Erica Jong’s sequel to the bestseller ‘Fear of Flying’ tells the next part of her life story via the character Isadora Wing. Isadora is married to Asian-American psychiatrist Bennett Wing; Erica was married to Asian-American psychiatrist Allan Jong. Isadora is Jewish, grew up in New York, and spent three years in Heidelberg with Bennett; Erica, well, you get the idea. The story picks up from when Bennett/Allan had forgiven her for her adultery and taken her back. Not surprisingly, their marriage still has issues, and when Bennett/Allan reveals his own indiscretions from the past, Isadora/Erica takes it very hard, even though she’s kept on having her own flings on the side. Dealing with this, as well as her new-found fame for her first novel, creates a crisis in her life. After making the rounds to her friends who dispense advice and in a couple of cases sex (and offers for a future together), she flies out to Hollywood to see about a possible film deal. There she meets Josh Ace/Jonathan Fast.

I find Jong compelling and I enjoyed this book to the end, but she does get a little repetitive and comes across as whining at times. I don’t think it’s a problem that the book is highly autobiographical (and with a rather complete cast; Britt Goldstein = sleazy Hollywood producer Julia Phillips, Jeannie Morton = suicidal poet Anne Sexton; Kurt Hammer = Henry Miller, etc.), and in fact that’s a somewhat interesting aspect of it, but it slips too often into reading like a journal without enough indirection or polish.

Jong has a reputation for explicitly sexuality and lives up to it here, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, this book is not for you. Trying to draw the line between expressing sexuality in an honest way and not going too far is tricky, particularly as every reader’s taste is going to vary. In this case, I felt she did well for most of the novel, but got a little too graphic towards the end, starting with an orgy scene. It’s not that the descriptions of the sex offended me, but they just seemed unnecessary and in there to titillate and sell books.

On the other hand, Jong is honest in her writing, and truly pushed boundaries for women. She’s well-read, cultured, and intelligent. She leaves herself bare on the page, both in terms of liking sex, which took a lot of guts to write about, but also in her soul searching about love and marriage. She captures the spirit of the 70’s, replete with psychotherapy, astrology, and the “new” expression to describe the culture in California: “laid-back”, which I smiled over.

However, after her breakthrough first novel which I loved, this one comes across as derivative, and a bit like ‘pop literature’ when she could do better – and did do better in her next novel, which was her version of Fanny Hill.

Here are a couple representative passages to give you an idea of her writing; the first, on her problem with her husband:
“How had we drifted so far apart? Or were we apart from the very beginning? Does eight years of marriage erode all points of contact between two people – or weren’t they ever there? I no longer knew. I only knew that I never looked forward to going on a vacation with him – or being alone with him at night – and that I filled my life with frenetic activity, hundreds of friends, casual affairs (which, of course, I felt guilty about) because being alone in his company was so curiously sterile. Even when we were home together, I was forever retreating to my study to work. Surely some of this was my fierce ambition (or, as my astrologer-nut friends would say, typical Aries woman married to a typical Cancer man); but surely some of it was a desire not to be with Bennett. His presence depressed me. There was something life-denying about his very manner, carriage, and monotonous way of speaking. How could one create life with someone who represented death?”

And this one, a small snippet but an example of her writing at its playful best:
“’Possibly you want to take me to bed?’ (My heart started pounding with astonishment at my own chutzpah
‘Bed?’ he said, as if he’d never heard the word before, as if the object itself were unfamiliar to him, an archaeological find, a household item from early Greece no longer in use today and unknown except to specialists.”

Lastly, a note on the connection discovered to the book I read previously, which was Vasily Shukshin’s ‘Stories from a Siberian Village’; from Jong: “It was harsh – but not as harsh as the fates of some of the other kids growing up during the Second World War.” After having just read this, among other things, from Shushkin, who was one such child: “But then the war broke out and our other father was no more, he was killed in the Kursk encirclement. Once again, hard times came upon us…”

This was my first Jong novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it--even if parts of it had me blushing and/or a little scandalised. The 70s were an era for writing about women's (sexual) liberation, and Jong is a true libertine. I found myself enthralled by the protagonist/narrator/Jong's double, Isadora--the neurotic Jewess writer. Intelligent, sophisticated prose, psychologically insightful, well-paced. The complexities of married life, adultery, love, chemistry explored dexterously and with incredible humour and pathos. The most metafictional book I've yet read--the protagonist is a writer writing a follow up book to a best seller (Jong's Fear of Flying) and commenting on the disillusionment of writerly success.

Loved the title--obviously. Great 70's feminist awakening type stuff.. and I tend to enjoy and agree with Jong's blogging on Huffington Post... but after about 160 pages, frankly, I was done. She's already had two ongoing affairs with guys named Jeffrey, experimented with a lesbian affair (didn't really like being on top, but was DETERMINED to make her lover come--how goal oriented and male), turned down the opportunity for a three-way in a hot tub in LA, and is now happily in love and "winging it" with a "younger man." If this chick is going to save her own life, I guess all that that's left is to figure out that sex is not love and the younger guy isn't the answer. I don't care if she stays with her husband or not... but my guess is she doesn't.

