My Life So Far

A very intimate and honest portrait of her life. Jane is quite candid about her bulimia, her relationship issues, and her insecurity. She is also a very articulate and accomplished writer. I had the opportunity to meet her briefly in the 70's when she was an activist and she was as friendly and down to earth and accessible then as she appears in her memoir. This is woman who deeply cares about the human condition, the environment, and God. Truly an inspiration to me.

Although I am not completely finished reading this book, I am amazed at the blatant honesty about Jane's life. I have always admired her and feel closer now as she lets me in her privacy. I give her full credit for my excellent health at 73. I exercised with her for over 20 years. I also bought her new exercise CD from the store.com called Fit and Strong. What an incredible video for us older folks.

I enjoyed Jane's writing because of her honesty and fearlessness in revealing the real woman behind the superstar. There's a poetry in her style for much of this book. I felt simultaneously as if I were listening to a young girl and a wise older mentor....and that's it! We women are all that way inside so Jane speaks to us; Even if you aren't a huge fan of the Fondas you will still appreciate the growing pains and life lessons learned and shared by this shy yet wordly, often bad-mouthed and misunderstood, American girl. For all you political worriers she explains the whole Vietnam situation in great detail (too much! equals minus 1 star... but I understand why she did) and I skipped some of that part. I'm glad I read this book and feel like I made a friend.

I found this book contained too much about her political life to keep me interested. I much preferred reading the parts about her acting career and personal life. For those people interested in American politics they would find it interesting I would expect.

I enjoyed reading the autobiography of a multi faceted and multi talented woman that many would write off as "Hanoi Jane." Jane Fonda didn't start or end the War in Vietnam. Jane Fonda haters give her too much credit and blame. There is much more to Jane Fonda than her visit to North Vietnam in the early 1970's. This book shows this.

I've heard that Jane Fonda is going to lend her voice and talents to ending the War in Iraq. Be prepared for a deluge of anti-Jane Fonda propaganda. Like Vietnam the War in Iraq didn't start and won't end with her.

How can people criticize an autobiography? This is not a work of fiction or text. It's her story. It's her life. Like her or not, I applaud Ms. Fonda's brutal honesty and willingness to reveal herself on the page. I could not put her book down. Perhaps it is because I have seen every one of her movies and I worked out to her video in the 80's (while I was still smoking and drinking!) and she has been a constant, steady influence in my life. This book is about her journey and it's also about survival. We all have our stuff that we have to deal with, movie star or not, we are human beings with struggles and challenges and joys. Thank you, Jane, for taking the daunting amount of time it took to write your story in your voice, with your heart and mind exposed for all of us to see. I will forever be grateful to you for sharing all of the memories.

An interesting memoir of one of Hollywood's most notable and sometimes scandolous leading ladies. Often recieving either accolades for her performances and political activities or scorn and retribution, often being mislabeled as a traitor in this country, when often she was merely supporting humanitarian causes. In this revealing book she readily admits to her flaws and lapses of good judgement, explaining the background in what she was trying to achieve, perhaps answering the question: "What WAS she THINKING??!?" The book begins in her childhood, and the relationship she didn't have with her Father, Henry Fonda and her troubled mother. This lack of familial relationships, leads her into several failed marriages, always attempting to mold herself to please the men in her life, with unpleasant results. This story is an interesting journey, albeit what seems like a long one. When you have had a wildly variable life as Jane has, by the time you're nearing seventy there is an awful lot to tell, and she does it admirably.

First of all, this is an exceptional book that everyone of our generation (I'm 51) should read. Jane is a fascinating person who was fortunate to lead a public life in very interesting times. She has made an honest effort at laying her soul in view for you to see and there is much to learn from this, both good and bad.

