Fear of Dying Formato Kindle

I was 21-years-old when Erica Jong's FEAR OF FLYING was published, and I remember being mesmerized by the way she wrote about sex. This was 1973, and while the woman's movement was definitely going strong, female sexuality was still something mysterious and not totally acceptable to talk about. But Jong's narrator, Isadora Wing, longed for what she called the "zipless ****," a spontaneous sexual encounter with a nameless stranger that would be pure experience without attachments, strings, or obligations. And now, over four decades later, Jong revisits Isadora's world in FEAR OF DYING, which focuses on the vast changes in women's lives as we grow old and face our own mortality. This time, the narrator is 60-year-old Vanessa Wonderman, a "darling friend" of Isadora's who is dealing with her aging parents, her 85-year-old husband, and a beloved standard poodle also nearing his end. The story Vanessa tells is somber and difficult, but also uplifting and affirming in surprising ways. I'm just a few years older than Vanessa, and I totally identify with her struggles to deal with her dying parents, her fears about her husband's health issues, and her oddly beautiful attachment to her poodle Belinda. It's just the sex talk that doesn't quite work for me this time around. And there's lot of it!

The one thing I remember most about FEAR OF FLYING was what happened when Isadora finally found herself in a position to experience the "zipless ****." Instead of leaping into it with open arms, she rebuffed the stranger's advances, realizing only much later that she had missed her chance. In FEAR OF DYING, Vanessa is a former soap opera actress who has had many zipless experiences, as well as countless "zipped-up" ones. She's been married several times, had an abundance of lovers, and sees herself as a sexually free woman. She's also super wealthy, as is her billionaire husband. But as she watches her parents grow weaker and weaker in their final months of life, it's sex she hopes will save her from the "fear of dying." She runs an ad on a fantasy sex website. She contacts former lovers. What does she want, Jong asks? "I wanted sex to prove that I would never die," Vanessa says.

Like Vanessa and Isadora (and like Erica Jong), I've changed a lot in the past 40-plus years. What titillated and intrigued me in 1973 doesn't quite do the same today. I, too, am dealing with the end of my parents' lives. Like Vanessa's Asher, my own husband has health issues that threaten to cut short his life. And my own beloved cat (like Vanessa's dog, Belinda) is showing signs that her life, too, may be nearing its end. It's all very hard, and very real, and very much a part of all of our lives. But I can't quite identify with Vanessa's delight in sexual dalliances, her love of sexually charged words I can't imagine using in casual speech, or her conviction that through orgasm she can immunize herself against death. The novel's first line is, "I used to love the power I had over men," which is all about sex. By the end, however, Vanessa realizes that "We give [sex] much more power than it perhaps deserves."

I loved parts of FEAR OF DYING, because it spoke to me of things I, myself, am pondering these days. What gives us purpose? How can we forgive ourselves our shortcomings? How can we forgive those who have hurt us? And how can we face the end of life, when we're never quite sure what living is in the first place? As Vanessa finally says, "Death is fearlessness. It's the anticipation of our dying that's the problem." In some ways, Vanessa begins this novel believing that life is a huge joke, with death as its ultimate punch line. She longs for sex as a means of anesthetizing herself against the punch in the gut she knows will eventually come. But she learns pretty much the same thing her friend Isadora did years before - life and death are the same thing. The very act of living is also the act of dying, since every step we take, every move we make, brings us that much closer to the end. It's not sex that ends up saving Vanessa, but living. "Don't be afraid," Jong tells us. "Fear is a waste of life." And that is something we can all celebrate.

This is an intelligent and literary novel with a believable and identifiable protagonist. She may be a bit more sexually super-charged than many of us in our sixties, but her journey is in many ways all of ours. I do recommend FEAR OF DYING.

