reviews. Or that's my motivation anyway.

In summary: this is a racist not racy, self-absorbed not self-enlightened, memoir-thinly-masquerading-as-fiction. If I hadn't been reading it for my book group, there is NO WAY I'd have got through it, as I haven't met such an insufferable protagonist in as long as I can remember (if ever). Isadora Wing (aka Erica Jong) is spoilt beyond belief, has access to education, money and family support, name drops like a teenager desperate to impress with her literary knowledge, but despite her own ego, is a really rather rubbish writer.

Her style is repetitive and rambling, full or irritating asides and diversions, but what really irks is she has not a good word to say about anybody - not her long-suffering family, her countless shrinks (they had their work cut out there), her two ex husbands, no one. Everyone is dug at, put down, moaned about - even the poor folk sitting in the same carriage as her on a train are described as `a stuffy American professor, his dowdy wife, and their drooly baby'. Even if we aren't supposed to like her, to read several hundred pages in such negative, whiny tone of voice gets tiresome without anything positive to act as a contrast.

She may write refreshingly honestly about sex (but most of her encounters seem to be with impotent men and seemed tame indeed to my 21st century sensibilities) but THAT IS ALL. And given the book's reputation, I expected more emphasis on sexuality and fantasy and less on pseudo intellectualism and psychoanalysis.

If FoF was a classic at the time, it has not stood up to the forty odd years that have passed since. I consider myself a feminist, but even from that historical perspective, there are surely other books that are a lot more informative and interesting. The Second Sex, for example, which predates Jong by two decades still resonates today, and fiction-wise, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber was published only six years later but is far more erotic and subtle when it comes to exploring female sexuality and fantasies.

Finally, an aside, my parents were at the Viennese congress she writes of, and I gather this `novel' upset a fair few folk upon its publication after the event. I presume it's only because she didn't put her own name to the heroine that shrinks such as `Adrian' and `Bennett', or a member of her family - her poor sister `Randy' for instance - didn't sue her for defamation.

Shame, I'd have loved to have seen it.

رواية مربكة، لا تعلم هل تحبها أم تكرهها لشدة فحش كاتبتها! لكنها جميلة على كل حال!

This one is close enough for horseshoes. I will likely read it once every year.