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About Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1977)
Page 20 — Griffin Daily News Thursday, March 10/ 1977 E About books Isadora and Oliver revisited HOW TO SAVE YOUR OWN LIFE by Erica Jong (Holt. Rinehart & Winston. 310 pages. $8.95) OLIVER’S STORY by Erich Segal (Harper & Row. 264 pages. $7.95) Capsule reviews prepared by the American Library Assn By Carol Felsenthal Did Isadora Wing ever learn to fly? Did Oliver Barrett IV ever get over Jenny? Wonder no more. The millions who laughed through “Fear of Flying” and cried through “Love Story” now can be further amused and depressed by the continuing adventures of Isadora and Oliver. But they’re likely not to laugh or cry so hard the se cond time around. Whereas "Fear of Flying” often soared with humor, Erica Jong’s latest, “How to Save Your Own Life,” more often sinks beneath its earnest message, its clinical descrip tions of sex, and its one dimensional characters. Isadora's outrageous pals and relatives and fumbling sexual encounters enlivened the original. Isadora's husband Bennett, the new novel’s focus as well as its symbol of death, dulls the sequel. Bennett is the compleat cliche — the cool, cruel, calculating Oriental; the emotionally stunted psy chiatrist who hasn't a clue about human nature. He’s such a predictable character that by concentrating on him so exclusively, Jong forfeits dramatic tension, not to men tion interest in what’s going to happen next. The minor characters who fill Isadora's life are, almost to a person, uptight, emotionally dead New Yorkers, doomed to wallow forever in guilt and self hatred Isadora, by this time the bestselling author of “Candida Confesses,” is on the verge of joining them — slowly “dying of deadlocked wedlock’ and the notoriety of her role as naughty lady novelist. But then, when she has reached the depths of personal and professional despair, she meets California Josh — young, beautiful, free, furry, warm; an unemployed screenwriter with time, money, and love to spare, a hippie with a sports car. As the reader learns in the first chapter, Isadora flies from Bennett and New York (i.e. death and stupefaction) to Josh and California (i.e. life, love, freedom, and creativity). All it takes is one night with Josh to teach Isadora what she has spent the bulk of the novel pondering, namely, how to save her own life. First, refuse to “write another book in which the heroine reaches out for love and settles for cynicism." Second, renounce all security, including her co op, her Bloomingdale’s charge card, and her husband. Third, hurry back to Califor nia and have a baby with Josh. Although she doesn't have much to say in this novel, Jong writes — almost always — with a rare flair — which is certainly much more than can be said for Erich Segal, who is either cloyingly cute or com pletely clumsy. Sentences like What Americans are reading Fiction This Last Weeks Week Week On List 1. CEREMONY OF THE INNOCENT, 1 14 by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday. $10.95.) 2. TRINITY, 2 48 by Leon Uris (Doubleday. $10.95.) 3. RAISE THE TITANIC!, 4 8 by Clive Cussler (Viking. $8.95.) 4. TOUCH NOT THE CAT, 3 28 by Mary Stewart (Morrow, $8.95.) 5. SLEEPING MURDER, 7 18 by Agatha Christie (Dodd. Mead. $7.95.) 6. STORM WARNING, 8 15 by Jack Higgins (Holt. Rinehart & Winston, $8.95.) 7. DOLORES, 5 30 by Jacqueline Susann (Morrow, $6.95.) 8. THE CRASH OF ’79, 9 3 by Paul E. Erdman (Simon and Schuster, $8 95.) 9. PRIDE OF THE PEACOCK, — 20 by Victoria Holt (Doubleday, $7.95.) 10. THE USERS, 8 4 by Joyce Haber (Delacorte, $8.95.) Non-Fiction This Last Weeks Week Week On List 1. ROOTS, 1 20 by Alex Haley (Doubleday. $12.50.) 2. PASSAGES, 2 32 by Gail Sheehy (Dutton, $10.95.) 3. AMBITION, 4 14 by John Dean (Simon and Schuster. $11.95.) 4. YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES, 3 19 by Wayne W. Dyer (Funk & Wagnails. $6.95.) 5. THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER OVER 7 14 THE SEPTIC TANK, by Erma Bombeck (McGraw-Hill, $6.95.) B.HITE REPORT. 5 4 by Shere Hite (Macmillan, $12.50.) 7. BLOOD 8 MONEY, 8 18 by Thomas Thompson (Doubleday. $10.95.) 8. THE RIGHT AND THE POWER, 8 19 by Leon Jaworski (Reader's Digest Press Gulf Publishing Co.. $9.95.) 9. ADOLF HITLER, 9 13 by John Toland (Doubleday, $14.95.) 