Seducing the demon , 鎴戜笌Erica Jong | Sep 16 2006

• 在书店里买到Jong的新书 Seducing the demon, 一口气两个晚上就翻完了。马上跟她的agent联系，想知道什么时候再能有机会见到她，希望能得到这本书的翻译权。
  
  
  10年前认识Jong，这些年来我一直把她当作我的的Mentor，我的文学老师，我的文友。读她的小说仿佛在读我自己的传记。我对她的喜爱与崇拜超过了任何一位女作家。
  
  
  现在把她书里的一些段落打出来与大家分享，这本书是本年度的best seller，是为她自己也是为所有爱好写作的人写的指导书：
  
  
  Isaac Baqshevis Singer wrote a wonderful story called "Taibele and her demon." in it, a man pretending to be a demon visits by night a pretty young woman whose children have died and whose husband has walked out in utter despair.
  
  
  at first the demon terrifies her with his ugliness, but then she falls in love with him-as much for his vivid stories of hell and heaven as for his demonic lovemaking. she completely forgets that he's ugly and becomes more and more attached to him-even though after a while she can see his human failings. yes, this demon "perspired, sneedzed, hisccupped, yawned." yes, "sometimes his breath smelled of onion, sometimes of garlic...his body felt like the body of her husband, bony and hairy, with an adam's apple and a navel...his feet were not goose feet, but human with nails and frost blisters.
  
  
  once taibele asked him the meaning of these things, and hurmizah(the demon's assumed name) explained;"when one of us consorts with a human female, he assumes the shape of a man. Otherwise she would die of fright."
  
  "yes, taibele got used to him and loved him. she was on longer terrified of him and his impish antics."
  
  
  perhaps she suspected he was really a man, but not wanting to know it, she refused to. Singer's story is a kind of reverse scheherazade:the woman falls in love with the teller of tales and welcomes his lovemaking no matter what his looks. but it is more than that. it's a fable of disguise to give each other permission to love each other. she needs to believe he is a demon so that she thinks she has no choice but to submit to him. he needs to be convinced that she believes him in order to keep up the elaborate fantasy that turns her on. Many marriages are based on less.
  
  
  the story of Taibele has always seemed to me the perfect metaphor for my life as a writer.
  
  
  the job of the writer is to seduce the demons of creativity and make up stories. often you go to bed with a man who claims to be a demon and later you find out he's just an everday slob. by then he may have inspired a novel. the novel remains though the demon has departed.
  
  
  ........
  
  
  So who is my demon?
  
  
  He is wild, uncivilized and lives entirely in the moment. He makes up stories and acts them out. He is never polite. He didn’t go to college and certainly did not get an MFA at Iowa. He doesn’t know which fork to use. He never heard about the ten commandments-and certainly not the one about adultery. He has hairy feet and ver likely a tail.
  
  
  Let’s see if you can tell when the demon appears. It shouldn’t be hard. He casts a jagged shadow. And he leaves a wet spot on the sheet.
  
  
  Of course, for male writers he is a she. She becomes whatever physical type the writer favors, since men care so much more about appearance than women do. Does he like big rits with rosy nipples? .....
  
  
  For a gay write, he’s the perfect boy. He has idealized muscles like Michelangelo’s david. He may even be a lovely Bacchus or a Hermes with winged sandals.
  
  
  He’s Greek, of course. The Greeks had the most beautiful boys. And they competed naked with their adorable cocks bound up in leather thongs so as not to swing. Oh what repture to watch them run! Nobody was gay or straight then-only human.
  
  
  
  ^^^^^^^
  
  
  
  Nobody wants to read-or write-about perfect people. Perfection is boring. And unbeliebable. It was my curse or blessing to have interesting relatives. They were all smart and talented. But I was the one with guts to rish disapproval and defeat. Talent is nver enought. Talent without guts gets you exactly nowhere. Which is why I am most proud of Molly. She has guts. She has never been afraid to take me on. Or the world.
  
  
  .....
  
  When you are the writer in the house, it is your version that gets told. Naturally, other people resent that. The problem is that you must live with them and at the same time live with your own demon. The demon says: the hell with them. Tell the story!” the family says: be mice, don’t embarrass us. And above all be good to isreal!
  
  
  There is no way to make peace between these two conflicting demands.
  
  
  
  ^^^^
  
  
  when we are young, our parents case these huge shadows. Then they shrink and shrink until it’s time to put them in a box. How would I have survived thse metaphorphoses without wirting?
  
  
  My demon thinks I want to nurder my mother. Can he possibly be rigtht? I have often wundered why wirters a re so obsessed with murder. Is it because we all need to murder out parents in order to go on?
  
