Subject:  let's get started, 1998!
Date:  Fri, 2 Jan 1998 11:07:50 EST
From: Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
  To: jco@usfca.edu

Ok, here goes:  I think the twin girls on THE SIMSONS were inspired by the
twins in "Heat."  That would explain the blue-faced, corpselike look of the
little girl cartoon characters.  Now, what do you all think of THAT?  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: let's get started, 1998!
  Date:  Fri, 2 Jan 1998 11:49:19 EST
From:  Ehaggar Ehaggar@aol.com
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano

You are nuts, but a FUN kind of nuts!  JCO is kind of obsessed with
twins--read her first Rosamund Smith book, LIVES OF THE TWINS, and the many
stories in which her female characters long to be twins, or even have
imaginary twin brothers or sisters.....she seems fascinated with the idea of
the double....even to the point of making twins into doppelgangers--if they
meet in some profound way, they can't survivie....as the twins in HEAT, with
their very profound meeting with their killer, do not......

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: Re: let's get started, 1998!
 Date:  Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:52:24 EST
 From:  Ivan139 Ivan139@aol.com
 To: jco@usfca.edu

It's me again, the guy who had trouble with Mulvaneys.  (Our book club gave it
mixed reviews, which I can elaborate on if you all so desire.)

But as to this message, I missed the Simpsons episode referred too, but the
theme and use of 'doubles' fascinates me as I am a huge Dostoevsky fan.  Has
anyone read Dost's "The Double"?  I think JCO has a hankering for Dost, from
what I've read about her.  Is this so?  Is this a link worth exploring?

Happy New Year all!  And take care.



Subject:  Here's to JCO and 1998!
 Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 15:42:21 EST
  From:  composer2@juno.com
  To:   jco@usfca.edu

To The Great JCO Discussion Group!

Combine two of life's best things:  JCO and The Simpsons.  How
wonderfully inventive, Cyrano!  It would be just like JCO to do that! 
Ellen is correct in identifying JCO as being obsessed with twins -- she
must have known some in her life to iginite that fascination.  My best
friends happen to be twin brothers, and I think it is the neatest thing
in the world to have a twin, especially when the twins get along so well
and are each other's best friends.  I really, really love having twins
for friends because it is like your best friend X 2, yet they each retain
their own individuality and spunk.  Another reason to love JCO -- she
loves twins.

Happy New Year, everyone.

David

p.s. --  Am now reading JCO's Princeton cohort, Russell Banks' RULE OF
THE BONE.  Has anyone read this?  I think it is really great, although
someone is doing drugs on every single page so far.  Banks' new book is
called CLOUDSPLITTER and is as long as UNDERWORLD by DeLillo, perhaps
longer.  The critics are loving it, though.  Does anyone have any Banks
experiences.

p.p.s. -- Greg, isn't your JCO bio supposed to come out this month from
Dutton??



Subject:  Re: let's get started, 1998!
 Date:  Sat, 03 Jan 1998 09:25:16 -0600
From:  David Kodeski nfutrist@mcs.net
  To:  jco@usfca.edu

sorry to disappoint - but those twins are not JCO inspired. 

They're a reference to a famous Diane Arbus photo. Creepy twin girls.

Real ones. 

They're as creepy as a JCO invention....except for the fact that they're
real. 

Real creepy too.

on another note - what about JCO's interest in cursed families and those
families feeling within their ranks that as misfortune occurs - as in
Bellefleur and Marianne's rape in Mulvaneys - the family somehow
deserves the misfortune and the belief that the rest of the community is
thinking: "Good! They deserved it for thinking so mightily of
themselves!" 





Subject:  Re: let's get started, 1998!
Date:  Sat, 3 Jan 1998 19:28:35 EST
From:  Shmoopak Shmoopak@aol.com
    To:  jco@usfca.edu

Are you talking about Sherri and Terri of the Simpsons?  Why do you think they
were inspired by JCO's Heat?  Just because their faces are blue?  Very very
interesting!  I like the way you think.  They are bratty and they always talk
at the same time.  Sometimes they rhyme their words.  I wonder what other
parallels the Simpsons have with JCO?  Could Homer be identified with the
killer?  Now that would be an interesting topic.  Certainly Mayor Quimby could
be identified with Corky Corcran from What I Lived For - or maybe his son
Freddie Quimby even moreso!  I could see Jimbo Jones growing up to be Quentin
from Zombie.  Oh!  And maybe Kent Brockman could be Marvin Howe from Do With
Me What you Will!  And Lionel Hutz could easily be Jack. This could go on
forever.  I'd better stop now.



Subject:  Re: let's get started, 1998!
 Date:  Sun, 4 Jan 1998 08:22:53 EST
From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

Schmoopack:  No, no, no -- Homer could never be Roger Whipple!  Isn't it
obvious -- Barney the drunk was the one who offed Terri & Sherri! Why?
Because they had
stumbled upon his liquor stash out behind the ice house.  Marge, now ....
she's the nameless narrator of "Heat."  And isn't it a blatant rip-off the way
the SIMSON writers -- those nefarious thieves -- stole the whole concept of
Itchy and Scratchy from an old JCO story that they THOUGHT everyone else had

forgotten -- "Where I Lived, and What I Lived  For" from the 1973 anthology
MARRIAGES AND INFIDELITIES.  Note, also, how Marge's two sisters are a
shameless plagiarism of Loretta from THEM, which the SIMSON writers --  in
their ruffianly way -- have disguised as ... twins!  Cyrano



Subject: Shakespeare,JCO, Russell Banks, & Reading
Date:   Sun, 04 Jan 1998 18:13:46 EST
 From:  composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano--

ruffianly?

what are you, Shakespeare, can create your own words?  :-)

also, my request is still out there to try and get my hands on a copy of
James Dickey's "Alnilam."  i really really need it to complete my
collection, no local library has it and of course it is long out of
print.  can anyone help?

also, i am just finishing russell banks' "rule of the bone."  it is
really pretty good from what i thought it was going to be.  next up for
me on the reading list is JCO's collection from the mid-70's, NIGHTSIDE. 
I happened upon a mass-market paperback edition of the book at an
on-going library book sale, and whisked it up and hid it in my coat so
others wouldn't know what glorious treasure i had betrothed.

after i finish NIGHTSIDE, i am looking for another really great book to
get into.  everyone is telling me to read delillo's UNDERWORLD and also
phil roth's AMERICAN PASTORAL.  any suggestions?