10. LIFE AFTER LIFE, —1 by Raymond A. Moody, Jr. (Stackpole. $5.95.) ERICA JONG’S latest book, “How to Save Your Own Life,” often sinks beneath its earnest message. “I and Geoff competed to be the glutton of the day” appear with distressing regularity. The story opens in 1969 (two years after Jenny’s death) as Oliver — equipped with a new social conscience and a sports car — is doing his part to save the world. His base of opera tion, believe it or not, is his Wall St. law firm. It seems that lucky Oliver never gets burdened by boring corporate concerns. Instead he spends his time defending draft dodgers from the government and children from school board members who want to censor “Catcher in the Rye.” It’s the same old story: Oliver, the Lone Ranger of lawyers, is the savior of strangers but the victim of__his own uncon trollable grief. Then, while jogging in Cen tral Park, Oliver is humiliated when a beautiful blond woman sprints ahead of him. Before long, the two jocks have a ten nis date for the next morning, and so ensues a typical Segal repartee. Marcie: And may I know your name? Oliver: Gonzales, madam. Pancho B. Gonzales. Marcie: I knew it wasn’t Speedy Gonzales. Anyway, they’re soon in love, but it's obvious that their passion is doomed to dissolu tion. Although the lovers have an unbelievably amount in com mon (for openers, they’re both heirs to fortunes), there are a couple of irreconcilable differences. Marcie, for all her other at tributes, lacks a well developed social conscience. Not only that, she’s simply too dedicated —for a woman, that is — to running the family’s department store chain. Ultimately, Oliver and his conscience return to their patrician New England roots and the family investment business. “What we do at Barrett, Ward and Seymour,” Oliver writes in an epilogue, “is important too. I mean the companies we help to float create new jobs.” By the novel’s close, Olivers HI and IV have gotten so close (The reader will recall that Oliver used to genuinely detest his father) that one keeps waiting for Dad to turn to Son and whisper: “Son, love means never having to say you’re sorry.” I NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN > / ■ Hu. ri * a In | j ■’ /HE I p ibßi3\'< ■■■■ vl/cl ib? Tower falls HOPEWELL, Va.—This picture by P. A. Gonnus Jr. of the Richmond Tlmes-Dlspatch shows the south tower of the Benjamin Harrison Bridge after the north tower fell into the river Sunday night, dropping one end of the draw span TRADING POST OF GEORGIA WHATEVER IT TAKES—WE GIVE NEW CARS — USED CARS — MOTOR HOMES — NEW TRUCKS — USED TRUCKS — DEMOS. 1975 Buick 1974 Buick MMhHK Century Springspecial Stereo Radio Real Sharp Tilt Wheel Special Today Wire Wheel Covers ■ ‘ $7,050.00 $3,695.00 fc I ' 1971 Chev Vega Automatic 4 Speed Stereo W-Tape Local One Owner Real Nice $995.00 KEHi3I 1974 chev ■MHEZQEE Monte Carlo Monza Burgandy-White T Automatic Fact. Air Pretty Blue IAK-al Car This Week Real Sharp $2,495.00 1974 Datsun Camero 4 Speed Low Miles White Vinyl Top Z Real Clean Fact. Air White Plus Local Car Only $4,395.00 $2,495.00 $2,395.00 MHNMRMHBH 1976 Ford Granado 22.000 Miles Fact. Air Power Steering Power Steering New Paint : ■ ,„c ol j, 1971 Olds. Cutlass Supreme Cutlass 442 Duster „ v Real Clean 6 Cyl. Automatic Bucket Seats Priced To SeD Local, One Owner Console Real Clean Real Sharp $4,695.00 $2,295.00 $1,995.00 i9 p 5 . T T ta hKRSSk Gran Up MIRIHHHi H9RHQ3HBH Coasole One Owner Ufr ' , 13,000 Miles $3,295.00 See A Professional Salesman Colin Reeves Hamp Russell Randy Skates Zach Hayes Donnie Wilson Melvin Waldrop Kerry Bunn Melvin Lester Homer Sigman Lanier Shivers Mark Luke Eric Sigman Sigman Buick - Toyota Os Griffin 1301-1303 W. Taylor St. Phone 228-0090 228-2700 Sales Office Open 8:30-8:30 Mon.-Fri. 8:30-5:00 Sat. into the water. The tanker Marine Floridian, which hit the north truss span Feb. 24, lies at anchor, top left In photo. (AP) Librarian is indexing Star Trek episodes FAIR LAWN, N.J. (AP) - The first index of Star Trek sto ries, written by fans in the 10 years the show has been off the air, is being put together by a Fair Lawn librarian. Roberta Rogow has pur chased 20,000 index cards on which she hopes to compile the “Trexindex,” a guide to finding all the works. The stories are the work of amateur writers who dream up new plots, serialize them and send them to fellow fans in what Mrs. Rogow calls “fanzines.” Mrs. Rogow said she under took the project because she found that she could obtain one part of a series, then not be able to find subsequent episodes. “It drove me insane,” she said. “In a library there are al ways indexes to periodicals for help in finding this sort of thing.” So far Mrs. Rogow’s Trexin dex lists the fanzines and 3,000 separate stories. It also cross indexes by subject and charac ter. She said she hoped to have the list published in spring and expected it to sell for about $6 in bookstores.
