Customer Reviews

Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and Daughters

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It has been many years since Fear of Flying came out and my reading of it at the time, a funny, irreverent, and poignant feminist manifesto that was very apropos reading for the young woman that I was. Twenty-five plus years later in Inventing Memory, Erica Jong appears to be evaluating what it all means through searching for roots in four generations of a fictional family with an immigrant great grandmother matriarch. That is all well and good, but the style rarely shifts from the mood of what I recall from Fear of Flying. Jong never stops reminding us that it is the women who carry the generations forward, and the heck with those fickle men. Too convenient and too simplistic. And, also, ala Jong, they all must be outrageous women. My other two complaints were as such: Jong frequently has to spell out - in case you all didn't get it! - what she means by "inventing memory". I like the phrase and the possible permutations of its meaning, but I would have preferred to have it left to the reader. Finally, I came away feeling that I hardly knew the characters, particularly the four women, so I wound up finding them shallow, and not caring a lot about them. Perhaps great granddaughter Sarah we learn the most about and I think she's the most sympathetic character.

Erica Jong blasts into the immigrant novel genre in her book Inventing Memory A Novel of Mothers and Daughters. As only she can do, Jong intertwines this feminist history of four generations of Jewish-American women as they strive to learn who they are, where they came from, and the men that influenced their lives both positively and negatively. This eternal man-woman struggle pulses through the novel from beginning to end, and is laden with Jongs' usual dose of sexual heaviness. Both mothers and daughters learn from their quests to truly know their ancestors, that they are all just synthesized versions of those that came before them. The "memory" that is invented in this novel, is one that allows all these women to survive in a male-dominated world while maintaining what is most precious to the, their feminity.

If you want something to read that is fun but not a work of art, I think you've found it. Jong keeps her reputation as a soft porn queen though, fyi. During passages of this grandmother telling her life story, she breaks into somewhat explicit descriptions -- which were seriously out of the grandmother's character. I found the whole book a bit contrived. You'll enjoy this book, but don't expect any new revelations.

I first read Jong's famous Fear of Flying while in college, when the heroine was the ancient-seeming age of 27ish. Have since reread every few years through the present, now well through my 30s, and I still find FoF not only a great read but full of new insight.
Why, oh, why then, can't this woman write another novel I can bear to get through? I can't say I've tried them all (maybe Fear of 50, though not a novel, holds the most promise), but How to Save Your Own Life, for example, and now Inventing Memory, drive me to distraction with their lovingly self-indulgent descriptions of the main Jong character that lacks any of the funny self-deprecating description of FoFlying. The soft-core prose without the bite. Narrative sometimes get going but is quickly knocked off its wheels by the occasionally trenchant but mostly excessive Yiddish proverbs that litter every few paragraphs. A cheesy mess.
Maybe my expectations are just too high, as I still call Flying one of my all time favorite books -- not just because it's fun, but because it offered such dead-on descriptions of questions a woman asks herself as she's coming into her own, plagued alternately by belief in her own brilliance and star power and the fear of failing, as well as wrestling with the idea of where love/men should figure into one's life.
Gone and by the wind-grieved Erica, come back again.

What can one say about a book which tugs at their very heartstrings and own memories. Having been brought up on the Lower East Side and familiar with many of the places Ms. Jong described to say nothing of the people, I found this read wonderful.

And through her three main women charatcers, it is as if she tells the story of thes Jewish women living, working and assimilating to the United States of then and now.

Do not miss this book - you will close it with a sigh and think often about the characters too.

This book was torture to read. These self-serving unrealistic people could'n't possibly have led such lives. How did they make a living? How did they live day to day? Their lives were so outrageously unbelievable that I had to keep reading to see what ridiculous adventure came up next. As one of the characters would say, Novel, Schmovel!

We are a composite of the collection of our past and in Inventing Memory by Erica Jong interweaves the lives of four generations of women.
This story takes you to the turn of the last century to the early years of the twenty-first century.
You discover the wonders and excitement of Paris with the glow and hardship of America. Filled with love, life, and a bit of lust, these strong women result from a strong stock.
You will rejoice in taking the passage on learning about the past only to unlock the secrets of the present.

Nicely told, terrific writing, interesting stories, but each woman's saga(trials/tribulations/relationships) seemed somewhat redundant (a woman's struggle between family and art.) Toward the end, I lost the thread (names too similar/backstory flip-flop)and stopped reading to get my bearings. Not a good thing. May have worked better if done in four distinct parts or even books. Perhaps this was the original intention. Still worth reading.

I have read almost all of Erica Jong's earlier books, & I was looking forward to reading this one. Although in the beginning this novel seemed promising (Sarah's story is very lively & well told) later the book dragged on and on...Jong's central themes (women versus men, spirit versus day to day life) were better explored in her earlier works.

It seems as if Erica Jong is, yet again, trying to say the same old things in the same old way. Maybe the "same old things" part isn't what's wrong: the "same old way" part definitely is. She's an intelligent writer, seems like an intelligent & very lively person (especially from Fear of Fifty, even though that too, was repetitive) so why can't she start writing something different? I mean, completely different, not just "changing the names of the main characters" different...

What a wonderful work of the heart and soul... I finished reading this book this morning at 5:22 after a night of only putting it down to think of my own hidden blessed memories - turning on the light and reading until the last word could only be the last word... Bravo to Erica, her daughter and her daughter's daughters!