Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

First published: 1973

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Autobiographical

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Locale: Vienna, Paris, and New York City

Principal characters

• Isadora Wing, a young Jewish poet
• Bennett Wing, Isadora’s husband, a child psychiatrist
• Adrian Goodlove, Isadora’s lover, an English psychoanalyst
• Judith Stoloff White, Isadora’s mother
• Brian Stollerman, Isadora’s first husband, a schizophrenic
• Dr. Schrift, Isadora’s New York psychiatrist

The Story:

Isadora Wing, a young Jewish poet living in New York, accompanies her psychiatrist husband, Bennett Wing, to a psychoanalysts’ conference in Vienna and then goes off with a lover she meets there. En route to the conference, she confesses that she is frightened of flying (a metaphor for her fear of independence and of taking risks) even though she had been treated by several of the psychiatrists on the flight to the conference.

In Vienna, Isadora meets Adrian Goodlove, an English psychoanalyst. She is strongly attracted to him (and he to her, apparently), and they flirt outrageously, go out together, and sleep together; turns out that he is better as a sexual fantasy than as an actual sexual partner because he is often impotent.

Adrian taunts Isadora about being trapped in the safe role of bourgeois wife and dares her to join him on a jaunt across Europe, saying she needs to learn to take risks and that he can give her an experience that will really change her. Isadora feels pulled in two directions: toward the security of life with Bennett, whom she feels loves her, and the urge to break out of a confining situation. She decides to return to New York with her husband but then suddenly changes her mind at Adrian’s urging, and the two set out in his Triumph sports car. Adrian lectures her to not be afraid of what is inside her and insists that he will be her teacher.

Drinking, arguing, and making love, they make their way to Paris. However, what is supposed to be a completely spontaneous and existential quest turns out to be a rather grim odyssey from grubby campsite to cheap hostel. To crown Isadora’s disappointment, Adrian tells her that he will leave her in Paris because he has arranged to meet his wife and children. Isadora is furious, but she has already become disillusioned with him. She goes to a hotel, reads her diaries and notebooks, and concludes that she must look to herself for meaning in life. She decides to go back to New York to join her husband, but she is determined not to “grovel.”

In a series of flashbacks, Isadora tells about growing up as an aspiring artist, about her two marriages, and about her youthful sexual adventures and affairs. She endures all the frustrations of growing up female in the 1950’s. Her mother, Judith, an artist who had given up painting for marriage, tells Isadora again and again that the worst thing in the world is to be “ordinary.” She also burdens her daughter with the dictum that it is impossible to be both an artist and a mother. Dr. Schrift, Isadora’s psychiatrist, counsels Isadora to accept her femininity. Isadora laments in the story that in the years growing up, she had to learn about being a woman from men. In her case, she learned this, mostly, from writer D. H. Lawrence. To Isadora, however, the men do not tell the whole story.

After graduation, Isadora marries the brilliant Brian Stollerman, who soon has a mental breakdown—insisting that he is Jesus Christ and can walk on the surface of the lake in Central Park—and is institutionalized. Isadora then marries Bennett, thinking he will provide the security lacking in her life. She accompanies him to Heidelberg, West Germany, when he is drafted as a U.S. Army psychiatrist during the Vietnam War. There she confronts her Jewishness and writes journalism and poetry.

Bibliography

Haskell, Molly. Review of Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong. Village Voice Literary Supplement, November 22, 1973. Haskell’s review illustrates the enthusiasm feminists had for Jong’s telling, controversial novel.

Hogeland, Lisa Maria. Feminism and Its Fictions: The Consciousness-Raising Novel and the Women’s Liberation Movement. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Jong’s novel figures in chapter 3 of this study of feminist fiction. The chapter discusses the various discourses of sexuality that appeared in women’s fiction in the era of Fear of Flying.

Templin, Charlotte. Feminism and the Politics of Literary Reception: The Example of Erica Jong. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. This book presents a detailed account of the reception and influence of Jong’s novel in the context of the social and cultural controversies surrounding feminism and the women’s movement at the time Fear of Flying was published.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Conversations with Erica Jong. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. This edited volume contains interviews with Jong conducted between 1973 and 2001. The talks reveal Jong’s insightful, humorous, and articulate voice as she expounds on craft, culture, sexuality, and women’s place in society. Contains many comments on the content and reception of Fear of Flying.

Updike, John. “Jong Love.” In Picked-up Pieces. 1975. New ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986. Updike’s rave review, reprinted from The New Yorker magazine, compares Jong to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. Updike argues that Jong invented a new form of female prose, and he praises her comic gift. The review gave a boost to the novel’s reputation and was often quoted by subsequent reviewers.