First, the most controversial subject, Vietnam and Hanoi Jane. Fonda gives a detailed description of her side of the Vietnam controversy where she believed fervently the USA was in the wrong. Clearly, this was a bad war in which we should not have participated. However, as much as she quotes from the Pentagon Papers and tells of her meetings with soldiers who changed their mind and now understand she position, it still doesn't feel right to me to openly oppose America and cavort with the enemy IN THEIR COUNTRY. I had no real opinion of her on this issue and took no real offense to her visit. Now, reading her side of the story, it just doesn't feel right to carry demonstrations to the enemy's country and flaunt your position. She tries to justify that she wasn't speaking against the soldiers, just the administration. She tries to build a case that the POWs that said they were tortured due to her visit must be lying because others said they weren't tortured. Disagreeing with America is an Americans privilege. Disagreeing while in other countries borders on treason to me. Even she earlier admitted while in France that it felt inappropriate in a foreign country to demonstrate against her country.

But it's not that black and white an issue. Jane makes very good points of why she disagreed and where all the administrations, Republican and Democrat, lied to the public. In my life this is the biggest controversy in our country for this generation. I respect and honor our soldiers. But I also respect and honor Jane Fonda's right to disagree and protest the war. But there is a limit to where the damage is too great. And an apology for sitting on an Anti-aircraft gun doesn't quite cover the damage in my opinion. You will learn a lot of the specific issues that so inflamed her particularly apparent secret bombing of dikes. Form your own opinion but don't let this critical part of the book lessen your enjoyment of the whole book.

Now, to fascinating book parts that are not as controversial. She describes the initial idea of the controversial film "Coming Home", the first major film to deal with Vietnam and the emotional trauma. Reading the evolution of how the film started and evolved is fascinating and I applaud her and her producing partner Bruce, director Hal Ashby, and fellow actors Jon Voight and Bruce Dern on a cinematic masterpiece. And specifically, Jane, thanks for the story behind the scenes on how this masterpiece was made.

And this applies to "On Golden Pond" also. Dare I say maybe the ultimate cinematic accomplishment of our generation? How many Americans my age watched this movie and cried at the touching human story portrayed by some of the greatest actors ever! The back story of Katherine Hepburn is nothing short of fascinating as Jane takes us inside what a real actor is like and how Hepburn both helped her and fought her. This movie is really a synopsis of the relationship of Jane and father Henry's relationship and how wonderful is it to have this raw emotion splayed on the screen!

I'm not just a movie lover as I found the history of her marriage to Tom Hayden fascinating. It just goes to show that what you see in public is not what goes on in all relationships as her "storybook" marriage disintegrates before her eyes. Her famous exercise videos are also covered in depth showing how it slowly started, how she hurt relationships to have the business finance her political causes, and the extent to which it becomes enormously profitable.

For most of this book we have an extreme left-leaning privileged actress who lives her life in a fascinating manner. But in her 50s she's hit by a tornado from the south, Ted Turner, a man that clearly would not be considered a feminists first choice. But this is where the book is even more appealing as this avowed Democrat who admits to not being around religious people unless they were Jewish, suddenly is thrust into a life in the deep South around conservative, Christian people. Maybe the greatest statement I can make of Jane is that unlike a lot of people, many of who will read this book and dislike it, she learned from these new friends and altered her life completely becoming an advocate concerning teenage pregnancy and a devoutly religious person. Life is to be learned from and this later chapter of her life shows that she was willing to grow and continue to learn. I find it fascinating that after living around New York, Los Angeles and France, she has chosen to make Atlanta her home!

I've left out so many parts of this book that are enjoyable like parental skills, her childhood and first marriage. She left out many parts such as any discussion of her romance with Donald Sutherland and I'm sure there are many others. How many Americans knew that her left-leaning, while learned from her father, were cultivated in the six or so years she lived in France in her 20s? Or the fascinating story of how the movie "Fun with Dick and Jane" is made to demonstrate our society living above its means in the 70s?

This is a magnificent book of growing up in the last half of the 20th century. I applaud Jane for allowing me to learn from her, even when I may strongly disagree with her stands. Read this book with an open mind and learn about Jane Fonda, American values, and who you are and who you can be.

