Stopped at page 100ish - found main character so extremely unlikable I had to stop. Some great writing but she was too nasty NOT in a good way.

Didn't finish it. Probably shouldn't rate it. But I'm going to anyway. Because I hated what I did read, like, soooo much:

Sexual liberation (meaning freedom to have impersonal sexual encounters with hot dudes all over the world; that's actually all) is for skinny straight white rich ladies, amirite?!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0713zf7

Description: The radio premiere of Erica Jong's bold and bawdy novel about a young woman's quest for sexual liberation was a controversial best-seller in 1973.

1/5: Isadora Wing has been married to psycho-analyst Bennett for five years. But's she restless and yearns for the perfect, guiltless, zipless sexual encounter.

The sixties was spent doing, the seventies was spent writing and I'm sure that this was racy at the time and many women will have started to look at life differently. Felt a bit of a voyeur reading flisters star values on this yet I have absolutely no interest in venturing past this first episode. Bon voyage Isadora, have yourself a great trip.

Isadora WingtJulianna Jennings
Bennett WingtKevin Shen
Adrian GoodlovetMax Bennett
Isadora's MothertAdie Allen
MartytNick Underwood
JudytNicola Ferguson
Dr ReubentSargon Yelda
Dr HappetBrian Protheroe

{Cue ominous narration guy}

In a world, a woman wrote a book about the literal fear of flying and a bunch more problems that was hailed as a classic of Second Wave Feminism. 45 years later, two women will read it. At least, they will try to read it.

Summary: Erica Jong "Isadora" is afraid to fly. Isadora is obsessed with analysts. Isadora is obsessed with analysis. Isadora is not obsessed with her analyst husband. Isadora is obsessed with the “zipless fuck” (a one-night stand, basically.) Isadora is obsessed with her new analyst boyfriend who is not a one-night stand. Isadora has terrible sex with her new analyst boyfriend (when he’s not impotent. Also, wash your feet, dude.) Isadora obsesses about terrible sex she’s had with boyfriends and husbands past. Vanessa considers Googling the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Then, twist! Vanessa thinks about quitting book instead. Vanessa suddenly remembers what happiness feels like. The End.

{Hold for applause.}

Great googly moogly. I tried to read this, Julie tried to read this, but it’s impossible. If this spoke to women in the 70’s or today (like Lena Dunham apparently. Jesus, why am I NOT surprised?), then I’m glad they were given a voice. I, on the other hand, will search for my feminist inspirado pretty much anywhere else.

From BBC Radio 4 - Riot Girls
The radio premiere of Erica Jong's bold and bawdy novel about a young woman's quest for sexual liberation was a controversial best-seller in 1973.

Isadora Wing has been married to psycho-analyst Bennett for five years. But's she restless and yearns for the perfect, guiltless, zipless sexual encounter.

2/5: Isadora Wing has overcome her fear of flying to travel to Vienna with husband Bennett to attend a psychoanalysts' conference. Here she meets a charming Englishman called Adrian Goodlove. Could this be the guiltless, zipless sexual encounter she has fantasized about?

3/5: Poet Isadora Wing is in Vienna, where she keeps travelling between the beds of her husband Bennett and her new lover, the charming Englishman, Adrian Goodlove. But can Adrian offer the perfect, guiltless, zipless sexual encounter she's always fantasized about?

4/5: It's decision time. Will Isadora go back to New York with her husband, Bennett, or will she take off around Europe with her new lover, charming Englishman, Adrian Goodlove?

5/5: Isadora Wing has left her husband, Bennett, and run off with her new lover, Adrian Goodlove, to tour the campsites of Europe. But will this new relationship provide the sexual liberation and fulfilment she's always fantasised about?

Dramatised by Annie Caulfield

Directed by Emma Harding.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0713zf7

This was such a gritty feminist novel that, really, could only have ever been produced in the 70's. Vulgar, outrageous, with moments of sheer hilarity, this reads like a trip back in time. Among other things, it deals with the dual nature of womanhood and the conflicting desires that come with it (a phenomenon spurred, in part, by society and its conflicting expectations of and limitations on women). It also touches on the subjectivity of truth, and how embellishment is a type of dishonesty, both to ourselves and to the audience.

Let me paraphrase another member of Goodreads - if you thought a lot has changed when it comes to female sexuality since 1971, the year this book was issued, and today, you'd be fairly wrong. That being said, I find it sad that that's the main focus of most readers' attention are "the zipples fucks". Last but not least, it's the second time I read this book, which is quite rare, I'd say I'll read it one more time before I die.

من الضروري، قبل قراءة هذه الرواية التي نُشرت عام ١٩٧٣، أن نفهم س��اقها الزمني، أي طبيعة المرحلة التي كُتبت فيها. كما أنه من الضروري أن نفهم تاريخ الحركة النسوية في الغرب، التي تصنف إلى ثلاث موجات، وخصائص كل موجة.

هنا مقال ممتاز يقدم موجزًا عن كل موجة
http://www.alittihad.ae/mobile/detail...

