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| Contemplating My Own Memoirs |
As you can imagine, I receive a lot of gifts
along these lines, and love them all:
"No Such Thing As Too Many Books"
“Every connection has an obligation
even if the obligation is Joy — to cherish it.” (p 92)
From
Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life
Delia Ephron (b 1944)
[See also QK & KL]
2.
"We thought we were in the best place in the world in this neighborhood, in the all-Irish housing projects where everyone claimed to be Irish even if his name was Spinnoli. We were proud to be from here, as proud as we were to be Irish. . . . Southie was Boston's proud Irish neighborhood. . . .
"I always had a sense of security here, a sense of belonging that I've never felt anywhere else . . . a feeling that someone would watch your back. Sure, bad things happened to my family, and to so many of my neighbors and friends, but there was never a sense that we were victims. This place was ours, it was all we ever knew, and it was all ours. . . .
"That's how I found myself staring out at a sea of faces, looking for my brothers among the living and the dead. I was looking for the truth about their lives and about their deaths. Like me, everyone at that night's vigil will forever be looking for the truth in Southie, where nothing's what it seems." (2, 5-6, 263)
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
Michael Patrick MacDonald (b 1966)
3.
And I'm adding this one here,
because of the subtitle:
Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
Beth Ann Fennelly (b 1971)
4.
"There was just Erica Jong, Feminist Icon,
except that she was really not that feminist,
and really not that iconic." (216)
From
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir
Molly Jong-Fast (b 1978)
Except -- could it be that Molly Jong-Fast (while being an otherwise thoughtful and perceptive daughter) and Jane Kamensky (no excuses for her) are underestimating the impact of Erica Jong's work?
I am thinking back to the letter that my sister Peg wrote to me years ago from Frankfurt:
March 17, 1981
Dear Kit,
Since receiving your letter, I've looked everywhere for a copy of Fear of Flying. Do you know that there is not a copy to be found. The library copy is checked out and the bookstore is sold out. I remember seeing several copies in the bookstore about three weeks ago, but now they're gone. So, I've put a reserve on the library copy. Judging from what you say and what I've heard about the book, I figure three are a lot of bored housewives using the book as an "entertainment guide" for Germany. I can hardly wait to read it.
I've not even read the book and I find myself being embarrassed when I ask for it. While at the library, I also requested Firestarter by Stephen King, and everything was normal enough, but I'm certain that when I uttered the first "F" of Fear of Flying, there was an echo that caused all heads to turn and look at me. I never thought of myself as a shy person, and I'm not a prude, but I think I was born too early in this sexual revolution."
Peg and I read Fear of Flying together back in the day, and when How to Lose Your Mother came along, we discussed the life lessons we have retained from Erica Jong's fiction. As a heroine, Isadora Wing may have been flighty (pun intended!), but it wasn't her crazy antics and sexual romp through Europe that left their mark on us so much as her determination to make her own way through a culture of double standards, mixed messages and false promises.
Sure, Jong's soft - core porn approach can be over the top at times yet easy enough to accomodate because she is also telling such a good story and imparting so much wisdom:
Don't you see that men have always defined
femininity as a means of keeping women in line? (22)
On family
"It was the old psychosomatic side-step.
Everyone in my family dances it at every opportunity.
You've given me a splitting headache! You've given me indigestion!
You've given me crotch rot! You've given me auditory hallucinations!
You've given me a heart attack! You've given me cancer!" (44)
On decision making
" . . . your life may not be simple.
Why do you expect it to be . . .
why do you have to throw everything away
before you give yourself time to decide?
Can't you wait and see what happens later?" (171)
This one is from the sequel
to Fear of Flying
"Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage.
Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice.
It is innocence and open-heartedness
that require the true courage —
however often we are hurt as a result of it."
(How to Save Your Own Life, 77)
And so much more!
**************************
As a feminist icon, Erica Jong
has a permanent spot on the sidebar of my daily blog,
along with other notables such as Margaret Atwood,
Virginia Woolf, King Solomon, and Sappho.
And she appears in many of my posts:
FN ~ KL ~ QK