If you've always supported Jane, even if you weren't always sure why, you'll breathe a sigh of relief. Yes! you will say, that's why I've always loved this woman! I am not crazy, I was right all along.

Disclaimer: I hate celebrity autobiographies. I am always afraid to read the autobiographies of living celebrities I admire because, by the end of their books, I no longer admire them. Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Mary Tyler Moore all come to mind when I think of celebrities who were diminished by their dreadful self-serving autobiographies.

But Jane--this woman is something else. Even when you want to scream, laugh, hoot, shake her 'til her teeth rattle, you absolutely love her for trying--especially if you are close to her age because, at the exact same time you were day-dreaming about doing all these things, Jane was actually doing them. That's the only way we can justify celebrities being our idols.

If you've always hated Jane then you were probably never much of a reader anyway so it's doubtful you'll get all the way through this 500+ page book. If you've always been a Jane-hater, you'll find lots of new ways to focus your hatred and justify it anew to your fellow Jane-haters (which may be reason enough to read the book.)

You (Jane-haters) will have some kind of Fox News/Jerry Falwell melt-down at the first mention of three-way sex which comes way before the 'Hanoi Jane' episode which is why you hate her even though--admit it--you never had the slightest idea what Jane Fonda was doing in Viet Nam in the first place or even what her opposition to the war was about.

So Jane, my dearest idol, the center of some of the greatest arguments I ever had with my own Henry Fonda-of-a-dad, my quarrel with you has nothing to do with Barberella, or your three-ways or your tank-sitting or your breast implants or your eating disorders.

My quarrel with you, after reading your wonderful book, is that after all this time you still believe that if every adult was the perfect parent then every child would be the perfect future adult. Do you not see, even after writing this soul-searching autobiography, that every multi-talented, multi-dimensional, multi-productive person you mention came from a chaotic childhood and dysfunctional parenting?

Do you not understand even now that people from the most grounded, functional families have your same struggles with intimate relationships? Do you not comprehend that Vadim and Ted and Tom and Dick and Harry need something(albeit a different something) from women, and that whatever it is they need from women is as important to them as what you need from men? Why do you expect them to tap into what you need any more than you are able to tap into what they need?

And do you not recognize the elitist, self-indulgent, yes, laughable characteristics in a woman of your age with all of your blessings whose major complaint in life is that she still hasn't found a Stepford Husband?

Jane, my dearest idol, liver of a wonderful life, doer of marvelous things, writer of an intriguing autobigraphy, wake up! Your life is as good as it gets. Thank your daddy for his coldness, your mother for her mental illness, Hollywood for its money and your hairdresser for that adorable new cut because it all came together to make the Perfect Storm--You.

You wrote a helluva book and I love you now as always.

After reading this book, I'm so impressed with Jane Fonda's intelligence and courage. She has written a very honest book. It's not a tell-all, it's more intimate than that. She said she has been striving for intimacy in her life and I think it shows in her writing.

This book is fun to read. Never mind your political opinions, this is a great read. The writing is wonderful. This is a lady who has led an extremely varied and interesting life and she tells us about her struggles with life and how she tried to cope. I am lightyears away from her life story, but I found so much in her book to identify with. We are the same age and I've grappled with so many of the same issues as she has. I feel we could talk for hours. I wish people would stop picking on Jane. None of us is so perfect we can beat up on others for their lack of judgment at a time in their lives when they really didn't have it together.

This is a worthwhile book and very much worth reading. Despite the wealth, fame, glamour, and all that she is a woman with an amazing story which is told with honesty and courage. Read with an open mind and an open heart.

Always.

After you get through her infant years and years as a toddler, which I always find boring in biographies, this is a great book. Jane is an extremely interesting and beautiful woman. Thoroughly honest too, which is rare in an AUTObiography. It amazes me how insecure she was in her younger years, though I find her physically far more beautiful today than when she was young in her "Vadim" years. I highly recommend this book.