David C.
Berrien Springs, MI



Subject:  Re: Shakespeare,JCO, Russell Banks, & Reading
Date:  Mon, 5 Jan 1998 01:59:41 -0500 (EST)
From:  Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu
 Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu


david -

suggestions for good books:

moon palace by paul auster - breathtaking...
he is really brilliant.

also ethan canin's emperor of the air...
both have really moved me.

i heard american pastoral is awesome. if you do read it, please let me
know how it is.

- jen

"always there lurked the fear that one's own view of truth was merely a
small window in a small house."
- thornton wilder



Subject:  Thanks
 Date:  Mon, 05 Jan 1998 09:17:07 EST
From:  composer2@juno.com
  To:  jco@usfca.edu

Jen--

Thanks for the reply.  Well, I went to the bookstore yesterday and broke
down and bought UNDERWORLD.  I was going to get my feet wet with some
prior DeLillo novels, but when I found they cost as much as $15 for a
paperback, I thought I might as well jump in head-first with UNDERWORLD. 
Well, I didn't start reading it until 11:00 p.m. or so, but I found
myself turning the monstrous pages faster than usual and before I knew it
I had licked off 50 pages without much thought about how much I was
reading.  I agree with Matt C. that I don't care much about baseball, but
the novel is less about baseball and more about us.  In a recent
interview, Don DeLillo said to read him is to RE-read him, so I can look
to have UNDERWORLD at my desk for some time.

Well, having spent $25 on UNDERWORLD, I couldn't justify another $26 for
AMERICAN PASTORAL, so unfortunately I will have to wait to read it (our
local library doesn't have it) until trade paperback or the bargain book
shelf, or unless someone bestows it upon me in a gift-like fashion.

Also, a general question:  When is JCO's biography coming out from
Dutton?

Matt,
I appreciate your help with ALNILAM and I will check out those WEB sites
you recommended promptly.  Thank you.  We'll have to compare notes on
UNDERWORLD when we're done.  Also, didn't JCO review that book at one
time?

David C.
Michigan

p.s. -- still working on Russell Banks' RULE OF THE BONE.



Subject: Joyce at the opera
 Date:  Tue, 06 Jan 1998 18:41:40 -0800
 From:  Randy Souther Randy Souther
 To: jco@usfca.edu

A very interesting article in the current Opera News . . .
http://www.operanews.com/archives/1398/Oates.1398.html

Randy



Subject:  Childwold
Date:   Tue, 06 Jan 1998 22:11:12 EST
 From:  composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

I have just ordered the book "CHILDWOLD" by Oates and am curious if
anyone here is familiar with it, what it is about, opinions, etc.  Is it
long?  Any info would be cool.  I think it is out of print, is that so? 
I got it from a used dealer.  I'm sure Cyrano has read it...  Thanks

David C.
Michigan



Subject:  Re: Childwold
Date:    Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:39:57 -0000
From:  "Gary Couzens" Gjcouzens@btinternet.com
 To: jco@usfca.edu


I read this about 15 years ago, and if memory serves it has some very
powerful pieces of writing, but seemed incoherent overall. Not my favourite
JCO novel, I have to say, though worth a read. It's not long - about 300
pages or so, I think.

Gary Couzens



Subject:   Just to say hi!
 Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 00:14:24 +0900
    From: "±Ëº±«," sweetalk@netsgo.com
  To:  jco@usfca.edu


Hi, everyone. I'm new here. I'm a grad student at the Seoul National University
 in South Korea. I'm very excited to meet you all. (Randy, your site is
 awesome! Thank you!
How cool it is to discuss favorite books with people from everywhere!)

 
My major is English literature and I'm sort of involved in publishing business.
 Just started the career of freelance translating, actually (Translated Mr.
 Asimov's Gold, but it
was not my choice). And now I'm seriously considering Ms. JCO's Because It Is
 Bitter Because It Is My Heart as my next project. It was the most compelling,
 beautiful,
heartwrenching love story I've read in years. As far as I know most of JCO's
 works have distinctly American attributes(especially upstate New York) and
 now
BIIBBIIMH(Ooops) was not an exception, but I think it has 'the' potential to
 transcend the language and cultural barriers. A hauntingly beautiful book. It
 simply touches the
universal "human" heart (I don't know why, but the book reminds me of "To Kill
 a Mockingbird". The same chilling empathy.  I just felt the characters' reality
 almost
physically). And that's what truly great literature is about, isn't it? I want to
 "talk" and "chat" about the book with you all. I've read some recent
 discussions of yours but the
title was not mentioned, I think.  So, what's your opinion? Do you think the
 book will survive translation? (Note: Korean has a wholly different structure
 from English :)~ 
 
Anticipating your responses,
 
Kim from Korea



 Subject:  Korea
Date:Wed, 07 Jan 1998 10:46:32 EST
From:composer2@juno.com
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Dear Kim,

Being a bit familiar with the Korean language, and with BIIBABIIMH I
would say good luck in translating.  I have never been able to find much
of JCO's stuff overseas, so there definitely may be a small market for it
among Americans abroad, but I don't know how much Koreans would
appreciate the beauty in which Ms. Oates has crafted her sentences.  I
think that much would be lost in the beauty of the sentence structure and
meaning.  Oates doesn't write like Asimov, Sidney Sheldon, or Grisham. 
But, perhaps you could give it a nab.  One must admire your perseverance
and ambition (I can write about one Korean symbol every five minutes--it
would take me 25 years to translate that novel!).

Best wishes,

David C.
Michigan USA



Subject:  Re: Childwold
 Date:Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:59:18 EST
  From: RJohn713 RJohn713@aol.com
 To: jco@usfca.edu

CHILDWOLD is a "prose poem of a novel," according to an early JCO interview
(the PARIS REVIEW one has some comments on it).  It is in many ways a "memory
novel" dealing with her childhood background, and is lyrical/fluid in
structure and, in my opinion, quite compelling.  Alas, like most of her books
before 1990, it's out of print, but available in most libraries.

To answer someone else's recent query:  INVISIBLE WRITER: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOYCE
CAROL OATES will be published in April.  Thanks for your interest.

Greg Johnson



Subject:  Re: Korea
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 01:34:16 +0900
From:  "±Ëº±«," sweetalk@netsgo.com
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Dear David,

I'm so happy to get your kind post.
I'm also worried about that.
Maybe I would mess up the beautiful, oh so refined sentences.
But I think I'll just give it a try.
Anyway the real problem is that first I have to talk a publisher into
it.(-_-;)
I'm not a good talker...and this one's not that kind of book that's gonna
hit the bestseller list.
(You know, Grisham, Sheldon...etc.)
Then again, maybe it will. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a very steady seller
here.

