I admire the genesis of this (take the legend of Sappho and make her into an Odysseus type adventurer), but the tour through the ancient world just felt rote, and while I suppose I appreciate the embrace of a non-puritanical sexual worldview, I didn't find anything in these to have any life. It was too much like reading someone's thought exercise.

Stiff and boring and a waste of trees.

I really enjoyed this exploration of Sappho's life. I thought Jong brought Sappho and her friends and family to life in a believable and realistic way, and the novel felt to me similar to the epic nature of Greek myth and verse. It wasn't the best novel I've ever read, but it was a lovely escape and I enjoyed learning more about Sappho.

I loved this book! A feminist version of the Odyssey, both classical and contemporary, this book hooked me with it’s poetic and sensual language. Sappho is a nuanced, bold, and complexed character that would flourish today. Definitely something I could see adapted, the world was beautifully explored and sung throughout the story.

Wow. I don't quite know what to say about this book. I am very conflicted because although I found the book pretty terrible in execution, the content and imagery was mesmerizing and I found myself finishing the book while shaking my head in disbelief the entire time. The dialogue was odd and unnatural. There were times where I chuckled to myself imagining the characters actually speaking those words aloud to each other. There was also a lot of repitition and reiteration throughout the book. Could she not think of a single other term for a woman's genitalia other than "delta"? She would literally say the same thing four different ways on a single page. Another thing that had my head spinning was how parts of the story that seemed to hold a lot of weight were grazed over in such a way that I constantly felt like I had missed something, even though I had been reading page-by-page. There would be a full-page description of what the island looked like with a mere sentence explaining the disasterous voyage it took to get there.

Having said all of that, however, I have restate that I finished the book even though I didn't know why. The characters were strong and the adventures were marvelous- even though they were confusing and didn't flow very well. I finished the book and felt like I needed to process the experience and detach myself from Sappho's journey and experiences. And what a character Sappho is! Vulnerable, passionate, emotional, obstinate.. she was beautifully imperfect and strong and as much as she irritated me, I found her fascinating and beautiful.

This is the first novel I have read by Erica Jong and I've got to say, I really expected more from her. Maybe I should have started with Fear of Flying?

Saffo nacque nell’isola di Lesbo intorno al 600 a.C.. Della sua biografia si sa ben poco,anche la data della sua nascita è incerta. Ci sono invece molte tradizioni e leggende della sua vita,compresa quella assai famosa,secondo la quale verso la mezza età si sarebbe gettata da una rupe a causa dell’amore non corrisposto per un bel barcaiolo di nome Faone. Afrodite, è forse vero Che l’innamorato infelice Annega a Leucade? Mi devo arrampicare in cima A quella rupe bianca E gettarmi nel mare torbido Perché ho perduto il mio vero Amore! Se non mi puoi dare l’amore, Allora dammi la morte. Ti ho servito ormai abbastanza.
Afrodite, la dea dell’amore, aveva accordato a Faone il dono della bellezza,della sensualità e del fascino irresistibile,e Saffo se ne innamorò. Che vita è,che piacere è,senza la adorata Afrodite? Mimnermo
Afrodite è la dea invocata più spesso e con più passione nei canti di Saffo… La sua vita è una storia d’amore,eroismo e avventura. E questo libro la descrive con un trasporto incredibile, ci porta dall’antico Lesbo all’antica Siracusa, e poi in giro per tutto il mondo mediterraneo. Saffo era contemporanea del faraone Nekao d’Egitto, del favolista Esopo (amico di viaggio e maestro consigliere in quest’avventura),di Nabucodonosor di biblica fama, dl filosofo Eraclito, del leggendario Aliatte di Lidia, la cui corte a Sardi era la più lussuosa della terra… C’è chi dice che una flotta di navi Sia la cosa più bella Da vedere, sulla terra bruna. Io invece dico:è ciò che ami. Saffo
Finché avrò fiato nei polmoni, Amerò. E anche dopo. Saffo
Vale la pena avventurarsi in questo viaggio tra miti e fantasia… Una storia è bella, finché non se ne racconta un’altra Esopo

I have.... so many conflicting emotions about this book. I think, in the end, they are mainly positive, but I'm not entirely sure. This book, in my mind, is a mix between Madeline Miller's fiction set in the classical world and Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. It invokes images of the Greco-Roman world like Miller does, but focuses on the lives of ancient women and their complexity like The Red Tent does.

