Bitter Bitch

April 25, 2011
The inequalities between men and women spawns a dry, forthright work by Swedish radio and TV producer Sveland. Armed with Erica Jong's Fear of Flying to keep her company on a solo holiday to the Canary Islands, Sara compares herself to Jong's protagonist, Isadora: 30, tired of sex-stifling married life, and appalled by the persistently patronizing attitude of men toward women. But unlike Isadora, the advocate of the original "zipless fuck," Sara does not want to sleep with any one but her husband; she just wants to own her own life. Ensuing chapters cut back to momentous periods of Sara's life: her father's treatment of her mother soured Sara's sense of marital relations; her schoolteachers assured her that as an attractive girl she did not need to be a serious student; and her husband's long absences for work when she had a newborn son left her feeling abandoned. Over her week's reflectionâsome thoughtful, some tediousâSara makes a few resolutions about how to best live her life. Not much actually happens; it's close, quiet, and more interested in ideas than in narrative.

June 1, 2011

Just when one dares to think that contemporary society has attained equality between the sexes (at least within industrialized nations) along comes a feminist rant in the form of a novel (a best seller in Europe) by a young Swedish author. In dire need of a retreat from domesticity, Sara breaks away from her husband and toddler son and takes off for a week in the Canary Islands equipped with Erica Jong's Fear of Flying. Has the world truly taken a few steps back from the "you've come a long way, baby" revolutionary 1970s? This novel shouts a resounding, "Yes!" Free from her responsibilities, Sara ponders her life, her loves, her needs, and asks the existential questions: Is this all there is? How does a woman reconcile her role as wife and mother with her own individuality and unique gifts? Why can't a woman be as sexually free as a man without being denigrated as a whore? Sprinkled throughout the text are reverential paeans to early women artists and feminist writers like Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. VERDICT The reader must put up with a certain amount of narcissistic navel-gazing to obtain a voyeuristic but interesting view of a smart, cosmopolitan, young woman's life.--Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC

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