P.S. May I ask where you learned Korean? Have you been to Korea?


-----¿øº» ,fi*ÃÁö-----
º,3* »ç¶÷: composer2@juno.com 
1fi´Â »ç¶÷: jco@usfca.edu 
3=Â¥: 19983â 1¿ù 8ÀÏ Thursday AM 12:57
Á|,ñ: Korea



Subject:   Re: Childwold
 Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 09:19:56 -0800
 From:    Randy Souther Randy Souther
To:   jco@usfca.edu

I read childwold quite some time ago. As I recall, it is narrated
alternately by various characters, as in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. It
takes a little time to recognize each character's voice so that you know
who is narrating, but you quickly "get it." It is, as Greg indicated, a
very poetic novel; the writing is very moving and memorable. A major
subtext is apparently Nabokov's Lolita--which JCO treats in her own
unique way.

Randy



Subject:  Re: Just to say hi!
 Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 09:28:45 -0800
  From:  Randy Souther Randy Souther
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Kim,

Better to have a translation, with necessarily something "lost" from the
original, than to have nothing at all. I have no doubt that I'm missing
a great deal reading Dostoevsky in translation, but oh what I would have
missed if he had never been translated! Good luck with your project.

Randy



Subject:  Re: Childwold
Date:   Wed, 7 Jan 1998 13:34:49 -0500 (EST)
 From:   diamond@math.wvu.edu (Harvey Diamond)
 To: jco@usfca.edu

Childwold has "the" classic JCO opening as far as I'm concerned.
It's been many years since I opened the book but I remember that opening
well. 

In the opening paragraph:
The narrator is apparently going to die (or is dead already); we have
the "wind rocked moon haunted bed in that rotting farmhouse on the
river"; we have grinding teeth and bleeding knuckles ("My knuckles
bled. I must have been gnawing at them." One of my all time favorite
Oates quotes - the great word "knuckles" popping up out of nowhere, the
"must have been" just perfect for bringing up the vision of the narrator
surprised/shocked/stunned at finding bloodly knuckles - the combination
of blood and surprise an Oates favorite - and the creepy matter-of-factness
of the observation.)

Childwold has another favorite quote of mine: "What brilliance there is
in a child, who takes the world as chaos and never thinks about it."

Good stuff!

Harvey Diamond



Subject:   Re: Just to say hi!
Date:  Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:11:50 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu
To:  jco@usfca.edu

kim,

welcome to the group - we're happy to have you :)
i think any novel can "survive" translation when the translator pays
attention to the subtleties of language.
good luck with that...please keep us posted with how ts going.
- jen

"always there lurked the fear that one's own view of truth was merely a
small window in a small house."
- thornton wilder



Subject:   Re: Just to say hi!
Date:  Wed, 07 Jan 1998 14:24:07 -0500
From:   "Thomas A. Hulslander" t-hulslander@top.monad.net
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Hi Kim- 
Welcome to the group! 
Krista 



Subject:  Re: Childwold
Date:   Wed, 7 Jan 1998 15:12:09 EST
From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
To:   jco@usfca.edu


David: I would love to play scrabble for cash with you -- "ruffianly" is in
your Websters; so
read it and repent!  Yes, I did read CHILDWOLD when it first came out.  At
that time I was so annoyed with DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL, her previous novel
(or was it
the equally baffling ASSASSINS?), that I had decided to stop reading her
stuff.  Still, when I saw CHILDWOLD on the shelf at Paperback Booksmith  --
that dear, dead chain
I, of course had to scan the first page.  The beauty and energy of it was a
pleasant surprise.  I don't remember much about the book -- the male
protagonist bored the stuffing out of me -- but I do remember the young
heroine and her siblings watching their
mother unload bags of ordinary groceries as though they were filled with
jewels.  Someday I'll go back and reread that book.  Cyrano 



Subject:   Re: Childwold
 Date: Wed, 7 Jan 98 13:32:00
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx
To:  jco@usfca.edu

I read Childwold in the early eighties. I think it`s one of the novels that 
most stays in the mind. I was in bed with pnuemonia when I read it. I had a 
fever and I could only read in short stretches.

I remember an elegiac tone but that might be because in retrospect what I 
most remember is the country, more than the people. The girl lives on a 
run-down farm with lots of trash, old tires and stuff lying around in the 
yard. Reminds me of a farm down the road from us when I was a kid.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re: Accomplished Desires
Date:  Wed, 7 Jan 98 13:52:49
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx
 To:  jco@usfca.edu


The server at the University went off in early November and I haven`t been 
able to use the computer since then. Today I received two months of e-mail 
about Joyce Carol Oates including quite a few interesting comments.

Accomplished Desires is one of my favorite Oates stories. Although it is 
very depressing. The feeling of Accomplished Desires though not the 
situation precisely comes up at the close of some of the novels. Both Ian 
and Sigrid must experience some of the dispair of the student of 
Accomplished Desires at the close of American Appetites. The wedding that 
concludes Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart too creates a 
claustrophobic feeling.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:   Accomplished Desires
 Date:   Thu, 8 Jan 1998 08:32:18 EST
From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Frank: I would call that feeling at the end of the fictions you mentioned
regret.  It's very strong at the end of "Accomplished Desires" because the
girl -- Dory? -- hadn't so much fallen in love with the professor as she had
with this family.  Once Barbara was gone, that family was gone too, leaving
Dory stuck with a demanding bore and his spoiled children and houseguests to
wait on.  The heroine's heart (her name??) in BECAUSE IT'S MY HEART is filled
with very poignant regret at the conclusion.  It's a moving scene because the
person she really loved -- the black basketball player -- is dead in the war;
also, she's about to get into an ill-advised marriage with a closeted gay man.
The end of AMERICAN APPETITES always eluded me.  Sigrid didn't impress me as
being the least bit unhappy with the way things turned out in her favor; Ian's
regret seemed more exhaustion from his court ordeal: he may have been making
noise about shooting himself, but it was more likely he would soon get over
that and start enjoying his new life and make new friends.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Shakespeare,JCO, Russell Banks, & Reading
 Date:    Thu, 8 Jan 1998 08:41:27 EST
From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
To:   jco@usfca.edu

ps -- I've had good luck finding obscure books with bibliofind.com.  They tell
you about stores all over North America (perhaps beyond) who have copies of
the book in question, what condition it's in, how much it costs, and how to
contact the vendor.  Cyrano