Everyone knows Jane is an excellent actress. I especially liked the character studies and poignant story in "On Golden Pond" which she starred in and I believe directed. But, this is the first book written by her I've read and this lady can write! She has amazing insights into behavior characteristics in others and herself. The anecdotes she relates are well developed and incisive as well as quite interesting. This is a terrific read. If you have to beg, borrow or steal it :-) ....get a copy.

Will recommend it to everyone I know great story and she tells it her self so well. If we could all look back at our own lives and try to figure them out more, we would be happier more whole people. I just wish my memory was better,so I could do so. lol.

Everyone knows Jane is an excellent actress. I especially liked the character studies and poignant story in "On Golden Pond" which she starred in and I believe directed. But, this is the first book written by her I've read and this lady can write! She has amazing insights into behavior characteristics in others and herself. The anecdotes she relates are well developed and incisive as well as quite interesting. This is a terrific read. If you have to beg, borrow or steal it :-) ....get a copy.

Will recommend it to everyone I know great story and she tells it her self so well. If we could all look back at our own lives and try to figure them out more, we would be happier more whole people. I just wish my memory was better,so I could do so. lol.

I had trepidations about purchasing this book. I'm glad I did. It is very interesting and shows insight into the life of someone born in a famous family and making a name for herself. You don't have to agree with others to appreciate them. Jane Fonda's book is inspiring to women. You can do anything you want if you set your mind to it. You can even make mistakes and admit it and show you are only human. Lord knows, I'm happy my mistakes are not splashed across tabloids and newspapers.

I can honestly relate to many of her circumstances.

BRAVO.

An honest look, not only about this former anti war activist, movie star, producer, wife of a billionaire capitalist, and all the rest, but a heart felt look at the struggles that many of us have endured in growing up, making peace with the past and finding new meaning in life forward. Like her or not, Jane Fonda's diverse life has been part of America's psychie from the 60's to the present. She could be living a vain life in Hollywood or waiting to die with the selfish rich in a gated community but instead has choosen to live a life committed to learning from her past and helping others in the process. Her community work in Atlanta is stellar and she certainly has made a difference.

I like the book . I thought it was very interesting reading

about her life. I could not put the book down. Jane Fonda

was very open about her life. She had history of what went on in the sixties and seventies which I thought it was very good.

I would recommend this book.

It was boring, not inspiring with no purpose. I don't want to slam a woman I always admired. I see her differently now. I will say by the end of the book I was still disappointed and not sure why she even wrote it. I feel badly for her. Still not sure she gets it.

The Lord knows His own. More properly, I suppose, He knows everyone, but I mean by my opening that He uses that which is part of our personal being to reach us -- His methods individualized for each one of us.

On several important occasions in my life He has conveyed His mesasge to me via books -- books which I had no intention of reading, books which I assumed beforehand would be either stupid or fluffy, or both.

That is the case with this one. I idly read the book jacket flaps while waiting at Borders to have coffee with a friend. It interested me enough to get a copy out of the library. Then i saw Jane on The Actors' Studio and was blown away by her honesty, and her experience of life as a repressed woman.

Her wounding childhood and the weakness to which many women are prone, that of non-self-confidence, produced a person who continuously shut down her own self and her true voice in order to get or to retain love and approval

I was stunned to find this to be true of a woman I had perceived to be strong, outpsoken, talented, rich and beautiful. And, most important to me, she began to look for and to choose her own voice when she was 60.

So, while not great literature, this book is an honest, moving, encouraging, and enlightening account of struggle and search. I liked it well enough to buy two copies, one for me and one for my daughter.

I have also been struck by the great quotations Jane uses,and have purchased several of the authors she recommends.

