Right. So, it's now eight years. I've many, many notebooks, but what I see when I examine the notebooks now are phases of development toward the work I'm doing at present. I see it in embryonic stages early on, and I begin to see what I thought were simply notes, because they didn't resemble my earlier work, were, actually in early form, the work that I have now begun to do … the new work, in other words. I didn't recognize it at first. I thought it was failed old work.
Leila Sand, the heroine of Erica Jong's Any Woman's Blues, is a mid-fortyish, compulsively fornicating artist and celebrity who, despite occasional moments of satisfaction in the natural world or in bed, is almost continuously woebegone. She's gripped by a sadomasochistic obsession (object: an obnoxiously faithless young hustler named Darton Venable Donegal IV), her muse is deserting her and her studio is in chaos. What's more, her children (twin daughters) don't need her, and wine and weed keep punching her out.
This is a free excerpt of 170 words. There are 945 words (approx.
3 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Erica Jong: Critical Review by Benjamin DeMott Access Pass.