Subject:  Diane Arbus
 Date:    Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:09:42 EST
From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 Reply-To:    jco@usfca.edu
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Thanks for the Arbus reference.  I can see that photo in my mind's eye right
now.  Yep, it's an exact match with the SIMSON's twins.  (Did anybody see that
episode the other night where the Simsons go to Australia and find that it's a
reversed version of Springfield and all their neighbors are there with Aussie
accents?  It's a real "through-the-looking-glass" twin-type situation and it
supports my brand new conspiracy theory that JCO is the secret brain behind
THE SIMSONS.)  The theme of people being gratified by a high-and-mighty
neighbor's bad luck appears in an old JCO story "Ceremonies" from BY THE NORTH
GATE.  That story used a new voice for JCO at that time -- the collective
voice: it's narrated by the children in a small rural hamlet.  Also there's a
pair of twins!  In "Ceremonies" the proud family's humbling by a fire that
burns down their entire farm is seen as a good thing -- even the haughty
oldest daughter gets laid now that she's been brought low -- a rather unsavory
development I'd thought when I first read it.  Cyrano



Subject: Re: Childwold
Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 1998 19:20:11 -0000
 From:  "Gary Couzens" Gjcouzens@btinternet.com
 To: jco@usfca.edu

I seem to be in a minority here - perhaps I ought to read CHILDWOLD again!
(Since I read it in my teens, I do wonder what my reaction to it would be
now I'm in my thirties.)  But there are so many other books to read that I
haven't read at all, including about 16 of JCOs novels...

Gary Couzens



Subject:  Re: Childwold & an impulsive question for Gary
Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 1998 14:59:43 EST
From: Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Gary, this is a hunch ... are you related to the author of GUARD OF HONOR?
That's a book I've been trying to acquire.  It looks like I'm rereading
Childwold.  I started it yesterday and will probably finish it on a long bus
trip I have to make this weekend.  Sounds like several of us are reading the
same text.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Childwold & an impulsive question for Gary
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:02:21 -0000
From:  "Gary Couzens" Gjcouzens@btinternet.com
 To: jco@usfca.edu

To the best of my knowledge I'm not related to James Gould Cozzens
(different spelling). According to amazon.com (which I had to check because
I wasn't familiar with the book) GUARD OF HONOR is being republished in
hardcover this year.

Gary Couzens



Subject:  Re: Childwold
Date:   Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:58:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Jennifer Nash 
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Gary,

Yeah...I feel out of it too. Im not reading CHILDWORLD right now either...
:( 
I'm actually about to run out and buy Toni Morrison's newest.
And a JCO too.

- jen

"always there lurked the fear that one's own view of truth was merely a
small window in a small house."
- thornton wilder



Subject:  Re: Childwold
 Date:   Thu, 8 Jan 1998 17:05:06 EST
 From:   Ehaggar Ehaggar@aol.com
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Oh darn you all--like I don't have ENOUGH to read, and now I am going to have
to go out and read CHILDWOLD again--it is so weird--I know I've read it, but I
have absolutely no recollection of it at all.......

I enjoy so much people recommending other authors, I wanted to remind everyone
of the glories of Gloria Naylor's work--IN SPITE of the fact that Oprah was in
a bad TV edition of BREWSTER, Naylor is excellent---read MAMA DAY especially;
in conjunction witn Morrison's BELOVED it makes a particularly affecting
"read". And if you don't like BELOVED, that's fine--MAMA DAY is a lot more
accessible.

Naylor is coming to speak at the University of South Carolina where I am
presently in grad school, and I really look forward to hearing her

Happy Holidays All

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: Childwold
 Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 1998 18:34:16 -0500 (EST)
From:  Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Ellen,
I love Naylor - will you let us know how the speech is?

- jen

"always there lurked the fear that one's own view of truth was merely a
small window in a small house."
- thornton wilder



Subject:   Assassins
Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 1998 18:50:09 -0500 (EST)
From:  Matthew A Cheney macheney@cisunix.unh.edu
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano--
I'd love to know more of your thoughts on "Assassins", since I was
planning on reading it next (though "next" may be a while: after DeLillo's
"Underworld", after "Tristram Shandy", probably even after a Virginia
Woolf course I'll be taking soon...)

Matt C.



Subject:  Re: Childwold
 Date:  Thu, 8 Jan 1998 19:09:32 EST
 From:   Ehaggar Ehaggar@aol.com
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Jen--I will certainly let everyone know about the speech--it is in Feb, I
think....


Ellen Haggar



Subject:   Bravo to the group!
 Date:   Thu, 08 Jan 1998 19:14:41 EST
From:  composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano,
Repented: ruffianly exists.  Foiled again.  Bow, bow.
Have you read every JCO publication ever produced?  It seems you must! 
Between Randy, Greg, and you, this is THE last word on JCO anything other
than JCO herself! I am amazed, impressed, and happy to be a part of it
all--whether contributor or conscious observer.  Bravo! Group. . .

David C.
Michigan



Subject:  Gloria Naylor
Date:  Thu, 08 Jan 1998 19:33:37 EST
From:   composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Ellen:

I love Gloria Naylor and have for years.  I must confess that I didn't
care for the Oprah thing either, but the book of "Brewster Place" was
phenomenal.  I, however, loved MAMA DAY to the core and also want to read
BAILEY'S CAFE.  I have a book of literary criticism about Naylor in an
"Amistad" series (before the movie) edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  I
also have, in that series, Langston Hughes and Alice Walker.  Naylor is
very underrated as an author among many circles, but I think she's great.
 Thanks for bringing her up!

I have browsed through Morrison's newest and it looks even more
accessible than a lot of her previous work.  Hope we will enjoy. . .

David C.
Michigan



Subject:  UNDERWORLD
 Date:  Thu, 08 Jan 1998 19:33:38 EST
 From:   composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Matt-- I am also embedded in DeLillo--and am also re-reading for a
Shakespeare/Modern Lit. course.  We are simultaneously reading "Much Ado
about Nothing" and "Wordstruck" by Robert MacNeil (MacNeil/Lehrer).  Let
me know when you get done with DeLillo.  Aren't you finding the reading a
bit challenging, more than normal DeLillo, at leat?  I've been re-reading
paragraphs a LOT, like 2 or more a page.  It is taking me forever, and
this while I am being enchanted with "Childwold."  Glad I can read fast.