I think this book invoked the ancient world wonderfully, its prose really made me feel as though I was back in Greece. Some of the dialogue was stiff and strange, and often times the book went through events really quickly, but I think in the end it was really captivating and interesting. I'm not entirely sure if I liked Erica Jong's interpretation of Sappho -- it's interesting that she ultimately decided to portray her as bisexual and whose main loves were men. I think it's not necessarily a bad choice. We have little to absolutely no biographical information about Sappho, so claiming that she loved both men and women is a valid observation and one that is pretty historically grounded. As Jong says in her afterword, there are no conceptions of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" in the ancient world, and pretty much everyone was loosely bisexual. I think this was an interesting and pretty valid move on her part, but it does sort not honor the lesbian legacy of Sappho. She's come down in history as a figure of women who love women, and her poetry mainly invokes lesbian love. I suppose I can see why Jong didn't choose to make her entirely devoted to women, but... I don't think Jong did a lot of justice to the wlw feel of Sappho's poetry in her depiction of her in the book.

Sappho herself was a bit strange and imperfect. I suppose that was a good thing, but I'm not entirely sure if I liked her or not. I also felt the mixing of the mythological and historical worlds got blurred a lot in this novel and I'm not sure where the lines were.

A lot, almost too much, happened in this book and I'm not entirely sure if I liked that. I suppose I did, but I think this book, if reworked, could be really incredible. As it is, I don't think it truly stands up to the works of Miller and Diamant I compared it to. But, it captivated me, kept me reading, and made me feel as though I was transported back in time. So that counts for something.

Straight-washing trash.

Storia decisamente fantasiosa, un po' troppo lasciva per i miei gusti

Poor Sappho ... a victim of her own passion, cursed by her own talent. Any artist would relate.
Such a sensitive soul in a thick-skinned exterior, but when alone with her thoughts, so very vunerable to self-sabotage. I liked her a lot. I cared for her. I rooted for her to be able to finally find what she sung so sweetly about ... love.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I'm not typically a fan of retellings of ancient Greek myths or characterizations of lesser-known mythological personas, mainly because I live in Greece and it's in my face every day. But I have to say, that while I was reading this book, I could not stop thinking about Sappho, and looked forward to being able to continue reading. Don't be fooled by the lengthy reading time, I'm a mother of a two-year-boy, so reading time is hard to come by.

Het boek begon goed, ik kon goed in het verhaal komen, maar na een tijd werd het me wat te mythologisch, vanaf bladzijde 220 ongeveer. Het stuk van de 'odyssee' van Sappho las ik niet zo graag, ik werd het eigenlijk echt beu. Maar omdat het korte hoofdstukken zijn, was het toch ook niet zo moeilijk om door te lezen. En daarna werd het weer beter, vanaf het gedeelte dat Sappho terug thuis was. Al met al vond ik het geen slecht verhaal, en ik ben blij dat ik doorgezet heb.
Drie sterren.

I am fond of mythology, goddesses, erotica, and Erica Jong so this book was fairly guaranteed to be enjoyable for me. While I felt it was stilted in places, overall it had a mesmerizing quality that makes for the best escapism . Her imagery is vivid and her descriptions of the world Sappho lived in were incredibly beautiful. The themes of love and Eros and relationship and feminism in this time relate to even our world today and I was impressed by how she made this ancient story relevant. The erotic passages were seductive and lyrical and what I expected from her. She did not disappoint.