Happily surprised, I have both enjoyed and benefited from a book which I initially perceived as the autobiography of a movie star, something in which normally I would have no interest at all. ( )

Jane Fonda writes that when preparing a home video of her life to be shown to guests at her 60th birthday celebration, she asked daughter Vanessa to help her put it together. “Why don’t you just get a chameleon and let it crawl across the screen,” was her perceptive offspring’s reply.

As one of the most visible women of her time, Jane Fonda has presented many indelible faces to the public: Hollywood icon Henry Fonda’s well-bred, Vassar-educated daughter; cinema sex kitten who turned on a dime from the cartoonish erotic fantasy BARBARELLA to the crushing role of desperate, terrifyingly real marathon dancer Gloria in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (for which she should have won the Oscar); antiwar activist, producer, business tycoon, expatriate, stage star, rancher, sportswoman, community organizer, wife, feminist, world traveler, family woman, and, with this book, author. She has wowed world leaders—when she and Ted Turner met Gorbachev at the Kremlin, Turner was virtually ignored, as Gorbachev wanted to talk to Fonda. She’s known the greats—and learned from legends. Her first inkling of her future came from no less than Greta Garbo, who remarked to teenager Fonda while they swam together on the French Riviera that Fonda had potential as an actress. Fast forward to the set of ON GOLDEN POND in 1981, where advice she received from another legend, Katharine Hepburn, “Don’t get soggy,” has stayed with her ever since. There have been countless others of the international elite she has encountered along the way.

She is a star who has made a difference. Her film roles in the ‘70’s and 80’s that reflected her social concerns have raised public consciousness of issues from the dangers of nuclear power to exploitation of office workers to warnings of economic collapse. Her courageous activism put a face on the movement against the Vietnam War, which politicians and historians concede was finally ended due to widespread populist opposition. She got women by the millions concerned about their health as THE fitness leader of the ‘80’s, and jump-started the home video industry in the process. Today, her work to prevent teen pregnancies gives hope to girls who otherwise might never have seen a future for themselves. As she says, “Hope is the best contraceptive.”

So how is it that a woman of such wide and outstanding accomplishment has struggled with feelings of low self-worth, addiction, and hatred for her body throughout most of her life?

She sums up the problem on page 102: “…my relationship with my father seemed to grow even more distant the closer to womanhood I got…But I loved him dearly, and his long shadow was still the defining factor of my life.”

Her need for validation from a man stemmed from her desperate need to obtain love and approval from her emotionally distant father, a need that explains her puzzling marriages. After more than 450 pages of describing all the crippling forms this unfulfilled yearning for dad’s love had taken in her life, the reader knows exactly what’s going on the moment she has her first date with loquacious Ted Turner. Motor mouth Turner, who blabs every intimate thought going on in his head, would be bound to bowl her over after suffering with her taciturn father. But, strangely, Fonda still doesn’t seem to get it, exhilarated by Turner and once again unable to detect the way she reproduces her emotionally stilted relationship with her father in her relationships with men. She ends up wedded to yet a third husband who, despite appearances, has his own peculiar ways of emotionally shutting down and avoiding the emotional intimacy she craves. In the end, her head-scratcher of a marriage to Turner seems to have been mostly about stupendous sex, fly fishing, acquiring additional acreage, and babysitting him with his timorous abandonment issues.

Similarly, her continued alienation from her body lingers as a defining issue of her life, although one would think that her unbridled success as a fitness guru would have taken care of that mind/body split that she still complains of late in the book. Apparently, while leading the fitness movement of the ‘80’s, she felt as disconnected between mind and body as ever, even while presenting herself as the fitness queen. She says kicking the bulimia she had lived with since she was a teenager was a matter of making a decision and going cold turkey in her 40’s. She doesn’t describe it as an outgrowth of her changing body image through exercise, but rather as one more act of sheer willpower, in a life propelled by jet-fuelled determination.

