Fear of Flying

By: Erica Jong

Narrated by: Hope Davis

Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Originally published in 1973, the groundbreaking, uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free caused a national sensation. In The New York Times, Henry Miller compared it to his own classic, Tropic of Cancer and predicted that "this book will make literary history..." It has sold more than 12-million copies. Now, after 30 years, the revolutionary novel known as Fear of Flying still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.

©1973, 2001 Erica Mann Jong (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Extraordinary....At once wildly funny and very wise." (Los Angeles Times)
"An amazing tour de force." (Cosmopolitan)

Great reader, dated book

Hope Davis does a wonderful job reading this book. Unfortunately, it is better read as a look into a bygone era than as a timeless classic that still resonates today.

Wasted my credit

John, I wish I'd read your review before I wasted a credit on this book. You're a better (or stronger willed) person than I am if you listened to the end.

There may be people out that that can relate to Isadora Wing, but I am definitely not one of them.

Just couldn't get through it

Has Fear of Flying turned you off from other books in this genre?

I notice the split between male and female readers in the list of reviews. I read a lot and am always curious about the female perspective. I read this book as a young man in the 70's, vaguely remembered enjoying it, and thought I would take another look at it from the distance of decades.

Now I think its appeal to me as a young man was the titillation of hearing a woman describe sex partners in frank, colorful ways. Isadore's conflict of adventure versus security is timeless, but the context of the narrative is so dated, and today we have so much more nuance in the discussion, that I was bored. The narrator's self-absorption, the step-by-step description of her passage through a crooked corridor of mirrors, seemed adolescent. The long side-passages that were unconcerned with pleasure, like describing how the narrator rediscovered her Jewish heritage while living in Germany, were glib and shallow to a mature reader.

Evem after "skimming" the audio, I just couldn't get through it.

Too darn neurotic!

Whew! I can't believe I hung in there until the end. The main character is too darn neurotic - I wanted to throttle her.
Not my kind of book.
The interview with the author at the end of the story was interesting.

I can’t get started

The narrator reads with a tone of such constant contempt that I can’t even listen.