The book mocked the idea that chaste was something smart women had to be, ridiculed the notion that children were the meaning of a woman’s life, and showed, both by narrative and by example, that the turbulent life of the artist was not only for men. It has been 40 years since “Fear” and its glamorous author landed like feminist blonde bombshells on American culture, selling 20 million copies here and abroad. The man is not ‘taking’ and the woman is not ‘giving’. “The is absolutely pure,” exults Isadora Wing, the 29-year-old heroine, in one memorable passage. And the woman - free, liberated, maybe a little sweaty - owes nobody anything, least of all an explanation. Man and woman meet, go at it with glee and gusto, then trot back to their careers, marriages, kids, whatever. The guilt-free, pulse-pounding sexual escapade. (Note irony to today’s headlines!)Īdd to these Erica Jong’s 1973 two-word manifesto from “ Fear of Flying,” which we can only print as “Zipless F-.” Here resides “Greed is good” from the cash-obsessed late 1980s “Big Brother,” from the late 1940s fear of totalitarian regimes and “Catch-22,” from the authorities-are-idiots 1960s.
Rarer is the phrase that catches some of the zeitgeist and holds it there, beating and alive, in its tiny little word count. You got your “Make my day,” or “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,” or your ironic “Vote for Pedro.” Sure, you got your stories that deliver your pop-culture one-liners.
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