In Erica Jong's follow-up to her iconic "Fear of Flying," we once again meet Isadora Wing, her "fictional doppelganger," who is representative of the times in which she lives. It is the 1970s, that time of quest: searching for lust set against a backdrop of hedonistic innocence. In some ways, Isadora is a metaphor of the times: she is on a sexual journey, but also trying to find her freedom from a stultifying marriage to Bennett, a cold, detached, dominating psychiatrist. Second-wave feminism is an influential factor, as she acknowledges that the controlling aspects of her husband are "holding her down;" but like any escape from tyranny, making the decision to break out of the chains is only the first step.

She starts "leaving" at the beginning of the book, and then she leaps into affairs as a way of propelling her forward. It takes the length of the book—and many months—for the leave-taking to happen, but it's a journey, a process, and there is guilt, pain, fear, and all kinds of negative emotions that accompany her along the way.

The final impetus is a younger man whom she meets in Hollywood, while on a trip to turn her bestselling novel into a movie. He is like her "second half," and they can almost read each other's thoughts. He seems to be her perfect mate. On her way home, with her plan to really leave motivating her, she thinks about the different lifestyles between New York (her home) and LA (her lover's home). I like this passage:

"The flight from Los Angeles to New York takes only five hours, but the real distance should be measured in light years. Los Angeles is more different from New York than New York is from London or Stockholm or Paris. Someday scientists will discover the invisible gas that fills the air in Southern California, making the most uptight, cynical Easterners relax, take off their clothes, lie in the sun, divorce their spouses, build swimming pools, take up Zen meditation, visit spiritualists, and in general behave as if they've found God through sex, nudity, and sun-worship.

"To return to New York from Los Angeles is always to experience a profound psychic shock...."

So what will Isadora discover about herself in this journey? Will she learn that living with her love match can be the idealistic escape she had imagined? Will she remake marriage to include experimentation and openness? Or will she find that the same old problems come back in new versions, taking shape in different ways, but still just a repetition of old patterns?

I loved "How to Save Your Own Life," as it reminded me of some of my own journeys during those idyllic times. Looking back, I don't regret my journey, any more than Isadora (or her creator) does. We learned a lot about ourselves and the nature of love, and even when we were disappointed, as we often are in life, we are happy to have taken the leap of faith into new experiences that ultimately defined us.

Five stars.

Secondo libro di seguito che leggo dell'autrice americana, secondo libro della sua trilogia con protagonista Isadora Wing, l'alter ego di Erica Jong che rivive le esperienze della sua creatrice romanzandole.
Il libro riparte dal momento in cui è finito il celeberrimo Paura di volare: Isadora è tornata dal marito Bennett, ma l'uomo non solo le mostra indifferenza, ma in più le conferma un suo tradimento. E Isadora si getta a capofitto in nuove avventure per non pensare e per salvarsi la vita, per ritrovare se stessa e l'amore...
Tantissimo sesso anche qui, raccontato tranquillamente, in modo molto libero e sincero. A differenza invece del precedente, c'è una maggior numero di presenze femminili nella vita della protagonista, amiche, nemiche, confidenti e anche amanti.
Sarà che rispetto al precedente non avevo più l'effetto sorpresa dello stile dell'autrice, una scoperta magnifica per me che non avevo più letto un suo romanzo da tantissimo, ed è per questo che ho dato cinque stelle invece delle sei che dò quando un libro mi ha davvero sconvolto l'anima. Ma sarò sempre grata a Erica Jong per la sincerità, la naturalezza, l'intelligenza con cui racconta pensieri che sono universali. Letto anche questo in quasi una settimana, quasi un momento di unione e comunanza spirituale tra donne. Amato moltissimo.
E adesso... il terzo capitolo, Paracadute & Baci, mi aspetta.

This book pretty much picks up where Fear of Flying ended. A continuation of Isadora's story. I enjoyed it but definitely suggest you read FoF first if you haven't already. My edition of the book had a nice little afterword from Jong about her reactions to re-reading this story, some 30 years after writing it. It may be my favorite part of the book, actually.

some excerpts:

"The fact is - you can't really write about somebody you don't love. Even if the portrait is vitriolic, even if the pen is sharpened with old grudges, there has to have been love somewhere along the line, or the sheer, brute energy of pushing that pen across the page will not be there. And writing takes energy - more energy than you ever think you have. And energy comes from love."

"What a revolution it would be if all the people who led fragmented, lying, sneaking lives - justifying themselves with talk of realism, compromise, homage to the superego, civilization and its discontents - finally decided to throw off their self-imposed shackles and live according to their honest feelings! They would not immediately start fornicating in the streets and killing each other promiscuously. Not at all. But they would have to face the responsibility for their own happiness or unhappiness."