David C.
Michigan

p.s.-- Ellen, I did get a copy of "Alnilam" thank you for trying at
least.



Subject:  Re: Gloria Naylor
Date:   Thu, 8 Jan 1998 19:54:43 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu
To:   jco@usfca.edu

David C -

I agree - Naylor is way underrated and Mama Day is gorgeous. Alice Walker
is also underrated in many ways.
I read the New Yorker this morning briefly and found the review of her
newest book really fascinating - it sounds like this book is more
complicated yet also accesible. Hmm....talk about a contradiction.

- jen

"always there lurked the fear that one's own view of truth was merely a
small window in a small house."
- thornton wilder



Subject:   books, books, and books!
 Date:   Thu, 8 Jan 1998 22:32:38 EST
 From:    Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 To:   jco@usfca.edu
 

Gary, thanks for the info on the forthcoming ed. of GUARD OF HONOR.  I'll be
looking for it.  You are absolutely right, David, this is a wonderful group.
Years ago I had a friend who was as mad about Oates as I, and we'd get
together and gossip about our idol several times each week.  I'm so happy to
have that opportunity to discuss JCO now with so many true fans.  There's no
doubt quite a few texts of hers I've overlooked, but I will probably learn
about them in this group.
     Matt, I read ASSASSINS long ago, when it first came out, and it damn near
put me off the author forever.  I vividly recall the scene where the heroine
goes to visit some old family farm in the country and is persued by strange
men and hacked up with an ax.  Then, in the next chapter, we learn that
actually nothing at all happened to her.  The whole attack was apparently a
fantasy she'd had.  JCO does that trick in other works, but I always think of
that particular instance.  I also read UNDERWORLD.  The opening
scene with J. Edgar Hoover, Sinatra and Gleason made me think I was about to
read a
Doctorow-type history novel with "real" characters.  I didn't think DeLilo's
use of Hoover was very well done.  The novel had engaging parts, but the whole
Klara Sax business nearly put me into a coma.  I enjoyed the old fellow who
collects baseball memorabilia and sells Nick the famous "shot heard round the
world" baseball.  I'd love to hear what you think about those specially
demarked episodes about the black kid Cotter and his rotten dad.  I think it
really blew the way DeLillo just abandoned that whole plotline.  Liked his
Lenny Bruce stuff -- but then that was mainly Bruce-written material; although
the scene where the power goes off and Bruce chicken-heartedly abandons his
audience
(including a crying baby) to save his own skin is well done and says a lot
about what lies behind cynicism and gallows humor.
     Those of you who enjoyed BREWSTER PLACE should check out Toni Morrison's
new novel.  I just handed in my review of it for a local newspaper.  It
features a little community of cast-off women like the Naylor novel does ....
sorta like the girls in FOXFIRE when they had their tumbledown little house in
the country for a refuge.
I enjoyed PARADISE's use of black Oklahoma history -- the search for a utopia.
Can a web page be a utopia?  I'm sure glad to have this one.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: let's get started, 1998!
 Date:   Fri, 9 Jan 1998 14:51:27 EST
 From:   Shmoopak 
 To:   jco@usfca.edu


Cyrano!
I believe you are really hitting on something here!  Of course Barney was the
evil Roger Whipple - Barney Gumbell, Roger Whipple it is so clear!  And the
fascination with twins is astounding!  For example, the actual characters -
Terry and Sherri, Selma and Pattie.  Then the episode you mentioned in
Australia.  Not to mention the episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse
and dreams of all the kids playing with their "twin" souls, and he is left
soulless (if that's not JCO talking, I don't know what is!); then there was
the episode where Bart and his team of banditos go to their arch rival
Shelbyville to steal back a lemon tree and sure enough, there are "bizarre"
mirror images of Bart, Nelson, Milhouse, Martin et. al.  THEN there was the
episode where the creator of Itchy and Scratchy is accused of some crime, and
even though Bart and Lisa figure out what really happened, their badly drawn
TWINS (who incidentally look like the Simpsons characters from the Tracy
Ulmman Show) ultimately get credit for saving the day!  As for
characterizations, Little Red Garlock is a dead ringer for Nelson Munsen.
Even Little Red's profanities don't hold a candle to Nelson's "HA ha!"  And
the episode "Marge on the Lam" where sweet angelic Marge befriends bad-girl-
neighbor Ruth is NOT a rip-off of Thelma and Louise as so many have alleged.
Rather they are BOTH direct rip-offs of Solstice!  Lisa's short-lived desire
for Nelson had the sick and twisted undertones of Connie and Arnold Friend's
relationship in Where are you Going, and Edna Krabapple's strange and sordid
romantic life bring to mind JCO's murderous teacher in a short story that I
can't for the life of me remember.  Do you know which one I'm talking about?
It starts off in a bingo game, and a librarian type is hot for the Bingo
caller, and at the end of the movie, she murders him!  Which brings to mind
the female infatuations with male authority figures/mentors in the Simpsons -
a theme that JCO relies heavily on.  I feel like such a louse, but I'm trying
to remember another short story where a student has an affair with an
archeology professor, and breaks it off with him, and at the end is this
hideous image of him trying to get at her in a telephone booth!  Anyway these
same themes appear (albeit in a watered down version) in Lisa's infatuation
with her substitute Mr. Bergstrom (voice of Dustin Hoffman) and Marge's
infatuation with her bowling coach (was it Jacques?).  Moreover, there are
numerous "almost infidelities" in the marriage of Homer and Marge Simpson, for
example Homer and Laura Lee, Homer and Mindy, Marge and the Bowling Coach
(supra) Marge and Moe (eww), and Homer and Maude.  Finally, the same issues of
abandonment, abuse and neglect, found in JCO's stories (e.g., Elena is cruelly
kidnapped and then abandoned by her father, and then later abandoned by her
mother Ardis in Do With me What you Will, and similarly, Iris is also
abandoned by her alcoholic mother and father in Because it's Bitter), are
found in several Simpsons episodes.  Homer's mother (Glen Close) abandoned
Homer for political reasons.  Homer's brother Herbert was also abandoned by
both Abe and the natural birth mother (a carnival worker), who conceived
Herbert during a one night stand.  Marge's father didn't abandon her, but he
did traumatize her by trying to conceal the deep dark secret that he was a
steward rather than a pilot, and Homer and Marge get charged with abuse and
neglect, thus forcing Lisa, Bart and Maggie to live with the Flanderseses for
an entire episode.
Fascinating.  Maybe you should write a book.  Or at least an angry letter to
Fox!
Look forward to hearing more,
Sue



