Fear of Flying

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The main thing, however, is that it was very funny. I probably missed two-thirds of the references, but the tone – that flat, sardonic edge that made everything seem like a hilarious in-joke – was applied to things I thought you couldn’t joke about. For example, 30 years after the end of the second world war, Jong wrote about the emotional fallout among American Jews whose parents had lived through it. Many attempts to adapt this property for Hollywood have been made, starting with Julia Phillips, who fantasized that it would be her debut as a director, from a screenplay by David Giler. The deal fell through and Erica Jong litigated, unsuccessfully. [8] In her second novel, [9] Jong created the character Britt Goldstein—easily identifiable as Julia Phillips—a predatory and self-absorbed Hollywood producer devoid of both talent and scruples.

Haemmerli, Thomas (March 21, 2023). "Kaspar Kasics on his film on Erica Jong" (Video) . Retrieved March 21, 2023. He was so beautiful lying there and his body smelled so good. I thought of all those centuries in which men adored women for their bodies while they despised their minds. . . . That was how I so often felt about men. Their minds were hopelessly befuddled, but their bodies were so nice.

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For some women in the early 1970s, this was exhilarating; they’d found a novel whose female protagonist expressed what they were thinking and feeling about marriage, commitment, independence, sex. For others, it was trash. Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. According to The Washington Post, it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. [2] Early life and education [ edit ]

There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I’d been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh. God knows it was a tribute either to the shrinks’ ineptitude or my own glorious unanalyzability that I was now, if anything, more scared of flying than when I began my analytic adventures some thirteen years earlier. In a deeply personal and candid foreword, Jong-Fast reflects on the inescapable hold the book had on her mother, the enduring legacy of protagonist Isadora Wing, and the novel’s ability to “capture the collective imagination, even for a moment.” Fleming, Mike Jr. (10 May 2013). "Erica Jong's Fear of Flying Getting a Movie after 40 Years in Print". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved 1 April 2018.

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Parachutes & Kisses. New York: New American Library (1984) (UK ed. as Parachutes and Kisses: London: Granada, 1984.) [12] Jong supports LGBT rights and legalization of same-sex marriage. She says, "Gay marriage is a blessing not a curse. It certainly promotes stability and family. And it's certainly good for kids." [11] Bibliography [ edit ] Erica Jong visiting Barnes & Noble in New York. Jennifer Weiner and Erica Jong at the Miami Book Fair International 2013 Fiction [ edit ] Since then, many of the early feminist novels have acquired “classic of the genre” status, but none has become an international cultural phenomenon on the scale of Fear of Flying. By 1977, Jong’s book had been translated into twelve languages and had sold six million copies. The collapse of communism created another surge in celebrity and sales as the novel became available in former Soviet Republics and East European countries. Fear of Flying has now sold more than eighteen million copies and is available in thirty languages. In 2008, Jong told an interviewer that wherever she travels—Belgrade, Hong Kong, Tokyo—people still want her to know how completely they identify with the novel’s protagonist. “I am Isadora Wing,” they say. I have no doubt this is true.

One of the most quoted lines from this novel is “Men and women —women and men —it will never work.” The tone is clearly ironic. Why do you think this line speaks to people? Much later, I found out that Fear of Flying was a classic novel of second-wave feminism, which is to say it was derided by lots of first-wavers as trivial, solipsistic and too sex-oriented to be considered truly political. None of this concerned me. The writing was furiously good. It had a desperate edge to it, and the force of something that needed to be written. I still remember the final line of the first chapter, which I thought hit exactly the right note between pretentious, pleading, self-dramatising and self-knowing. It was the perfect layup for the novel that followed: “Consider this tapestry, my life.”Mead, Rebecca (April 14, 2008). "The Canon: Still Flying". The New Yorker . Retrieved January 23, 2010. The generation that came of age in the sixties married too young and without much of an idea of the burdens of marriage. Then we discovered how tough marriage is, how much compromise is required. Often we divorced our first spouses. Now our kids, who often grew up with divorced parents, are more realistic about marriage, more cautious about commitments. In general, that’s a good thing. They see marriage more realistically than we did. I think their chances of successful marriages are greater than ours were.

Phillips, Julia (1991). You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. Random House. pp. 136 et seq. ISBN 0-394-57574-1. In the thirty years since Fear of Flying was published, the line between autobiography (or memoir) and fiction has blurred. Fear of Flying was at the forefront of this trend. But it was never a literal autobiography though it had autobiographical elements. It’s not unusual for a first novel to have such elements. Early on, some critics (like John Updike) saw similarities between my novel and Catcher in the Rye. That’s another book that uses an autobiographical New York City setting but also takes the protagonist on a journey that is mythical.

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As I read the notebook, I began to be drawn into it as into a novel…. And then a curious revelation started to dawn. I stopped blaming myself; it was that simple. Once upon a time, Isadora’s issues were my issues, I identified with her, and I was buoyed by her story even if I didn’t think it was very well written. I can’t experience the novel in the same way now: the surprise and thrill of recognition aren’t there to overshadow what irritates me about the writing. I’m no longer a member of the best audience for Fear of Flying although that audience still exists in other places, among other women. Instead I’m just grateful to Jong and the other feminist authors who encouraged so many of us to get our own stories straight.