I'm glad to see that a number of other readers have had the same problem I had with this book. There are so many irritating points in the writing and construction of this story of the iconic ancient Greek poet Sappho that I kept stopping. But then I'd read a bit more just to see how Ms Jong could connect stories of greek gods and myths into one tale. It some ways it's an impressive feat but it doesn't feel as if it has anything much to do with Sappho.

A female odyssey- full of love and def lots more sex than the one we are familiar with.

This book is a mess. It begins as your standard historical fiction bio but ultimately descends into a giant fantasy epic in the tradition of Homer. Amazons, Gorgons, and centaurs all make an appearance, along with...Aesop? Yeah, I'll never see Aesop's fables in the same way, thanks. I don't think the author really knew what she wanted to say.. or cared. The ending felt really tacked on and didn't fit the tone of the rest of the book. It's also annoyingly heteronormative for the story of a woman famous for loving other women.

Odnotowuję jako przeczytaną, znowu bez gwiazdek. Będę musiała nieźle się nagłowić, co napisać na Instagramie, bo zrobiłam bardzo ładne zdjęcie i nie chcę, żeby przepadło

I am so old that when I was in college, UNC-CH had a Classics Department (They still do.) and people even chose Classics as a major! As a sophomore I took “Latin Literature in Translation” and “Greek Literature in Translation.” Both classes were taught by Dr. Kenneth J. Reckford, a renowned scholar and one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had. Among others we read Homer, Pindar, Herodotus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Ovid, Cicero, Virgil, and Catullus. For a naïve boy from a small Sandhills town, this was quite an awakening. One of the biggest revelations was seeing that people are just as wise/stupid, honorable/despicable, greedy/generous (pick whatever other pairs you wish) today as they were two or three thousand years ago. Sappho’s Leap by Erica Jong is a novelization of the life of the poetess Sappho who lived on the island of Lesbos in the Sixth Century B.C.E. Sappho is a primal source for the metaphors of all love poetry. This is not a biography because very few facts are known about Sappho. We know that she was a real person and she wrote poetry but beyond that what is left is mostly myth. This works beautifully for Jong. In Sappho’s Leap she adopts an episodic narrative style that is truly classic. The plot is broad and epic in scope. The characters, including Aesop, Aphrodite and Zeus and Phaon are imbued with classic, mythic traits. Each chapter begins with Jong’s translations of fragments from Sappho as well as the Oracle of Delphi, Aesop, Homer, Heraclitus, The Amazoniad among others. The last section of the novel is a collection of poems by Jong in the classic Sapphic style. As I read this book I was taken back forty-eight years in time to when I was transfixed while reading Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey. One can often derive pleasure from reading. Then, occasionally, one can be deeply affected by the power of literature.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Erica Jong's novel. I knew that Sappho was a poet from Greece, and had never thought that perhaps she would sing her poems as the way Jong has portrayed her. I seems conceivable that the way her poems would have been more widely known would be through song lyrics repeated by people singing them.
I liked the references to characters from ancient history, whether or not they were contemporaries of Sappho, or had actually crossed paths. The "Forrest Gump" aspect of the story was fun - juxtaposing Sappho with Amazons, the Egyptian pharaoh, centaurs, a shape shifting sister of Medusa, Isis, a visit to Hades, and more.
Throughout each leg of Sappho's adventure (whether to escape a bad situation, or her overriding wish to try to reunite with the love of her life Alcaeus) she is either offered luxuries or has to use her wits to escape bad situations. This is all from the point of view of a woman's choices in life, and how her decisions are based on love for a man and her daughter.
There isn't any reference, as you find in many mythological fictions, of the need to overthrow the king, or need of murdering heirs to the throne!
This story is steered by love and love of the goddess Aphrodite, as Sappho says throughout the book. Sappho's journey from a teenager, basically, to a woman, is depicted through her yearnings for immortality through her songs, her lessons learned with sexual encounters, both voluntary and involuntary, with men and women, and her wish to see her daughter again.
It could be looked at as an easy to read mythological telling of Sappho's life, albeit a romp, a fairy tale, and feminist read.

Erica Jong is unexpectedly becoming my favorite author - this book is a delight! Lively, wise, steeped in mythology but feels contemporary, and only the slightest bit racy. Perfect for you if you liked The Song of Achilles, and I also constantly thought of Ted Hughes's translation of Ovid.

3.5 stars! A very throughly researched novel with some great writing. It felt like it dragged on a bit and I had to really force myself to finish it. I feel like it could have been at least 50 pages shorter. Overall, it is a cool story and I learned so much about Sappho! A fun way to learn about this part of history (around 600 BC) because she travels to so many places.

il libro in generale devo dire che mi ha preso molto pur non essendo molto informata sulla storia di Saffo, ma di quel poco che so di lei capisco che la storia narrata non sia del tutto veritiera di conseguenza do 4 stelle, ma se mi sarei dovuta basare semplicemente sulla storia in se per se avrei probabilmente dato anche 5 stelle.

Upon discussion with friends and through perusing way more reader reviews on this website than I have time for, it has been decided that Erica Jong is a genius-- but only her early years.

Erica Jong's ability to wield words like a sword is incredible. Her poetry is magnificent (my next tattoo will most likely be one of her verses, if that says anything) and I adore her. But I realized that most of my experience with her (prior to Sappho's Leap) was all her early work. Something happened to her writing over the past two decades that I can't exactly pinpoint, but it's just off.

This novel is a joke. The phrases used, the way the words are assembled, the characters that you never actually care for-- all of it. I was mightily disappointed to say the least. For being rooted in ancient mythology and history, the verbiage and language just doesn't match. The descriptions are redundant and the same adjective is used in the same paragraph (a personal pet peeve) multiple times. The idea is good, the story is moderately creative and it involves underworlds and goddesses so it isn't all terrible; but for Jong, it's real bad. This novel was so under par for her that I may reconsider her status as one of my favorite modern poets. *Gasp!* Maybe...I don't know. I can be forgiving sometimes. :)

Sappho's enduring reputation is her love of women; even imparting her name to the Sapphic love of lesbian erotica. She is remembered for her songs of wisdom and passion, so a novel in autobiographical format bears a solemn burden. Jong has honored the myth of Sappho but has cast her into the human form with foibles and humor. Sappho is the subject of a bet between Aphrodite, who has granted her the magic of her gift of song, and Zeus, who has bet she will throw the gift away for love.

The conundrum of human love versus the land of the mind is not a new one for Erica Jong. The first chapter is cast in a classical tongue that is somewhat annoying, and Jong's poetry does not do the myth justice. However the text of the book fleshes in a dimensional woman who happens to live in a time when the gods were known and tangled within daily life. May of us will recognize them well as fate or chance, but Jong uses them to her advantage in this book.

Adding to the allure of a fascinating narrator, is the ancient world which she traverses in search of her destiny and in pursuit of redeemiing the mistakes made in previous journies. The prose is lovely in this cause, and the proposal that we are able to view the lands of myth seems reasonable. I enjoyed the book far more than I expected to like it, and I recommend it as a welcome detour from many of the settings that have come to dominate this fall's list of published books. I did receive a copy from Netgalley for which I am grateful, but I would have bought it and counted the money well spent.

Another hilariously funny and by turns sad, outing by Erica Jong. It's a rousingly good read, especially for us lesbians, or anyone who's even remotely curious as to what Sappho might have been like when she was alive. Very funny.