Subject:   Re: Just to say hi!
 Date:   Fri, 9 Jan 1998 14:02:32 EST
From:   Shmoopak Shmoopak@aol.com
 To:    jco@usfca.edu

Hi Kim,
My name is Sue.  This may not have to do much with the JCO site, but I'm
Korean too  (I was born in the US).  Anywhoo, I just got done re-reading
Because its Bitter and Because it's My Heart, and I wholly agree.  It is a
hauntingly beautiful book, and one of the reasons I fell in love with JCO's
stories.  Iris's character is chillingly wonderful, and I have never
experienced such passion and rage through any character more than Jinx
Fairchild.  Would love to hear more from you.  I am also very interested in
any Korean translation of JCO's work.  I am trying to learn Korean, and that
might be one big motivator to do it.  Finally, do you know of any good
software program that teaches Korean?  My friend just bought "Power Chinese"
and she swears by it.  Please let me know what you think.  Any advice would be
greatly appreciated.
Gam Sa Ham Nee Da.
Sue



Subject:   Re: let's get started, 1998!
 Date:   Fri, 9 Jan 1998 15:54:55 EST
 From:    Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Sue: By george, you've got it.  I think you'd better write that book.  I
believe the story you alluded to was "The Bingo Master" in HAUNTED.  For more
teacher/student romance, see "The Boy" in ASSIGNATION.  I've seen almost all
the SIMSON episodes you mention.  You go, girl!  My head's spinning with these
revelations.  I'm going to lie down and commune with my psychic twin until
6:30 when you-know-who's on.  Cyrano



Subject:   Pseudonym
 Date:  Sat, 10 Jan 1998 15:21:37 +0100
 From:   "Freddy Hestholm" freddy.hestholm@hl.telia.no
To: jco@usfca.edu

I have recently read a couple of novels of JCO. I was very fascinated by "What
 I Lived For" which I think was a genious investigation into male

psychology. After visiting this discussion list, I got to know that JCO also
 writes as Rosamond Smith. Could anyone tell me the reason for this, and do

those 



Subject:  First Love and Because It is bitter...
Date:  Mon, 12 Jan 1998 00:57:21 +0900
From:   "±Ëº±«," 
To:  "¡∂¿ÃOmega∫ ƒ≥Σ- ø¿√~ ±◊ΣÏ" jco@usfca.edu


I just finished rereading Lolita, and I'm dying to read Childwold. 
But I have to order it online first, then I have to wait at least 4 weeks to get
 the book in my hands. Mmmm...
 
As a foreigner interested in contemporary American literature, 
I find it very hard to get proper informations and usually I have to depend on
 pure luck 
to find a really good book. So finding JCO was a real good luck.
As you can imagine,  even The Listener, The Paris Review, The New Yorker...
these are not very easily available here. They have many books and journals on
 old Classic Literature in the University library, but talking about
the contemporary...no, never enough. 
Now it is a refreshing, great experience to discuss the American contemporary 
with American readers. (Isn't it obvious I'm very excited) 
Please don't hate me if I bother you with bombarding questions and e-mails.
 
Well, the first Oates I read was First Love. A publisher handed it out to me for
 a review last year. 
It was an intriguing book, that's for sure, but perhaps I was expecting 
more of the famous Ms. Oates. I was a little disappointed. 
Or, it might be that First Love depends too much on American Gothic tradition

(stronly reminded me of Hawthorne. well, I like Hawthorne but...)and religious
 symbols, 
which didn't work for me in this case. 
Don't get me wrong, I was impressed by her beautiful prose, 
but it was hard for me to get into the characters' feelings. Felt all hazy and misty. 
Something missing. 
Maybe all because I'm a foreigner, but I don't think it's a matter of language

(like word play... you know, the untranslatable).
So I want to know very much what native Americans think about it.
 
By the way, First Love at least moved me to find and read other JCO books 
on my own. Such beautiful proses, you don't meet very often. 
I was instantly drawn to her poetic sentences.
Then the next I took up was Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart. 
This one rocked me all over. 
I think this is a major achievement in contemporary realism. 
Not just any postmodern hazy symbolism I'm personally sick of. 
Packed with real things. A very solid narrative. Though the style never loses poetic resonance. 
It makes a very sharp and incisive social critique, but  never an abstract doctrine. 
Maybe what matters is the concern for the real experience of the real people. 
The situation was very American, but the book concerns everyone living in a world 
with absurd class divisions(which are everywhere). 
That's the quality which makes a book transcend the barrier of national experience 
to be a jewel of world literature.
When I said "surviving translation", that was the point I had in mind. 
Comparing First Love with BIIBABIIMH, I would say there's much more chance
 in the latter when translated.  
 
You all seem to have read a lot of JCO's books. (Whoa, when shall I ever catch up?) 

So I'm just curious where you think these particular works can be placed in
 her body of works 
 
Happy New Year!
 
Kim from Korea 
 
 
P.S. And please everyone, always feel free to correct me if I use bad English. 
 
I'm still learning, I need good teachers.  
  


Subject:  Re: What I lived for.
Date:  Sun, 11 Jan 1998 19:25:32 -0500
From:   "Anthony" jackv@ptdprolog.net
To: jco@usfca.edu
          
         Freddy
          
          
         I just finished the same novel (WHAT I LIVED FOR).  Agree with you
 completely, she's got us down, the male animal
         unadorned.   (I guess I should speak for myself)   It got a little fat at one
 part toward the middle but it's a strong, solid work, and
         unique in some sense.  The really weird thing is that she could conjure
 such a real life kind of character like Corky Corcoran
         without hating him or men in general.  She just set it all out there,
 smell of starched shirt, lint, sweat under the collar, diamond
         pinky ring....a sprung-from-the-street gentleman jerk. 




Subject:  "The Passion of Henry David Thoreau"
     Date:  Sun, 11 Jan 1998 22:21:19 -0500 (EST)
  From:   Matthew A Cheney 
 To:  jco@usfca.edu


I just got word that there was recently a reading of Oates's play "The
Passion of Henry David Thoreau" at the Public Theatre in New York.  The
Public, however, does not want to do a full production of the play, and so
it continues to languish unproduced after three readings over the past
couple of years.  The director of the past two readings, Carol Rocamora,
is determined to find a producer, however, so with any luck it will be
coming to a theatre near you sometime in the future.

