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

Erica Jong has a strong, brave writing style that's embellished with just enough prose to remind you she was a poet before becoming a renowned novelist. I especially recommend this to women or anyone who's ever been in a relationship.

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?"

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.

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.

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.

I’ve read the Turkish translation of the book which does not include the Borgess’ afterword. It would be awesome to find it somewhere - or if someone posted it to me- also the conversation with Holly on Jeannie, cause I think the translation has missing parts.

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 really f*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.

Erica Jong é uma escritora erótica típica da década de setenta: sexo e psicanálise permeia suas obras.

Em Salve Sua Vida, Isadora Wong, aka Erica Jong, expõe o fim do casamento, a experiência lésbica, o segundo casamento e a exploração da Hollywood orgiástica que hoje é tão criticada.

A história em si é cíclica, não se vê um amadurecimento da personagem porque ela é um reflexo da análise psicológica que a autora romanceia nesse e em dois outros livros: Medo de Voar e Paraquedas & Beijos.

Não vai agradar a todos.

I picked the book from an old family library and have not read what is it about… so it was a big surprise for me! Given only the books name ‘How to save your own life’, i expected this to be motivational book. Was i wrong? Yes and no. I did not expect it to have so many erotic scenes and them to be so vivid. Not mad about it, just surprised. Overall the book is east and fast to read, but can be motivational for those struggling with the same problem as Isadora (is it unhappiness, difficulties dealing with fame, problems with husband…)

I think you get exactly what you sign up for with How to Save Your Own Life. Explicit, frustrating, and deeply personal, reading this book feels like reading a journal of a past self. You can see mistakes as they happen, but read along for the ride. While it is a bit outdated, I feel like Erica very honestly retells the experience of herself in the 70s.

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