على الرغم من أن إريكا يونغ غير معروفة على نطاق واسع عربيًا (المرة الأولى والوحيدة التي اصطدمت باسمها كانت أثناء قراءتي لكتاب سوبر مان عربي لجمانة حداد)، إلا أنها مشهورة جدًا خارج منطقتنا، خصوصًا في أمريكا وأوروبا. ‏وتعد روايتها الأولى "الخوف من الطيران" من أهم سرديات الموجة النسوية الثانية، وهي الرواية التي قال عنها "هنري ميللر" أنها النسخة النسائية من "مدار السرطان"؛ فقد اكتسبت سمعة سيئة بسبب جرأة مؤلفتها التي فاقت جرأة تشارلز بوكوفسكي. صحيح أن الرواية، ومجمل أعمال "يونغ" كما قرأت، تتسم بالإباحية والخوض في الأمور الجنسية بشكل قد يبدو مبالغًا فيه، إلا أنها ليس في الحقيقة سوى انعكاس للقضايا والموضوعات التي شكّلت الموجة النسوية الثانية مثل الزواج، الحرية الجنسية، الإجهاض .. إلخ إلخ

إذًا، تكمن أهمية هذه الرواية أن مؤلفتها فتحت رأس المرأة، رأسها في هذه الحالة، وأخرجت دماغها ووضعته على "بروجكتور"، ومن ثم عرضت على حائط أبيض وكبير كل ما يدور في داخله. قد يجد البعض من الذكور أن هذه الأمور خادشة للحياء، وأنها تناقض الصورة النمطية للأنثى، وهي صورة رسمتها العقلية الذكورية، وتبنتها النساء مرغمات عنهن. هي نفس العقلية التي تسمح لشاعر كنزار قباني بتوظيف أعضاء النساء الخاصة في قصائده، وتصفه بالشاعر المبدع، ولكنها تنظر في نفس الوقت بازدراء واحتقار للأديبة التي توظف أعضاء الذكور في رواياتها، وتصفها بالفاجرة

وفي هذا السياق تقول الكاتبة في أحد فصول الرواية "قبل أن تبدأ النساء بتأليف الكتب لم يكن هناك إلا جانب واحد للقصة. وعلى امتداد التاريخ كله، كانت الكتب تُكتب بالسائل المنوي، وليس بدم الحيض"

في المقابل، هنالك الكثير من التعميمات المتغطرسة والنرجسية في الكتاب، وخصوصًا في الفصل الذي عنونته الكاتبة ب"العرب وحيوانات أخرى"، وقد اعتذرت الكاتبة عن هذا العنوان لاحقًا واعترفت بأنها لم توفق فيه، ولكنها (من باب الإنصاف) كانت تتعامل مع كافة الأعراق بنفس الطريقة، أي أن موقفها من العرب نابع من الجهل لا العنصرية، فهي على الرغم من يهوديتها إلا أنها تسخر من اليهود على امتداد الكتاب، فتقول في أحد الفصول مثلاً على لسان إحدى شخصيات الرواية: "هذا ما أكره في اليهود. إنهم الوحيدون المسموح لهم بإلقاء نكات عن معاداة السامية. وهذا شيء غير منصف على الإطلاق. لماذا أحرم من متعة الفكاهة اليهودية الماسوشية لمجرّد أنني لست يهوديًا"

بعيدًا عن موضوع الكتاب، أعتقد بأن لغة الكاتبة وأسلوبها وثقافتها (هناك إشارات كثيرة لأعمال وأماكن وحوادث تاريخية وسياسية قد لا يفهمها القارئ غير المطلع، ولكن ذلك في رأيي لن يؤثر على متعة قراءتها إلا بمقدار بسيط) تستحق الإعجاب والثناء، وهو الإعجاب الذي جعلني أتجاوز الملل في بعض الفصول، والثناء الذي دفعني لمنحها ٤ نجمات

The literary equivalent to the free pump coffee at Wells-Fargo that proclaims Seattle's Best or Starbucks. You drink it because it's free, but it has been aging out all day. It leaves you feeling bitter and momentarily upset that you added some more wasted paper and plastic to the planet.

I'd forgotten how funny this book is.

Ah, the ZF. I remember it well.

Goodlove. Ah, yes. A good laugh, and a giggle.

The narrator has a good time with it all. Listen, and see if you agree.

The Book Club movie brought me to this book!

As someone who's had issues with air travel in the past I guess I came at this book with the wrong self-help assumptions in mind. But although flying is only tangentially treated as a subject, it is a self-help manual of sorts, dealing with sexuality, psychology, relationships and more in a confessional diary style.
Although it has a reputation as a feminist text, I was amazed at how remarkably unfeminist its main protagonist, Isadora Wing, remains for most of the novel. Her habit of constructing her identity in terms of the men in her life seems pretty old-fashioned, as old fashioned as the all-encompassing presence of psychoanalysis in the book. I mean, can anybody take that stuff seriously any more?
I found that the book's diaristic style was often sloppy, and it has the air of a travelogue liberally peppered with obscenities and casual racism (be careful if you're German, Austrian, English, Italian or any type of Arab, though Egyptians and Lebanese receive special attention). The obscenity is fun; the racism less so, as there seems to be very little distance between Jong and her protagonist.
While the novel itself is clearly an artefact of a bygone age, its conclusions are pretty modern as Isadora concludes that she's woman enough to deal with the world on her own terms without recourse to the dude at her side.