Matt Cheney



Subject:  Man Crazy
Date:  Sun, 11 Jan 1998 22:38:42 -0800
From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther
To:   jco@usfca.edu


This is an excerpt of a talk Joyce Carol Oates gave a few months ago
which I am (all too slowly) transcribing, and which will eventually make
it onto the web site more or less in its entirety.

Randy
-----------------------------------------------------
 

This novel represents among other things a kind of descent into the
underworld, in a sense, of the psyche. A young girl's experience
with--with evil. She seems to have thought she could control to some
extent things that happen to her. She becomes sexually promiscuous in a
kind of tramp-like way--it isn't that she's really choosing that, but
things happen to her, it's just her fate. She never really understands
though that she's coming so close to almost a principle of evil. There's
a group, they believe that they're Satanists--I can't say personally
whether there is a Satan and that these people are connected with Satan
or whether they're supremely deluded, but it doesn't really matter in
terms of one's experience. So she comes to this, almost this border.
It's like her personality is almost dissolved and she's almost in a
state of dissolution--she almost dies. She's involved in a cult and
she's treated very badly. The text I'm going to read is before she is
living with these people. She's sort of being initiated into their
world. I'm so fascinated by and perplexed by the deep masochistic strain
that we find in, I suppose both men and women, but particularly in
women. I obviously would know more about that since I am a woman. There
is a masochistic strain in men as well, but I think it's deeper in
women, and I was always wondering having grown up in a certain part of
the world, which is not middle-class and is not Princeton--I'm from
another world--I always wondered what there was in women that allowed
them to take such strange, radiant, perverse, but very real, very real
pleasure and sense of self-definition by being hurt, either physically,
emotionally, or both; that this constituted for them a supreme and very
real romance--a profound emotional experience. It's erotic, but it's
also in an odd way mystical. And these women, some of whom I know--I
knew: I knew the girls who grew up and became the women--they would not
trade their lives for my life. I'm a career woman and I'm a professor
and so forth and a writer. I'm sure that they would feel that what they
have experienced by way of men is really profound and they would say it
was profound in a way that they would consider more valuable than other
peoples' lives--other people who control their lives a little more. But
I tried to write about that. As I say, it's part of my background,
though it's not a part of my personal life. Ingrid is an alter-ego of
myself and she lives in a world in which I've lived, but the experiences
she has, mostly, are not experiences that I have had. So this is a
little chapter called "Lost Kittens."



Subject:  Re: books, books, and books!
 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 98 09:45:48
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx
To:  jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano

I also read Assassins when it first came out and also had trouble with it. 
It took me forever to get through the book`s first section dealing with the 
brother who has completely misunderstood his life and his relation to other 
people. When I got into the second part of the story I realized that the 
book dragged because the character was boring and that the problem of the 
first section was to accurately reflect the world from his point of view. 

The world of obsessive, neurotic, or psychotic characters can be at times 
simply boring and it`s difficult to write a novel focused around such a 
character especially when looking at the world from within his mind without 
being boring.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua


 
Subject:  JCO=Encarta
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 21:34:59 EST
 From:  composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

Anyone who has Encarta 98 should look up JCO and there is a recording of
her talking about fiction, I believe the novel in particular.  It is a
surprisingly great recording of Oates, reflecting her slight lisp and odd
pronunciations of "r's" 

Also, anyone interested in E.L. Doctorow-- he will be on CBS Sunday
Morning on Sunday, and I think Charlie Rose on the following Tuesday. 
Regarding Ragtime, of course.

David C.
Michigan



Subject:  Re: All the Good People I've Left Behind
 Date:  Wed, 14 Jan 1998 22:26:32 EST
  From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
To: jco@usfca.edu

Hello, that's one book I haven't acquired yet; it's Black Sparrow Press, isn't
it?  I recall the title story.  Anyone who was intrigued by that movie "Ice
Storm" should check out
"All the Good People I've Left Behind."  It's a wonderful recapturing of the
70s.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: JCO=Encarta
 Date:  Wed, 14 Jan 1998 22:31:20 EST
 From:  Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

David, thanks for the notice of the Doctorow interview.  I look forward to it.
What is Encarta?  
     For you readers out there in Oatesland, I want to make a pitch for the
webpage
www.bibliofind.com.  They can direct you to a lot of out-of-print JCO
material.  I especially like it because it lists all kinds of small,
independent bookstores -- who need all the support they can get in this
Barnes&Noble-dominated market.  Cyrano



Subject:  JCO=Encarta; Doctorow
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:37:30 EST
 From:    composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Encarta is a CD-ROM Encyclopedia, a wonderful reference tool that is
compatible with most software, namely Windows 95 (and I suppose Windows
98, now).  

All the Good People I've Left Behind, at least my edition, was published
by Santa Barbara Press or something like that.  I will check it again and
see.

David C.
Michigan.

p.s.-- Doctorow's RAGTIME Broadway performers have been on Rosie
O'Donnell, and this morning were on TODAY.  I can't wait until the
musical comes to Detroit or Chicago!  That was one of Doctorow's best, in
my opinion.  I loved the Houdini opening, so attention-grabbing and real.
 Wonderful stuff.  Two of Doctorow's lesser-known books I must recommend:
 The Book of Daniel, and The Lives of the Poets.  Check them out!




 Subject:   Re: First Love and Because It is bitter...
Date:   Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:24:40 EST
From:  Cyranomish 
 To:    jco@usfca.edu

Hello, Kim.  Welcome to the JCO Page.  I'm enjoying your messages.  I reviewed
FIRST LOVE for a newspaper here in Boston when it first came out.  I enjoyed
it more than I did MAN CRAZY.  It was very similar to that larger book and not
so melodramatic.  I admired the ambivalent ending.  The heroine thinks her
cousin has thrown away his kiddie porn collection and changed his evil ways,
but that is not necessarily so.  Throughout the novella, Oates uses birds -- I
think -- as a symbol of hope.  (as in the Emily Dickinson poem:  "Hope is the
thing with feathers/That perches in the soul/And sings the song without the
words/And never stops at all." ) The heroine's hopeful attitude at the end was
very moving -- partly because it's so fragile.  What did the rest of you think
about that book's conclusion.  Did mean Cousin Jared (?) change, or did he
just move to a new venue?  An early story you may want to look at is "The
Daughter" in THE GODDESS AND OTHER WOMEN.  It's a similar situation: a
sensitive girl and her sexually active mother are on the road in upstate New
York.  In that case, however, the mother is very
protective of her daughter.   I was pleasantly surprised when I came upon it
in the late 1970s because the mother was, at that time, an unusually strong,
assertive woman character among JCO's characters.  Another good story about a
strong, experienced woman attempting to protect a young, inexperienced girl is
"Tatoo"  I don't know what collection that's in: I saw it in a journal years
ago.  Of course, the mother in FIRST LOVE
is not at all protective of her daughter; the daughter wants to hide her
exciting, sordid relationship with evil Cousin Jared from Mother.   Now the
mother in CHILDWOLD is helpless to interfere with her daughter's adventures
and is pretty much forced to let Laney (?) conduct her sex life as she
pleases.  Cyrano