She writes that in her 60’s, after separating from Turner, she has begun to find peace and spiritual grounding, a feeling of wholeness and contentment, a sense of embodiment and her empowerment as woman, while still carrying on her work for social change. Her tale is written for women, but there is plenty for men to ruminate upon in her story, particularly men with daughters, as she vividly illustrates the importance of a father’s emotional availability to his daughter.

Of all her accomplishments, I think her greatest, and the one she can be most proud of, is the diversity of the community of friends, family and associates she has built through the years. She notes that her sixtieth birthday party was probably the most diverse gathering Atlanta had ever seen. If we are judged by the company we keep, and perhaps, in the end, redeemed by that family of those who know and love us, and whom we know and love, Fonda’s life has been immeasurably enriched by the astounding avenues she has traveled. The wide-ranging friendships she enjoys in the “third act” of her life attest to a life well-lived and perhaps her most enviable legacy.

Honestly, I am near tears. I just finished listening to My Life So Far, and I had felt that I was sitting in a cozy room, sipping tea, as Jane talked about her life....in vivid detail...in a way that captured me heart and soul. Her book impacted me so deeply because, I too, suffer from leaving parts of me behind so I could please my guy. That conditioning runs so deep. Her book gave me hope to keep on searching for myself and my own values, because I am in my 3rd act of life, and I want to be a role model to my children and grand children, and great grand children. I really wanted to be able to pick up the phone, and call Jane, and tell her how much her book meant to me. Namaste

THE ABRIDGED AUDIONBOOK READ BY JANE FONDA:

Thanks to Fonda's bravura reading, this eloquent abridgement of her stirring 500-page autobiography is one of the best audiobooks of the season. Her tour de force performance ranges from hilarious (an imitation of Ted Turner trying to say "monogamous") to heartbreaking (her final days with her dying father).

This probing and articulate memoir follows Fonda's quest for self-discovery: "To have a good third act you need to understand what the first two have been about. I don't want to die without knowing who I am." With unsparing honesty, she admits to 30 years of bulimia and anorexia, dissects three failed marriages and details her cathartic, four-hour meeting with Vietnam vets in 1988 as a "raw, angry, emotional... exorcism" of the myth of Hanoi Jane. With the exception of Barbarella, Klute and On Golden Pond, the abridgment skims the two-time Oscar-winner's films in favor of her political awakening, budding feminism and emotional and spiritual growth.

It's a fascinating, surprising journey, brought vividly to life by Fonda, who chuckles and ad-libs at will. On a side note: kudos to Random's inside packaging for including five photos from the book.

Jane Fonda's work was a surprise, especially after reading several other accounts of the Sixties and Seventies, and the lives led by other stellar figures in Movement Politics and the careers that followed.

Jane has certainly mastered the craft of the Memoir and the genuine quality of a master read. Whether you agree or disagree with her bold stand she took for peace, or not, her moral integrity and frank honesty make this book a major contribution for the 'second sex' on their lives as political and public figures.

Certainly a keen reference to a leading figure in the Cold War era of dissent and conflict, I was privileged to hear her speak at San Jose State when I was about to graduate, after several years of dedicated work for peace in the South Bay myself. As may be found in my own account of the era, just recently publishedThe Wawona Brotherhood, The San Jose State Campus Revolt

I am one of the biggest readers of biographies/autobiographies with over 50 under my belt. Jane Fonda's is one of the best because she reveals her weaknesses, erorrs, and personal victories with honesty and emotional depth. She is candid but oh so real because she walks one through her mindset at the different periods in her life and the personal regrets. It is rare to read someone's life journey with such open-mindedness and ownership. She takes full responsibility for her life and choices. Whether it is an intimate or public act, Jane Fonda stands there exposed for all. She is a marvelous woman who has lived/loved, exhaulted/destroyed, walked/crawled, and cried with joy and pain. This is a marvelous read. I devoured it because I like where she is at now. Remember, it is how one ends the journey that is remembered. enjoy ythis wonderful and heartfelt account of an amazing life of highs and lows.

I picked up this book mainly out of curiosity about Jane Fonda's controversial image. Though I know of her films and exercise videos, I have never watched any of her work. I was interested to find her perspective in all the trash talk about her. I tend to be opinionated at times myself, so I wondered if she is just misunderstood.

I am so glad I read this book. Not only is it a woman's lib book without the preaching, FOnda uses her own life's risks, successes, and mistakes as lessons in the matter. She doesn't mind exposing herself as the crash test dummy, respectfully speaking. She admits poor decisions when they were made, points out her own vulnerabilities and naivete, and is candid and honest as one can get.

The book covers so much of what most FOnda seekers would want to know (her relationship with her father, her coming of age as an actress, her early involvement in the antiwar movement, and her ability to reinvent herself over and over). She covers that and much much more.

The book is easy to follow chronologically, is very detailed, and is NOT some empty-headed celebrity gossip memoir. It is thought provoking while examining the life of a woman who chooses to speak up. I would say Jane Fonda has a lot of balls, but that would give too much credit to the male species where credit is not due. No, instead I would say Jane Fonda is ALL WOMAN!

In a brutally honest fashion, legendary actress and activist Jane Fonda describes her life story. She starts with the complicated relationship with her sick and depressed mother to whom she dedicates the book, and moves on to the equally challenging relationship with strong, silent, stoical Henry Fonda.

Jane's quest for her father's approval dominates much of her life as does her desire to please her three husbands. She talks about her mother's suicide and her own struggle with bulimia as candidly as if she were telling the story to a best friend. At the end, we feel that we know Jane and we can see a bit of ourselves in her tale.

We haven't all experienced such terrible tragedy in childhood nor have most of us acquired the status and influence that Fonda has. However, at heart she is just another woman who suffered from low self-esteem and the need to define herself through men, which is what many women learn from the culture.

My Life So Far is a walk down memory lane. Although Jane is older than me, she details the history of America along with her own, and that prompts vivid recollections of events such as JFK's assassination and the racial integration of schools and hotels.

Listening to her descriptions of her acting career, her passionate involvement in the Vietnam War and the time that she spent counseling young women on body image and contraception was fascinating. (One of the funniest lines in the book was when Jane's first husband was talking about the war and Jane was thinking to herself, "Where is Vietnam?") Her reconciliation of Christianity with feminism was also interesting.

With this great book, Jane Fonda has finally come home. I wish her well in her third act!

Sigrid Macdonald. Author of D'Amour Road

Jane's social strata sure is self-indulgent. Their operating principle seems to be, "If I do it, it is a prori proper." And since it is proper, then honest befuddlement can honestly appear on Jane's face when someone questions her going to North Vietnam while the United States is at war with that country. Living with Vadim becomes self-justified. Not being there for her children becomes a casual concern. Taking up with Ted after he blindsides his family in pursuit of a mistress becomes inherently acceptable (ignore the lesson this teaches her children). I believe this is a social strata thing. Thomas Jefferson had captured British officers visit Monticello for a fine repast. Teddy Roosevelt left his first daughter with his sister while he went off to be a cowboy for two years. If a member of that social strata does something, it is beyond questioning (by us lessers)

The book is interesting, with some valuable considerations, so I found it worth the time and effort. Some of the psychological perspectives are worth considering. If Kansas is normalcy, these folks live in Oz.

I purchased 'My Life So Far' out of curiosity... what would Jane Fonda do in her author incarnation? I was expecting something mildly diverting. I was not expecting to be impressed by Ms. Fonda nor moved by her story, nor was I expecting to like her. But Fonda has delivered an impressive and eloquent autobiography that will resonate with many.

Fonda eschews the typical celebrity biography format, preferring to focus on her personal journey. She roots her story in the events of her childhood, a period defined by her parents' deteriorating marriage and ultimate divorce, her father's withdrawn and frequently stormy behavior, and her mother's eventual suicide. In Fonda's retelling, this troubled beginning sets the stage for her own, well-publicized marital difficulties, as well as her long-time reluctance to identify with other women-- a reluctance that she has started to overcome only in recent years.

