Fear of Flying (Erica Jong)

This book was scandalous, which of course made it incredibly popular, when it was published in 1974 (5 years before I was born). I can certainly see why with the incessant use of the word fuck and the four letter word for vagina, beginning with a C, that I hate to say. I am ashamed that I hate that word--seems liberal ole me should be perfectly hunky dory with that slang, but I find that it's the violent sound of the word as it is spoken that I loathe. That and the connotation of nastiness/vulgarity associated with it. But Jong is certainly not shy of it as the narrator is not shy of her own, hmm, C word.

The novel is the story of Isadora Wing, in Vienna with her psychiatrist (second) husband for a professional conference. She meets another man, who turns her on with every pore of his skin and makes her realize how safe and perhaps dead her marriage is. She then runs off on a mad jaunt to discover existentialism, free love, feminism, and her self. Now, in 2006, the plot and the conclusions the narrator draws at the end are rather pat. About the fallacy of needing a man to complete you. About living your life without apologies. But Jong's novel was still a good fun read and her prose style is sharp, witty, and, yes, vulgar. Here's a great example:

"We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs with one man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's called civilization and its discontents."

It is also a story about being a female writer--how the experience is taxing, daunting and often dishonest. She doesn't feel free to write about what she really thinks or feels in the beginning because her thoughts aren't what she is supposed to be feeling, according to the novels and poems by male authors, what they thought a woman would feel, think, how she would act. A slightly out of date theory, I think, but still apt in ways. I think writing, for males or females, is about courage to overcome this dishonesty. I like this summary:

"My writing is the submarine or spaceship which takes me to the unknown worlds within my head. And the adventure is endless and inexhaustible. If I learn to build the right vehicle, then I can discover even more territories. And each new poem is a new vehicle, designed to delve a little deeper (or fly a little higher) than the one before."

Great airplane or beach reading, even for you blokes out there. After all, none of your friends are going to see you reading it there. Plus, there's loads of female lust and it says fuck.... a lot.