Subject:  All the Good People I've Left Behind
 Date:  Wed, 14 Jan 1998 19:43:48 EST
 From:  composer2@juno.com (David C. Chaudoir)
 To:    jco@usfca.edu

I have recently acquired a first-edition paperback of JCO's extraordinary
collection of stories, "All the Good People I've Left Behind."  I really
think it is outstanding.  Does anyone else have any feelings on it?  I
will post more generous, thorough comments as I wade through the stories.

I love the title.  I think it is so poignant.  Just those very words
together wrench my heart when I do think of some very good friends who
are on another continent; it feels almost like an eternal separation when
it is ones you love who are so far away.

David C.
Michigan



Subject:   Re: First Love and Because It is bitter...
 Date:   Thu, 15 Jan 1998 08:55:45 EST
From:   Cyranomish 
 To:   jco@usfca.edu

Kim, I suppose mothers & daughters are prominent in JCO because Mother is
crucially important in just about everyone's life.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re:obsessive characters in Oates
 Date:  Thu, 15 Jan 98 13:56:20
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx
To:   jco@usfca.edu

Cyrano

Interesting comparison. I was reading "Dungeon" a few weeks before 
Christmas and it made me think of Assassins, also of the woman who narrates 
"Blind"

I don`t know to what degree I feel that that Oates is letting characters 
voice her own concerns. It seems to me that, although she presents her 
stories through the viewpoint of one or more characters and she lets them 
develop their ideas and reactions as they will without seeming to comment 
upon their worldviews, there is always a fairly large divide between the 
persona and the author -more so than with most authors. For me, dramatic 
irony is a fairly constant situation in any writing by Oates. There always 
seems to be a joke behind whatever the character is thinking at the moment, 
as though the character is speaking or thinking and the author is standing 
a little to the side, catching our eye, and not quite smiling.

Even sympathetic characters don`t quite understand.

Frank

Frank Malgesini 
fmalgesi@uach.mx
Facultad de Filosofia y Letras
Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua



Subject:  Re:obsessive characters in Oates
  Date:  Thu, 15 Jan 1998 09:04:52 EST
From:  Cyranomish 
 To:  jco@usfca.edu

Hi, Frank.  Boring is a good word for those obsessive characters.  Another
word is oppressive.  Reviewers have commented that sometimes reading JCO is
like being locked in an airless closet. (eg,Sven Birkertt's NYT review of YOU
MUST REMEMBER THIS, 10 years ago.)  Isn't it amazing how she hangs in there
with them for hundreds of pages? Obviously, their issues are hers too, as we
all have our obsessive concerns, which would drive people away if we
articulated them as thoroughly as that fellow in ASSASSINS does.  I used the
story "Dungeon" from NIGHTSIDE to illustrate this type of writing to a class.
It was by far the group's least favorite selection: not because it was badly
done ... it was too skillfully done.  Cyrano  




Subject:  Mothers and Daughters
 Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 16:48:28 EST
From:  Doozer411 Doozer411@aol.com
 To:  jco@usfca.edu


I find it very interesting to note, though, that JCO, herself, is not a
mother.  Thus, her insights into the complexities of mother/daughter
relationships are all the more remarkable.  -Lindsay



Subject:  Re: obsessive characters in Oates
Date:  Thu, 15 Jan 1998 19:56:59 EST
From:   Cyranomish Cyranomish@aol.com
  To:  jco@usfca.edu

Hi, Frank.  I like your analogy of JCO standing to the side of her characters,
not quite smiling.  Of course their world views are vastly different from
hers.  I do, however, think she takes emotions like anger, disappointment,
suspicion, anxiety -- stuff we all experience -- and pushes them to various
lengths, thereby creating characters that are not at all like "herself."  In
one long-ago interview, she remarked that the good thing about undergoing
difficult & unpleasant experiences is that one can then use them in one's art.
Cyrano



Subject:  Re: First Love and Because It is bitter...
Date:  Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:29:00 +0900
From:  "±è*±Çü" 
To: jco@usfca.edu

Dear Cyrano,

About the ending of First Love, I also admire the ending. But I think
this ending is not so ambivalent. Generally hopeful, rather.
Not because Jared has changed into a new man,
but because 'I', the narrating girl, don't care any more.
Maybe Jared really changed, maybe not. As you mentioned.
But what's more important is that now she's not the girl once she was.
She's no longer helplessly controlled by him.
She has outgrown the evil force in him.  She's through a long winter.
The fresh spring breeze in the last chapter was very impressive.

And very interesting fact is that I also noted her mother, too.
I felt her presence all through the novel, though she doesn't play a major
part.
If that mother figure is repeatedly shown in JCO's works, is there any
special reason?

Kim

Aside: These days I'm reading Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain,
            I heard that this one is last year's the most critically
acclaimed novel in the States.
            I'm not done reading yet, but so far I feel it's a little hyped
up.
            But certainly it's not my final word.



Subject:  Bibliofind etc.
Date:  Thu, 15 Jan 1998 23:27:44 -0500 (EST)
From:  Matthew A Cheney 
To:  jco@usfca.edu

I second this recommendation and add to it the Advanced Book Exchange
site, abebooks.com, which has many of the same companies as Bibliofind,
but enough difference to make it worthwhile (and you can search
specifically by publisher, too, which can be helpful).  These sites are
not only good for locating otherwise impossible to find books, but for
getting an idea of what some of the books in your own collection are worth
in the great free open market of our hypercapitalist postmodern times....

Matt C.

On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Cyranomish wrote:

>      For you readers out there in Oatesland, I want to make a pitch for the
> webpage
> www.bibliofind.com.  They can direct you to a lot of out-of-print JCO
> material.  I especially like it because it lists all kinds of small,
> independent bookstores -- who need all the support they can get in this
> Barnes&Noble-dominated market.  Cyrano
> 

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Last updated 1-22-98
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