A Fear of Vanishing
Erica Jong’s daughter writes about her mother’s dementia
If Dementia was a person, they would never have any friends.
This morning, I read that Erica Jong, the witty, outspoken author and one-time feminist icon of the seventies, has dementia. Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast has written a book about it called How To Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir.
Link to an excerpt in Vanity Fair: How To Lose Your Mother
Jong’s Fear of Flying was one of the must-read novels of my college years. It had a lively bounce to it that made it fun, even though it was about a fierce and oftentimes painful struggle for self-definition.
I remember being interested in Jong long after her initial fame had faded away. My interest in feminism also faded along the way. At the time that I read FOF, I had described myself as a fervent feminist, ready to march the streets and wave flags (though I only once ever went on a march; in Germany; many years ago).
Since then, however, my views have mellowed and changed. I don’t call myself a feminist any more, for instance. I’m not opposed to feminism – of course not, how could I be? – but I grew out of it, in the way that one grows out of one set of clothes.
Ideologies often provide a binary, right-wrong view of reality. That’s part of what makes them attractive. A bit like religion. For millions of people the simplicity is exactly what makes ideologies and religions attractive.
For me, however, the ideas of feminism that had so attracted me at one time no longer felt honest. There were elements of self-fulfilling fantasy that I found disturbing. I’d like to say that I’m interested in an ideology that embraces the complexity of gender – all genders, not just the binary, victim-oppressor definitions – but so far as I know, there’s no term for such an ideology yet. Nowadays, if someone introduces me as a “feminist” author, I wriggle a bit and try to avoid saying more. It’s difficult to discuss words and ideas that have not yet solidified into standard reality.
Anyway. I didn’t especially follow Erica Jong’s career as an author. She wrote a wonderful poem about her shoes that I heard her reading out aloud, in a collection of poems read by their authors.
She gradually vanished from the news. I had heard that her daughter, an only child, had rebelled against her mother’s own rebellions – meaning that, she had disapproved of her mother’s attention-getting unorthodox life-style.
I don’t know if I will go forward into this book, but the excerpt is interesting. It says everything and also, a little too much. Rather like FOF.