  
  
  

• JulyI read this book few months ago, and like it too. The most funny part is she had a dream to fuck Clinton :)) She is a Jewish and poet --- the two kinds people I like the most :)) (but I don't really like her poems) Here is her link: http://www.ericajong.com/
• PaulJuly,I just wonder why you like Jewish.I know nothing about them.you may help me to get some information about Jewish.thanks
• 鐜涢泤这里是我三年前写与她交往的一段： 虻叔提到Erica的新书，我这里就侃一段我与她的结缘。大约八、九年前，我的台湾女友作家成寒毛羽翻译了Erica Jong的代表作《怕飞》。那时我还是一个怕飞的小女子。成寒写信来与我们讨论“ziplesss fuck”的中文翻译，根据Erica为zipless fuck 所下的定义，成寒觉得“意淫”最为恰当。根据《红楼梦》里警幻仙姑的定义：“ ‘意淫’二字，惟心会而不可口传，可神通而不可语达。汝今独得此二字，�
• July 这是一个大问题，我在写一篇故事关于这个问题。大概说吧： 1） 犹太人和中国人很多地方像似，聪明，勤劳，重视教育，以家庭为中心。 2） 犹太人太聪明了，据一些数据统计，他们的智商是最高的。科学家，艺术家里犹太人特别多。 3） 犹太人特别坚持自己的传统。我家附近有一座犹太教堂，一百五十年的历史了，还和新的一样。 4） 如果你读过圣经，就会知道，他们是神的选民，它们不停地背弃神，所以吃了很多苦，受了很多难。
• July在Seducing the demon里，我最喜欢她对威尼斯的描述，还没有见过任何人把威尼斯写得那麽美。
• rzp Just wondering, how many jewish you've known, friends with and how big is the Jewish community you live(d) in ?
• JulyI have quiet Jewish friends. My next door is a Jewish doctor and we are very good friend. My boss is a Jewish too. He loves music, poerty and is very smart. I live in a Jewish community but I don't know how big :)) It was the biggest Jewish community long before, not anymore, but still quiet big. But don't misunderstand I like every Jewish...like everywhere, some good, some bad...I am just sayi
• rzp50%+ of my colleagues in the past 10 years are Jewish. 50%+ of the neigbors and my kid's classmates are Jewish people. They are indeed quite outstanding from other people. There are many types of Jewish. Just like Chinese, perhaps any other heritage groups. It is good that we can share views for each others here.
• fanghuzhai"Internet dating is providing the 2003 version of the ziplesss fuck, unapologetically no-strings-attached, purely sexual experience. Women, in other words, get to act like men." Ha anyone here fucked on internet? Just curious
• July我现在住的地方，在上个世纪20年代，是芝加哥犹太富人的居住区，有几条街住的全是当时的‘CEO’们。他们在这里盖犹太会堂，办学校。 [Image] [Image]
• HahaThis fanghuzhai must be fake.
• rzpI do know many Jewish families moved from or related to Chicago. New York is the second largest Jewish population centre in the world, after Tel Aviv in Israel. The United States is competing with Israel for the title of home to the world's largest Jewish population, and has by far the largest community of Ashkenazi Jews, Jews who came from central and northern Europe. The American Jews i
• JulyI am reading a book titled "Revisting the shadows", the author Irena Shapiro who is my best Jewish friend's mother. After she surviving her last concentration camp at Auschwiz, worked in Germany for the American and British armed forces. In 1946 she was among the first few hundred displaced persons granted a collective visa to the United States. She tought biology at the Bronx High School of Scien
• 鐜涢泤Seducing the demon 节选： I am going to write because i cannnot help it. charlotte bronte wrting is the first anti-depressant. it came before prozac or effecxor. and it was cheaper. all you needed was a blank piece of paper and a pencil, as my father used to say. if you were lucky, you might even make some dough. but even if you didn't, you were doing something godlike-emblazoning wor
• July她在这本书里说：当生活使你失望的时候，写作就成了必需的。
• rzpThis is an interesting article about Erica Jong written in 1999. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3847972,00.html What this woman wants When Fear Of Flying was published 25 years ago, it was an immense success - millions found liberation in its message that what women should want is sex and - above all - adultery. But was that truly a radical stance? Suzie Mackenzie asks it
• 鐜涢泤Erica's 20 Rules for Writers 1. Have faith--not cynicism 2. Dare to dream 3. Take your mind off publication 4. Write for joy 5. Get the reader to turn the page 6. Forget politics (let your real politics shine through) 7. Forget intellect 8. Forget ego 9. Be a beginner 10. Accept change 11. Don't think your mind needs altering 12. Don't expect approval for telling the truth - (Parent
• Hata玛雅, is she a Chinese or Korean offsprings?
• JulyNo, She is a Jewish. Jong is her first husband's last time. I guess she became famous by this name so she never changes her last name. Now, she is with her forth husband.

(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation