Subject: The Sundering of Innocence and its Fiery Consequence
This memorandum provides all Lovelorn Lasses an upTo: Lovelorn Lasses From: Majority Staff
Subject: The Sundering of Innocence and its Fiery Consequence
This memorandum provides all Lovelorn Lasses an update on significant facts relating to the Pursuit of Professors (PoP) and the Investigation of their Secret Lives (ISL) and the use of the Voyeuristic Ingenue Surveillance Act (VISA) during times when they really should be studying and maybe bonding with fellow lasses and not worrying so much about their precious little feelings including their nascent sexuality. Our update below 1) raises concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain PoP-ISL-VISA findings, and 2) represents a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect creative writing professors, their artistic and earthy wives, and their natural interest in seducing Lovelorn Lasses and then sharing photographic records of those seductions with various art magazines.
The “dossier” compiled by author Joyce Carol Oates detailing REDACTED is one of many such prepared by this individual. After carefully considering the ongoing recurrence of certain themes within her frequently issued reports (e.g. loss of innocence; the manipulation of younger women by older men; female sexuality as an elemental force; the appalling darkness that lies beneath civilized exteriors such as those veneers displayed by certain creative writing professors and their artistic, earthy wives), this majority audience is compelled to note that the author exhibits undue bias in favor of various Lovelorn Lasses and is clearly opposed to their manipulation and seduction by faculty members.
UPDATE: All photographic evidence destroyed by blazing fire; a certain faculty member and his wife burned alive....more
Howie is a husky 11-year-old with a birthmark on his face and an awkward style; his Sunday school teacher teases him in the way that adults who don't Howie is a husky 11-year-old with a birthmark on his face and an awkward style; his Sunday school teacher teases him in the way that adults who don't get kids tease. She makes him feel even more awkward. He dreams things about her.
How-ard is a husky 12-year-old with The Sign of the Beast on his face; his Sunday school teacher touched him and he pushed her back and now he no longer goes to Sunday school. His dreams about his teacher are getting stranger.
Howard is a husky 15-year-old who is about to drop out of school; he just learned about how his Sunday school teacher was murdered. He's pretty sure he killed her but actually he's not so sure. Maybe he did? Maybe he didn't.
Oates knows how to portray someone who is on the wrong side of rational. Oates also knows how to portray a person who is far from kind, certainly inappropriate, but somehow not really a predator; she makes a Sunday school teacher's death a portrait in pathos. A dirty, sad kind of pathos.
I didn't like this story although its artistry is impressive. Oates has a gift when it comes to prose. Elegant and experimental... but perhaps not so empathetic. I appreciated the writing but the story left me cold.
Oates is one of my favorite writers, perhaps my favorite literary writer. But my love for her comes from all of the books I read by her in my twenties, a couple decades ago. Perhaps I should reread those? I haven't had the best of luck with her this millennium. The Falls was great though....more
the technique on display is a masterclass on how to write innovative, challenging prose; the book fully illustrates Oates' creativity and range. that the technique on display is a masterclass on how to write innovative, challenging prose; the book fully illustrates Oates' creativity and range. that said, despite my admiration for the writing, at their best these stories bored and annoyed me. at their worst... well, an A for effort but an F for everything else. per Oates, the "female of the species" is mainly predator, sometimes prey, always monstrous, never warranting empathy. this grimy collection of mystery-thrillers each had the same message delivered throughout its tales of death and woe; there are just so many times I can read that message before I start rolling my eyes at the monotony of it all. worst of the worst: "Madison at Guignol" where the author's hatred of privileged trophy wives has her torturing (eventually literally) her poor idiot of a protagonist with an embarrassing level of self-satisfied glee. yuck.
as Kaethe said back in 2014, "I think that Joyce Carol Oates does not like women."...more
This collection of, yes, haunting and grotesque tales finds the author in a dark, ironic, frequently unkind mood. Which is just another Tuesday for JoThis collection of, yes, haunting and grotesque tales finds the author in a dark, ironic, frequently unkind mood. Which is just another Tuesday for Joyce Carol Oates.
As always, her mastery of the art is on full display. I always find it a treat when a writer decides to match their prose to their protagonist's state of mind. And so Haunted features often mannered writing styles that are repressed and introspective ("Haunted"), desperately chatty ("The Bingo Master"), or that feel like a vindictive chant ("Blind"). The most stylized story of all - the hypnotic, horribly bleak "Extenuating Circumstances" - starts each of its sentences with the word Because. Other stories provokingly upend various traditions in narrative structure and story resolution.
But Oates is not only an experimentalist; she also has a sure hand when it comes to more formal, classic prose, as deployed in perhaps the three most easily digestible stories: "The Model" and "The White Cat" and "Premonition".
No matter the style she adopts, the concerns and themes that shape the author's stories remain consistent: strong, vital but also frustrated and often cornered women who may not know exactly what they want but they know they need something different; men as unknowable ogres or men as professors, often living life in a higher realm of thought, of stars - or at least in the higher realms of their heads; faculty life in general, and as microcosm to and analogy for middle to upper class life; and perhaps above all in this collection, aging and losing innocence and what growing old means.
☠
"Haunted": Backwoods girls. Exploring abandoned houses. A severe punishment. A murder. An old woman, haunted.
"The Doll": Dollhouse, realhouse. Panic attack. Private self, public self. She is a living doll.
"The Bingo Master": Her life lived like a story she tells. On the prowl, at the bingo house. The poor spinster virgin.
"The White Cat": A dignified older man. A kind but less than loving younger wife. A smug cat that refuses to be killed.
"The Model": "Where have we come from, and where are we going?"
"Extenuating Circumstances": Why did the child have to die? BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE
"Don't You Trust me?": An abortion. A lack of trust.
"The Guilty Party": The 2-year-old has named himself Jocko. He is the bullying new man in his mother's life. He has orders for her: daddy must die.
"The Premonition": The family makes Xmas gifts with dad.
"Phase Change": Groundhog Day or Sliding Doors or maybe Inception, plus rape.
"Poor Bibbi": Poor Bibbi must be put down, the poor old thing. But what is Poor Bibbi?
"Thanksgiving": We must help Mom. But the supermarket is trashed, its food spoiled and decayed. Nevertheless, the shopping must be done.
"Blind": It was a dark and stormy night. It was a bitter and spiteful old woman. It was a lonely and loveless marriage. It was a terrible and welcome blindness.
"The Radio Astronomer": Senescence, alas.
"Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly": Pity the loving Jessel; pity the virile Quint. Love is not fleeting, it shall return and it shall claim what it owns. A new ghost comes to life.
"Martyrdom": Rats are born. A human is born, and enslaved. Rat boy meets human girl. Fear, pain, blood, torture.
☠
These stories were all technically admirable but many left me cold. Worst of all, the execrable "Martyrdom" which tries to instruct its readers on how life lived as animal or human prey feels, but only succeeds in being the written equivalent of child/animal torture porn. This is the most repulsive short story I've read in the past decade or two. UGH!
But there were a number of stories that I enjoyed. "The Model" is about a young lady with a mysterious but tragic background taking up a wealthy gentleman on his offer to pay her for some modeling in the park. It is a marvel of unnerving ambiguity and slowly increasing tension. "Extenuating Circumstances" left me rather breathless as its abandoned, mentally ill narrator counts off the ways despair and wrath led to her murdering her child. The demented "Guilty Party" is wonderfully surreal and viciously funny. Never trust a 2-year-old to give you good advice, really. The bizarre rape fantasia of "Phase Change" has its gentle, bougie wife being raped by various fantasy figures: a swarthy cop, a group of black men, her gynecologist. Very uncomfortable but also darkly amusing. Not sure whose side Oates was on in that story. Not even sure what it all meant!
My favorites were "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly", which retells "Turn of the Screw" from the perspective of the mournful, vengeful ghosts, and above all the tense and satisfying "The Premonition". This tale has a younger brother feeling a distinct sense of foreboding and so visiting his older brother - a wealthy, abusive alcoholic - only to find his dreadful brother missing and his sister-in-law and her daughters surprisingly merry as they (view spoiler)[finish cleaning up the kitchen, putting away various tools, wrapping up the Christmas gifts they'll be mailing out to the relatives who ignored their abusive situation, right before they leave on an unexpected vacation. Hmm, I wonder what's in those packages? Perhaps it is bloody schadenfreude! (hide spoiler)]
Don't reveal that spoiler if you plan on reading the story!...more
More morbid fun with jolly Joyce! A number of these stories depict the inner lives of various male serial killers, and while serial killing isn't alwaMore morbid fun with jolly Joyce! A number of these stories depict the inner lives of various male serial killers, and while serial killing isn't always the topic, how a body and mind dies and how a personality disintegrates always is. These are less tales of mystery and suspense and more stories of how messed-up minds rationalize their toxic, murderous bullshit. As usual, the prose is superb.
The novellas in the book ("Roland Starza" and "Dr. Moses") are more straightforward tales, but the rest of this collection really showcases how much the author enjoys playing with perspective and structure. Oates' heavy themes certainly give her mainstream literary credibility - despite her well-established love of more disreputable subjects - but for me at least, she is a queen among writers because her morbidity is married to a nimble style that is often both a challenge and a pleasure to read. She deploys the second-person perspective twice, in "Valentine" to act as a scolding monologue from an estranged husband and in "Stripping" to reduce any barriers that would naturally come up between reader and loathsome teacher turned serial killer. The opening tale of a murdered jogger is one long sentence, one of my favorite devices. "Bad Habits" employs the plural first-person as the child protagonists worry about apples not falling far from trees. And in "The Twins" she eschews traditional storytelling altogether, with the reader unclear on who is alive or who dead, what has happened or not happened, and will this all happen again, if it has even happened in the first place.
The terrible, wonderful appeal of a raging waterfall: you can cross above it, brave acrobat... you can lose yourself in it, angst and sadness begone, The terrible, wonderful appeal of a raging waterfall: you can cross above it, brave acrobat... you can lose yourself in it, angst and sadness begone, your body falling into something greater than the cares that weigh you down... you can wait beside it, a spectral vision of mourning and tragedy, a local icon for tourists to gape at, waiting for that body, waiting for the falls to rebirth its lonely suicide as it always eventually will... you can live next to it, next to its tamer parts, the waterfall’s majestic rage always out of sight, a thing for the tourists but not for you... your car can plunge into it, a murderous trap, the falls your last surprise, your final destination... you can lead tours through it, thrilling and scaring the tourists with your easy ability to demonstrate mastery over nature’s terrors... you can dump things into it, no one will see, you can dump things that shouldn’t have been made and that have no place on this earth, things that move from water to soil, bubbling up tar-black in basements and schoolyards, sickening adults and killing children, and denied, always denied, by those who dumped such things.
And that’s the synopsis!
The Falls is a thick novel and a hypnotic one as well. It is easy to get lost in its opening 100 pages or so – not lost as in confused, lost as if in a strange waking dream, or the sleepy thoughts before slumber takes over. At first it is a story of an eccentric woman and a good man, and the love that brings them together. It is a novel that is dense with detail and characterization from beginning to end, but I had such an odd time with that first part. Perhaps it was due to that odd woman. Ariah is the most solipsistic of characters, dreadful and admirable and fascinating and frustrating. Depending on my mood, she either totally absorbed me or she put me to sleep. It was an interesting experience. At times I considered giving up because it was also a challenging experience and I’m not sure I was in the right frame of mind. I’m glad I didn’t! The story of Ariah and her suitor Dick Burnaby ends in two remarkable chapters that lit me right up: one about Ariah’s acceptance of a marriage proposal, detailed in prose so sharp and fierce and idiosyncratic that it woke all of the different parts of my mind; the other a much longer chapter depicting the early years of the marriage itself – a chapter full of loveliness and wisdom, passion and sadness, all the things I needed to suddenly become fully re-engaged with the novel.
The story after that first 100 pages is quite different. More traditional, well as far as Oates can ever be traditional. It is a sort of miniature family saga that focuses on Ariah’s three children, their loves and lives and ambitions and failures, and the battle that is being waged over the poison that has been dumped in the Niagara Falls region for decades. It becomes one of those Big Novels about Important Issues... but yet it still stays intimate. I was able to feel anger at corporate cupidity and the crass banality at the heart of many evil men, but The Falls' biggest attribute even amidst all of that is its brilliant characterization. The children of Ariah and Dick Burnably are amazing – and amazingly real – creations.
The novel troubled me a bit, specifically around Ariah’s later characterization. It made wonder... does Oates have a problem with women? I never expected to feel that way about one of my favorite authors, but the fact remains that many, many of Oates’ most vital female characters are either delicate victims or fascinating monsters. Is there no inbetween for her – and are there no genuine heroines? She has no problem in making Dick Burnaby and his two male children perfectly heroic in their perfectly human ways. They manage to be both real and good. Not so with Ariah. Why did she have to be transformed into such a horrorshow, such a toxic and repulsive figure? Was Oates even aware that what she was creating was not someone to be admired for her independence and eccentricity, but rather someone to be loathed for her small-mindedness, her tunnel vision, her mistreatment of her children? I dunno. Well, it was a disturbing realization but it cannot be denied that Ariah Burnaby is a unique creation. She's a great addition to the JCO gallery of Monster-Women.
Oates is known to be chilly writer, at times even callous or cruel. Not so much with The Falls. With the possible exception of the monstrous, deluded Ariah, her protagonists are written with much kindness and empathy. Even better, I am happy to report that this novel somehow finds its way to grace in the end. It was well-earned. There was a small moment near the end when one nearly-broken character takes another character’s hands – big, rough, scarred paws that have felt and even caused a lot of hurt – and she realizes that they are the most beautiful hands she’s ever seen. I read that part and thought to myself, This is why I love reading… these sublime human moments, these moments of transcendence. The Falls is full of such moments. ...more
"'Bad blood'! --what does that mean?" I asked, revulsed by the thought, and Mother said, "'Bad feeling.' basically," and I said, "But why call it s
"'Bad blood'! --what does that mean?" I asked, revulsed by the thought, and Mother said, "'Bad feeling.' basically," and I said, "But why call it something so ugly-- 'bad blood'? Ugh." My throat choked up as if the smell was with us in the room. "One day," Mother said ominously, yet with satisfaction, "you'll know."
sweet Jesus, this was a disturbing novella.
SOME SPOILERS but nothing you won't find right on the back cover of the book
precocious 11-year old Josie and her intriguing but worthless mother flee their world to live with some distant relatives: Great-Aunt Esther Burkhardt and her sepulchral grandson, 25-year old Jared Jr - a seminary student now living at home again, due to a mysterious bout of 'nervous exhaustion' at the seminary. one balmy day in the dead heat of August, Josie comes across a shirtless and sweaty Jared, gazing into the river that lies behind their dilapidated manor. she is transfixed by that bare torso, "the vertebrae of his spine prominent as tiny knuckles, a ripply impress of ribs through his translucent-pale skin". she has fallen in love; she is hypnotized like a little bird before a snake. Jared forcibly seduces her ('molest' is the appropriate word), and will soon do even more - physically torturing her body and psychologically ensnaring her mind, deeper and deeper, until she finally lashes back in her own small but effective fashion.
i usually give tales of child abuse and molestation a very wide berth. NOT INTERESTED. too grueling, and i am the sort who reads mainly for enjoyment, and not necessarily for edification on how low humans can go. and so i've had this on my shelf, unread, since it was first published in 1996. not sure why tonight was the night that i finally found the nerve to read it, but i'm glad i did. it is graphic, but not overly so. it is a cruel story, but it does not end in nihilism. and man it is beautifully written. gorgeous, really. Oates is a phenomenal writer and First Love shows off her skill at constructing a hypnotic narrative full of sinister imagery, multi-layered dialogue, compelling monsters, and a painfully real interior monologue. i want to re-emphasize "hypnotic". that is the perfect word for this grim tale.
so in the end, what did i get out of it? not a whole lot i suppose. Oates is a fantastic writer, check. Child Abuse = Horror, check. religious zealots often have hearts full of evil and perversion (and not the good kind of perversion)... the South is full of "eccentrics"... little kids can be little survivors: check, check, and check. Jesus has many faces so which is the real one - well, that's not a concept i encounter often, but it is a rather underdeveloped (although interesting) part of the novella. so the main take-away for me is that i still consider Oates to be one of my favorite authors and she surely does like to write about dark places. which is why i was attracted to her in the first place. maybe less child molestation in my next Oates read though.
First Love: A Gothic Tale (that's the full title) is a slim but complete package: written by Oates and 'illustrated & designed' by Barry Moser. he is a brilliant artist as well. his woodcuts are top-notch. gothic, creepy, perfect for the material. here's his portrait of that charmer Jared Jr:
as in the book... sweaty, with skin like a snake. ::shudders::
another interesting bit:
Mother said, her gaze on me calculating, impatient, of the silver glint of light reflected in swift-moving water, "There is no 'there', there is only 'here'. Just as there is no 'then', but only 'now'. America is founded upon such principles, and, as Americans, we must be, too."
