Seducing The Demon: Writing For My Life (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
I discovered Jong's 1973 debut FEAR OF FLYING in my basement at 14, and it was the most thrilling overnight-read of my life. I spied it on a forgotten shelf on a private quest for a “sex book,” which was any book in which sex was implied, discussed, or— please, lord— described. The front cover featured a woman's full hips and the curve and shadow of the underneath of her breasts; the rest of her body, and her face, obscured by what looked to me like a cream satin body bag, unzipped. The book, (and its heroine, Isadora Wing,) was rapid-fire hilarious, packed with a million offhand insights that made me shake my teenage fists and say "yeah!" It presented a view of feminism I hadn't considered (I was brought up to believe that girls were just as good as boys, that I could be whatever I wanted to be, and all that Mr. Rogers bullshit, but of course, being Catholic, love and sex and relationships were never part of the dialog. And they're the most important parts, when you get down to it.) The book swelled with the ideas that fascinated me. Ideas of foreign travel, misfit girls who become brilliant women, the writing life, cracked families, New York, academia, marital failure, lots of drinking and talking and poetry, and loads of exciting, sexy men. And ultra-hot fantasies. The actual sex, the actual men, were never as fulfilling as the fantasies. I remember that disappointing me. The brilliant symphony conductor had poor hygiene. The mad poet was actually homicidally insane. The charming, badassed Brit was impotent. Of course, the disconnect between fantasy and reality was not a failure of the book. It was kind of the point. I kind of missed it. I was 14. I also missed a sort of bratty narcissism, which SEDUCING makes plain.SEDUCING would only be of interest if you have read Jong's fiction, and even then, if you have read her Isadora Wing books, you know all you need to know about Jong. I like this memoir best when she is talking about writers and writing-- she makes fascinating speculations about what modern public life would make of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, etc., and she writes honestly about how she goes about seeking a state of creativity (the "demon" of the title is something like a muse.) She takes on alcohol, Hollywood, Washington, the perversion of language. And she is still pretty fucking funny. (On skinny women: "In life, she reminds you of Auschwitz. In bed, she feels like a bicycle. But in photos, she looks like a goddess.") She still writes endlessly about sex. I don't know if this makes me a prude, or simply a slut for fiction, but as much as I love reading Isadora Wing's fantasy-fucks, I don't love reading about Erica Jong's real-life fucks; and I'm equally as bothered by real-life infidelity as I am intrigued by infidelity in fiction. That she slept with Martha Stewart's husband is not one bit interesting to me. Her analysis of it is-- but that's the point: I'd rather read her work that analysis into a novel than read her claiming her name-dropping place in pop culture. More than anything, SEDUCING invites me to revisit FEAR OF FLYING, to reclaim my age 14 memory of the brave, hungry, motormouthed Isadora. But I know I cannot recapture that experience, after high school, after college, after studying literature, after my own travels and debauchery and failures at love and writing. I keep thinking of a scene in FEAR, when everything has fallen apart for Isadora, when her husband has left, and she realizes the man for whom she gave up everything was just playing with her, and she is desperate and lost in a seedy hotel room in Paris with nothing, nothing, nothing but her notebooks, and she begins to write herself out. It is this, the power of writing, that is Jong's real revolution. Not Isadora Wing's fantasy of the Zipless Fuck, not Erica Jong's legacy as a trailblazing author and good lay, but the idea that writing can actually save your life.
A writer's life may be a solitary one, but in Erica Jong's testament to how writing saved her life, we learn about how the anecdotes of one's life can fill the pages and "people" the writer's world. In the company of one's characters, then, the writer isn't really alone. Writing can also be a way to assuage the pain of difficult childhoods and "reinvent" those times in our lives that are dreary, depressing, or during which we feel powerless.There is power in the written word, and using that power to narrate one's life or the lives of those we meet along the way brings us (the writers) a unique perspective of those events. Jong says there is really not much of a distinction between autobiography and fiction, as the two seem interchangeable at times. In other words, we use real-life events in our stories, but we also embellish and fictionalize them.Through doing so, we alleviate the pain of these real events.She illustrates this by mentioning how "writing was a way of reinventing my own childhood. I could make it more horrible than it was and heal myself that way. Or I could make it better than it was. Both approaches can be curative. In writing, I had power over the very people who made me feel utterly powerless when I was a child. Even the most horrible childhood can be made tolerable just by writing about it."Throughout this memoir that feels like a guidebook to understanding what drives writers, I was quite intrigued by how she came to write her various works, and specifically, how "Fear of Flying" came about. As a person who came of age during that time, I applaud the moxie it took for her to tell this story, especially during that particular time in history. The fact that the book is still read and selling tells us something about its appeal and the freedom it represents."Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life" earned four stars from me. I recommend it for other writers, especially those who simply enjoy knowing more about an individual writer's voice.
What do You think about Seducing The Demon: Writing For My Life (2006)?
In the seventies I read Fear of Flying (didn't everyone) and I loved it. It was a whole new world for women, and critical to the Women's Movement.I read this book thinking it would be a good personal account of the author's life. I got nothing. She had an affair with Martha Stewart's husband - big deal. That was the only major thing she told us about. Perhaps this book was not meant to be a tell all memoir like most I read. Considering how outspoken Erica Jong usually is, I am disappointed she held back after finally writing about herself. It was a very quick read, but if I had to tell anyone what the high points were, I would have to say none.
—Judith
Jong, who has never managed to repeat the success of Fear of Flying, which she penned at the age of 31, offers a memoir whose original intention__to give advice to aspiring writers__is lost in a haze of largely unconnected and, according to many critics, gratuitous anecdotes. Though Jong has written 19 other books, the spirit of Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying's heroine, haunts her at every turn. As a result, Seducing the Demon feels derivative. Some critics applaud Jong for remaining steadfastly honest in her analysis of her own personal life and offering her thoughts on writing. Others conclude that, her debt to Isadora Wing paid in full, Jong might want to tilt at new windmills.This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
—Bookmarks Magazine
I wish this book was more about what it is like to be an author. After reading it, I am more convinced that I will never write fiction. Ever.Perhaps I should have let more time pass after reading "Parachutes and Kisses" as this book made it clear that Jong's writing is more than just influenced by her own life and its events. It was like reading the same book, worded only slightly differently.My problem with this book wa sthat it was all over the place. I would call only parts of it memoir, the rest was unorganized, out of place babble.
—Jennifer
