REALLY didn't like this book. Only one I had to read for second half of vacation - mistake!

Ugh.... When I was 19, I read Erica Jong's famous book the Fear of Flying. An incurable bookworm, I read widely back then but nothing could have prepared me to how icky some writing can be. This was a book, I found lying out on a table in a hostel in Vienna, where I was staying a few days, en route home from India. Totally out of money, I would have read anything (these were the days before the Internet, when people did read books a lot). Anyway, I was nearly traumatized by the purple prose. I made a pledge to never read anything by this writer again.

Fast forward thirty years... here we go again. I couldn’t resist both because of the time travel theme and more, because I’m currently reading the most fascinating book by Shakespeare expert at UC Santa Cruz about the Italian plays on the theme of embarrassment. That book is highly recommended.

This book was not as awful as the other one. First person novels are always tough because the books somehow live and die by that first person character and in this case the first person protagonist is tediously uninteresting. Is anyone really sympathetic to heiresses who struggle emotionally? And sadly while the heiress is described in painfully naturalistic details, everybody else is a cardboard cut out caricature. It was a different age, of course-- this book was written in the late 80s but still the Italians are so “Italian" and wealthy widows are off getting plastic surgery and drinking champagne with their young lovers - it goes on and on like this.

I quite liked her descriptions of Venice... but maybe that is because I don't know Venice. As far as her descriptions of Los Angeles, they were completely unrecognizable to me, even though I was born and raised there. She calls it La La Land and I suppose that’s a real term but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used by somebody who lives there. Like calling is Cali. I never hear that term by anyone here. Anyway, her descriptions of plastic women with implants and the beaches dotted with William Morris agents was bizarre. I was in LA during the 80s and feel I should recognize something. But I did not.

Classic sentence, “unbeknownst to me, he had hired a detective to document my sexual life for the past two years. Not that it was lewd by Lala land standards: three leading man, one Texas oil billionaire, one exercise instructor in his 20s...."

Book is made up exclusively as sentences like this.

I have to hand it to the author I did love her descriptions of the Jewish ghetto and the history of the synagogues and she was great on Shakespeare. She’s definitely of the school who believed there was a man from Stratford who was Williams Shakespeare. Note to self, do not read anything by Erica Jong again. Life is too short. (I listened on Audible and narrator even seemed to be cringing).

Interestingly, when I took this out of the library, there was a piece of paper taped on the inside jacket titled “readers comments.” Here’s what anonymous guest critics had to say:

“Great fun!”
“Enjoyed every minute”
“Unfortunately, rather boring”
“Waste of time. Read ¼ and returned book.”
“Extravagant and too fevered, but wonderful, too.”

Well, I wasn’t too fazed by the mixed reviews because I know Jong is not for everybody. But she’s always been high on my list of favorites and the story sounded interesting, so I took it out.
t
Holy crap, what a disappointment. I mean, it wasn’t pathologically boring, but it wasn’t the Jong I know and love. Usually I can’t put her work down. I had to press to keep going with this one. I think she got a little over her head. She’s so earthy in her writing, that once she delved into the Elizabethan speech of the 16th century, it sounded ridiculous and cliché.
t
As Simon says, it's a no from me. My two favorite Jong books remain Any Woman's Blues: A Novel of Obsession and Parachutes & Kisses.

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1 ⭐️

Some books just shouldn’t have been written, this is one of them

Finished this while in Venice--so all of the glitter and hustle of this beautiful city and overdone story align perfectly. A wild tale, well told, and larded with Shakespearean quotes and bits. But ultimately unsatisfying.

Venice, time-travel, Shakespeare, history

With so many of my favorites in one book, how could I not love it? I also enjoy and admire Jong’s use of vocabulary. Such beautiful, thoughtful writing.

This was my first Erica Jong book. I enjoyed it, although the untranslated Italian words were a tiny bit annoying. I'm not sure why she's considered so sexually controversial, although maybe Fear of Flying is more intense. Or maybe I've just read too many smutty romance novels.

I'd put this at 3 stars for writing style and initial impression, but the whole parallel Shakespeare universe thing bumps it up to 4 stars for me. Plus, there's probably some deep meaning in there somewhere that will occur to me a month from now.

Wow, how my taste has changed over the years. I read this back in the late ‘80s, loved it, retaining fond memories of my total enjoyment. Now it just feels like someone I used to know. But it’s not bad. I mean, it’s set in Venice, Italy, so how bad could it be? There are some gorgeous descriptions of that fabulous city, which is unique in the world and undeniably enchanting.

But the prose does get a bit purple sometimes, especially in the 16th century section, and I am a prose snob. Still, overall, it’s a good light entertainment with plenty of drama in two different storylines. There’s the glamour of a 20th century film festival in Venice, the romance of danger and forbidden love in 16th century Venice, a likeable heroine in actress Jessica Pruitt, magic, time travel, a young pre-fame William Shakespeare, and a decent amount of sex (it is Erica Jong, after all.) I still love the ending.

But thirty-five years and at least a thousand books later, it just didn’t land in the same place for me, so I’m gently knocking the rating down from 5 stars. But I’ll keep it at a solid 3 stars -- for a fun read and old times’ sake.

There's a common misconception that the reason to read an Erica Jong book is for its pornographic qualities. "I just skimmed through looking for the dirty parts, and I was disappointed," as a friend once dismissed this novel. Serenissima in fact is a free-wheeling now-becomes-then fantasy involving a Shakespearean actress and Shakespeare himself. Jong is a good writer, a knowledgable writer, a strong writer who tackles this in a very entertaining and enlightening way.

Her first novel, Fear of Flying, was notorious for its treatment of casual sex, but then in the 1970s, so was Cosmopolitan magazine. Time has passed since then.

Serenissima by Erica Jong is essentially a declaration of love to Shakespeare. The language is poetic and very beautiful, but the book, in my opinion, seems to drag on a bit.

Awful. The main character spends most of the time talking about her designer 80s clothes.
Also annoying: rambling on and on and using strings of multiple adjectives when only one is needed. The lack of conciseness got old after 20 pages.