Joyce Carol Oates writing as Rosamond Smith, in one of her more appealing yet perverse outings. rather oddly, this time there is something wonderfullyJoyce Carol Oates writing as Rosamond Smith, in one of her more appealing yet perverse outings. rather oddly, this time there is something wonderfully light and stylized in the usual depiction of doubles and deception and murder. the regular heaviness is absent; was Oates in a good mood when she wrote this and so only feeling slightly brutal? maybe someone did something nice for her that afternoon.
still, the traps she sets for the protagonist and the reader are cruel and plentiful, and the depths and perversity to which the characters must descend are morbidly fascinating and almost tragically inevitable. so, yeah, standard Oates. yet there is a playfulness and irony that brings the tale to a place of near-satire. perhaps it is the archness of language and the stylization of character; perhaps it is in the use of tattooing as a signifier for all that threatens and subsumes. maybe it is just in the fun of reading such a byzantine series of feints and charades, featuring well-to-do and mysterious characters with names like "Tristram Heade" and "Fleur Grunwald" and "Angus Markham"....more
sometimes it is hard to say no, and sometimes when i love an author, especially an author i've read for much of my life, especially an author whose thsometimes it is hard to say no, and sometimes when i love an author, especially an author i've read for much of my life, especially an author whose themes fascinate me, i start to think of them as a part of myself, i start to think of them as that part in which i can see the flaws but can still forgive all of them, it is hard to say no to them, it is hard not to see quality in even their weakest efforts; and so it is with Joyce Carol Oates, and so it is with her pseudonym Rosamond Smith: Oates being a distaff version of the western literary canon's tough guys - their endless searches for male identity reflected in her reinvention of feminism into some dark search for self, a search for the true nature of femininity, Rosamond Smith herself being a distaff version of tough guy Oates - eternally questing to redefine genre and eternally obsessed with the morbid things from which most avert their eyes; and so the story is typical for Oates in her desire to eviscerate then reconstruct models of strong and weak womanhood, and so the story is typical for Smith in her play with doubles and murder and reflections of self; and so it features a heroine who is so weak and simpering and remorseful that it becomes almost intolerable, and so it also features a heroine who is so strong and terrible and remorseless that it almost becomes wish fulfillment - an exotic dancer and cunning grifter, an exotic dancer and a completely batshit crazy serial killer; and so it is all so satisfying in a way to contemplate the breadth of Oates' abilities and the beautiful ambiguity of her writing, and yet it is all so unsatisfying to see the themes and doubling so predictably laid out as if by template, as if Oates' exorcism of these ideas has become nothing more than an ongoing bodily function; and it is as if i make excuses for a less than brilliant, lifeless tale simply because it is coming from an author that i feel has always been a brilliant and lifelong friend....more
joyce carol oates writing as rosamond smith is a writer of thrillers, often ones concerned with dualities within human nature. it is an interesting sijoyce carol oates writing as rosamond smith is a writer of thrillers, often ones concerned with dualities within human nature. it is an interesting side project for an amazing writer. in Soul/Mate, she seems rather less concerned with dualities and more concerned with a kind of pastiche of the romantic thriller, complete with various overblown situations, scarcely believable characters, and almost purple prose. it is an interesting book because oates is an interesting writer; it is also rather off-putting, maybe because the romantic thriller is still quite alive and breathing. nothing new is being said here, which is unusual from an author who usually surprises me with her insights. still, the novel features a very sympathetic psychopath, which is always an entertaining achievement. and the writing is a savory thing....more
Oates restrains herself in this short but intense novel, her spare and drily ironic style proving to be an unsettling counter to the increasingly overOates restrains herself in this short but intense novel, her spare and drily ironic style proving to be an unsettling counter to the increasingly overripe, unpleasant scenarios in which the "hero" wallows. the goddess Cybele may be a symbol of fecundity, but in Oates' hands, her power over men is more malign. the vehicle: one man's mid-life crisis; the result: morbid preoccupation and surreal excess.
Joyce, you are a sick woman and i love you! however, i do wish your novel Cybele was just a wee bit more memorable. it is almost like you boiled down all of your favorite themes to a kind of Oates Template and then forgot to build a truly compelling narrative around it. i'm just mainly tasting the soup base... and it is too strong, too intensely flavored to enjoy. more nuance, less predestination is required to create a satisfying meal.
still, even your lesser works shame many an inferior author's best efforts. never change, cruel and perfect lady!...more
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