While her evolution as a woman forms the core of this book, Fonda also discusses her careers as award-winning actress, political activist and fitness icon. The portrait that emerges is one of a strong, talented woman who has lived her truth, even when she would have been better served by caution.

While her movie career is not Fonda's primary focus in 'My Life So Far', film fans will appreciate her discussion of her performances in 'Klute', 'Julia' and 'On Golden Pond'. Fonda's recounting of the making of 'On Golden Pond' with her father, Henry Fonda, and Katharine Hepburn is especially moving, as is her account of her father's final days.

On a lighter note, Fonda ably pokes fun at herself. She quotes her daughter, Vanessa Vadim, on the subject of developing a short home movie to depict Fonda's life for a recent birthday: "Why not just let a chameleon walk across the screen?" And Fonda wryly lets us know that she left the luxe world of Ted Turner to drive across town to share Vanessa's cramped Atlanta apartment.

Fonda notes that upon her 60th birthday she entered her own Act Three-- the portion of her life that she hopes will weave the successful conclusion of the periods that preceded it. Her efforts to examine her past, understand it, and use it to create a more mature and meaningful future cast her in the unlikely role of Everyman. It is a testimony to the strength and eloquence of 'My Life So Far' that the reader admires Fonda's quest and wishes her well.

"Make it better" is her mantra.

A great implicit study in Temperament, although she is clueless about Temperament. Jane Fonda has had a quite interesting journey in her life so far. A privileged and mostly ignored daughter of Henry Fonda and her suicidal mother Frances, Jane grew up not knowing herself. This is tragic situation for an Idealist, for she hid her excessive Idealist's guilt and naivety with eating disorders and marrying three times. But, she slowly kept trying to understand herself, as Idealists are wont to do, and finally did after 60 years. It took her almost a lifetime to find her voice and calling: teaching women's issues -- teaching the stuff she actually experienced and conquered -- rather than the political knowledge that she naively tried to pass off as her own, using her fame, and Idealist credulity as an activist in her younger, reluctant-phony, days.

Her explaining of her relationships is especially revealing: one Idealist and two Artisan husbands. She shows some of the pitfalls of the Idealist-Artisan marriage, as well as some of the advantages. She gives us an intriguing glimpse at her father -- a greatest generation Idealist born into a very tactiturned midwest upbringing. If the complicated interaction of Temperament and Environment does not intrigue you in this case, it never will.

Her autobiography is mostly honest and open, and is an articulate exposing of the interworkings of a Teacher Idealist thoughts and feelings. Moreover, it gives us a panoramic view of both the political and social history of the last 50 years from her personal perspective -- obviously colored from her point of view -- but clearly honest and biased. It is one of the best autobiographies of a female Teacher Idealist I have found. Good work Hanoi Jane. I think she achieved what she wanted to accomplish with this book. She really put herself out there, as best she can, for all of us to see and learn from.

I loved it! It is an passionate and difficult life honestly told. She acknowledges her mistakes......all of which are understandable.... if not inexcusable.

This is a brave woman. She didn't write this book to make money.

She wrote it to help women. and she has.

Her new show.....on Netflix (I have seen just one episode); is another gift from this smart, lovely gorgeous and funny lady. She is telling a tale that is a true learning experience!!

Brava! to Jane!!!

Penelope

In a memoir that is candid, painful,redemptive, and reflective, Jane Fonda offers an intimate view of her life which is unflinching in its honesty. She does not spare herself, yet, at the same time, this autobiography avoids self-pity. She grew up in a family that was both amazing and deeply flawed and that she has survived and thrived under the merciless spotlight of public focus is a miracle all by itself. Jane weaves a fascinating story of her journey that is insightful and intriguing.