I read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and How to Save Your Own Life as a young feminist at the time they were published. I loved both books. I thought they were witty, insightful, well-constructed and well-written, and just all-around fun, terrific reads. I could quote from both of them. When I saw that Jong had published Fear of Dying I bought it eagerly. What a disappointment! This book is long, vapid, narcissistic, rambling and - ultimately - utterly boring. Vanessa, the main character, is not believable. And if Jong is depicting a real person, this isn't someone I would be interested in knowing anything about. I also consider it to be very sloppy writing which shows little respect for the reader. It's repetitive. It's redundant. Its lengthy musings wander in a disorganized fashion. It's presumptuous. Jong employs a great deal of generalization and claims to speak for all women. There's little evidence of an editorial hand. It's hard not to be think that Jong and her publisher hoped to cash in on her former success.and that this book was written quickly in order to do so.
I want to note something else that I haven't seen mentioned in other reviews. Jong gets alot wrong about Jewish ritual observance, sacred text and liturgy. I cringed as I read some of her pronouncements. Her portrayal of Judaism is embarrassing to those who are actually Jewishly literate, treasure Judaism, and work hard to make themselves knowledgeable about it. Just because she writes about Judaism doesn't mean she actually knows what she's talking about. (She doesn't.) Who on earth edited this?

With memories of her first book, Fear of Flying, in my mind, I was expecting...sex...but the laughter didn't often come for me. It was too real...it was escapism from fear. The fear of dying. In my mind, Jong included it almost as a "wake-up call" that some might look to, and use sex, to counteract, to prevent facing that fear we both had reached...the fear of dying... So, of course, she had to find out whether it would work!

Specifically her first chapter asks, "Is There Sex After Death?" Well, I couldn't give her an answer, but I suspect there isn't, what do you think? Still, she quickly shares why these thoughts have crossed her mind...

The book is written in first-person and reads somewhat like a diary. It may be fiction, but I felt that there was much about Jong's own life in the words. In fact, I didn't even think to identify the name of the main character... I thus allowed the author's words to be as if she was directly speaking to me...

The main thrust is that her parents are both dying. She is caught in despair, knowing that there is nothing to do but wait. But she hates seeing the vitality of two people who she loves greatly slowing ebbing away.

And then her husband is discovered to have an aneurysm, plus her beloved dog/friend dies...

I felt she was in panic mode. Death surrounded her and she was afraid. Afraid of her own mortality at the same time fearing the loss of those she most loved.

Sex and love had once been separated, but now she was totally in love with her husband, and feared his loss. Fearfully and in a flippant attitude, she seeks love through sex...and she delights readers as she posts an ad and receives responses from many who have some strange perversions...At least it was making her laugh a little but confirming what she already knew...sex and being in love can be two widely diverse things...

The thing I admire most about Jong's story is that she is willing to share internal thoughts and worries, that many of us have, but keep hidden inside. I used to sit while watching television, once in awhile glancing over to check my mother's breast, to ensure it was moving as she breathed. She was only in her seventies when she died. I knew that having parents living so long and having to see such deterioration of their bodies would be heartbreaking and very hard to deal with. As she said, she would move from hoping they died to dreading their loss. I empathized greatly with her. Her father was the first to die... And then her mother...

Of Primary importance to me in her book was the dichotomy related to God...She announces herself as an atheist, not being able to accept the Holocaust and other events that have been hard for many of us, too, to understand. But as death rears its ugly head, she "wishes" she could believe, she "wishes" she could pray for those she loves...

Again, her willingness to open her thoughts to others in this important area, allows us to also acknowledge that we, too, have things we don't understand. We, too, also wonder, worry, at times, is there Someone there listening to our prayers... I think the difference with the author is that she's always been open with her contradictory statements--she's willing to share ideas and thoughts purely for her writing, even if others might interpret them incorrectly. This was shown with her first book and undoubtedly will occur with her latest.

But, for me, having a writer express our own fears through her characters allows us to ponder, to consider changes in our own lives, and find and make our own decisions if and when confronted with the different situations she covers in her books.

I got what I anticipated in Jong's book... She's provided us a look into our own fears, at the same time she openly shares what the fear of dying has meant in her own life...Her book is provocative, real, and memorable in so many different ways. I highly recommend it, especially if you...have a fear...of dying...

Jong challenges us. She's thrown in a little sex to titillate but it's of little significance in what she has really provided. God and I thank you Erica Jong, for writing this book... And He understands your confusion just as He understands and accepts it from me and readers who needed to learn about others who have similar thoughts and fears...

GABixlerReviews