Fear of Flying

Got a quarter into the audiobook, was initially charmed but have since grown somewhat bored and annoyed. Could be the narrator's fault. Won't finish.

This came up on my feed and recalled I read this when I was about 16, yes yes I know 40 years ago!!!!!! I thought it was crappy to be honest but at that time I was reading some Sci Fi that I thought was great and this type of thing was just up market Harold Robins or something.

This book really resonated with me. Such an amazing book, way more than I expected. So real and raw.

I see it has a lot of reviews accusing it of being self-indulgent, and it probably is. I liked it anyway (despite or because). Scathingly funny at times, enlightening about the past and present of feminism.

It felt awkward to read this as a middle-aged middle-class male: the gender, age, and zeitgeist gaps combine to form quite a chasm. Even so, and even though I've never cared for the bildungsroman, Fear of Flying was quite beautiful. Jong does a magnificent job letting uas watch her protagonist's transformation from a whiny, self-absorbed, hand-wringing New York princess to a self-aware human worthy of respect. There isn't much here for me to relate to—I was more oh, grow UP than BTDT—but when I reminded myself to squint, to think about the 70s and women then, my admiration for Jong just kept growing. I'm really glad this book existed then, and somehow wish I could relate to it more.