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. ...It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

also. she REALLY loves the word "cunt." haha

Was this the whole of the 70s? I know, I know, not everyone had the financial wherewithal to flounce about the city avoiding their cold husbands and drinking champagne. Still a strangely disturbing portrait of an era when "women's lib" was still a newish concept and a 32 year old woman with a career entirely her own could imagine herself trapped in a bitter-yet-tumultuous marriage.

I get the impression that the whole thing was a big, well executed dig at her second husband, by portraying him as cold, calculating, hypocritical and basically miserable.

"Dear Allen, the whole time we were married, I was sleeping with everyone we knew. Love, Erica. PS. I finally thought of a way to get a rise out of you, which is all I ever really wanted."

A look at Wikipedia suggests that the epilogue isn't much more than a bonus dig at her third husband. ("You were controlling, too, okay?")

I thought it was supposed to be some kind of feminist manifesto but if the only way out of an unhappy marriage is to dive straight into the arms of another man, I'm not buying it. I think that what was groundbreaking was simply that sleeping around didn't ruin her life. Fair enough. It hardly enriched it, though.

For all of that, I couldn't bring myself to hate it. It is a window onto another world and another set of options and opportunities. Caftans and dashikis and a gynecologist with a "clap and birth control pills practice on the Upper West Side." Loft living as a novelty and ... just all kinds of amazing anachronisms.

PS. This is what I get for deciding what to read next by picking novels out of free piles on the basis of name recognition alone.

I've been wanting to read Erica Jong for a long time. I've read a few of her short stories, mostly in anthologies of erotic literature. I found this book on sale for $2.99 at McNally and couldn't pass it up.

Her writing feels so honest. It felt more like reading a friend's diary than a novel. I know that she fictionalized a lot even though much of it was based on her own life. It's a 32 year old woman's story of how she eventually came to leave her husband of 9 years.

Her honesty and willingness to put so much of herself out there, including her sexuality, reminded me a lot of Alexis's writing.

There are things about this book I loved and things I didn't. Fear of Flying was a huge influence on me when I first came across it at 16. I had a conservative upbringing, so the bold, open sexuality and wit of the main character blew my mind. This book had that too, but to be in Isadora Wing's head at this point in my life was a different experience. She's something of an unreliable narrator with her inflated sense of self and her liberated, but not liberated ways. In the end she really just wants a man to dominate and conquer her. :/

Successful writer Isadora is leaving her Chinese psychotherapist husband Bennett Wing, in this follow-up to Fear of Flying. It's all very meta, with Isadora comparing herself to her main character Candida Wong but at the same time representing the actual author Erica Jong.

This book is written in a conversational yet controversial voice, quite frankly sex-focused and satirical. Feminist in the sense that Isadora pursues her own desires (romantic, sexual, and intellectual), Jong's writing was integral to the development of feminism's second wave.

I think this book may have gotten a higher rating if I'd read it at another point. It would never be a 5 because I felt there was too much description of sexual activities that didn't feel like they helped develop the story. For my current mood, it was too philosophical, but for others that may be enjoyable.

What a sad and demoralizing sequel. Fear of Flying took the stance that women can desire, experience, enjoy, and pursue sex in the same manner as men. It was a groundbreaking stance that spoke to a generation of women who were taught to believe that only women of loose morals could enjoy sex, not a lady. Isadora Wing's guilty yet liberating sex fueled romp across Europe was endearing, relatable, and the voice of an entire generation of women.

So what happened with How to Save Your Own Life? Isadora has become insufferable---a spoiled, self-centered, neurotic, hyprocrite angry at her husband after discovering he had a longterm affair. The "novel" is one long winded rumination after another about how horrible her relationship is with her husband who is indifferent to her whining, selfishness, and neediness. There a lot of potty language and raunchy sex thrown in for shock value and then culiminates with several pages of cringe inducing poetry

Isadora spends her days either whining to her extremely patient friends or screwing one lover, then skipping across town to screw another lover, then slinking back home to angrily screw her husband. Not to mention she also dabbles in some sapphic delights with her lesbian friend (who finally has an orgasm by cramming a champagne bottle up her hoohoo) and participates in a drug and booze fueled orgy. Yet hypocritically she remains angry at her "boring" husband for having an affair. Then Isadora finally finds the guts to leave her husband not through some incredible sense of inner strength but through the arms of another younger man.

So much for feminism. So much for being strong, independent, self-sufficent women who don't need a man to complete them. Isadora is only happy if she has a man, preferably with a large cock.

I really enjoyed Fear of Flying and it's a good thing women have come a long way since the 70s because How to Save Your Own Life sets feminism back at least five steps.

It's no wonder Jong is one of the most revered and reviled feminists of the 20th century.