Subject:   Re: Lavish Self-Divisions
Date:   Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:01:04 -0600
From:   JonWendell@webtv.net (John Eggers)

  Has anyone on the list read "Lavish Self-Divisions: The novels of JCO?
I ordered this book from Amazon and love it.  You can tell that the
author, Brenda Daly ,  is a big supporter of JCO.  Also, has anyone read
any Peter Carey?  If so, where should I start.



Subject:  Re: ON BOXING
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 02:21:52 +0900
From:   "±Ëº±«," 

Dear David,

Oh, yes, you're certainly right.
Though I can never watch a boxing match without looking away
(since the color TV came out...) still I could enjoy the book
through and through.
The book almost made me a boxing fan, actually.
It must be the power of JCO's genuine love and passion
for the "sport" of boxing itself, as you said.

It's just that I saw a possibility I could read
some connections to her other works.
It was my impression that she never loses
the perspective of an "outsider"....
I mean, that distanced perspective makes this book
very very unique. (Mmmm, I think this expression is a bit risky...
but if I dare...you know, "sexy".)
Then again, there are so many other things
than this gender subject in this book.
Time, Death, Narrative, Metaphor... Love, Self, Tragedy, Pain...
civilization and primitivism...only to name a few.
What a fascinating book.

And oh yes, I'm reading the book-length version from Ecco press.
Hope I could find the new essays coming out... I'll certainly try, cause
some quoted passages from Mr. Mailer made me want to read his own.

Thank you for your regards,

Kim



Subject:   Re: DH Lawrence
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 02:28:43 +0900
From:   "±è*±Çü" sweetalk@netsgo.com

Dear Cyrano,

Thanks for the info.  I really want to know what JCO thinks of D.H.
Lawrence. But I couldn't find the title on the shelf of Amazon.com.
They say it is very very hard to find.
Maybe I should try the American Cultural Institute Library first.
Really hope I could find it.

Kim



Subject:  Re: A WOMAN'S WRITER
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 02:37:53 +0900
From:    "±è*±Çü" 

Hi, everyone,
Please forgive me for posting so often.
Actually I feel very awkward in expressing myself in English,
So I'm worried about offending you without knowing it.
Please understand that I'm just so happy to participate
in this forum and discuss my favorite writers and books
with such great readers as you. It's my biggest pleasure
these days reading your discussions and writing reponses.

And Gary -

This time, I couldn't help writing cause I love Donna Tartt.
"The Secret History" was simply marvelous.
Is her second novel out? If it is, is it that good?
Please let me know if you know.

and also to everybody-- :)

about the gender of writers... mmm, yes, again.
Gary made some really good points.
Especially that writers don't have to have first-hand
experience to write about a subject.
I entirely agree with you on that, Gary.

However,  when I consider the writer's gender problem,
I don't think it's the voice of a novel that really matters.
What counts is the whole ideological stance, or the viewpoint, in my
opinion. And the viewpoint is not easily separable from the writer's own
sex,
cause in real life, the experience of two sexes are obviously different.

I'm not pro-labeling myself, but it's true some writers can't
and don't even try to transcend his or her own gender,
(not to mention take advantage of it) while others try to explore
the psyche of the opposite sex. It's like genre writing, no more, no less.
The writer can try anything, but what comes out all depends on his or
her ability. Like any literary work, it will stand on its own merits.

Still, I believe, when a woman writer writes in a first-person-male voice,
she's really writing about a man seen through the eyes of a woman.
And that simple fact might add another dimension of meaning to
the book and enrich the possibilities of interpretation. It's not
the verisimilitude I'm questioning...but the lens, borrowing Jen's
term. If Iris Murdoch did an excellent job studying a man's psyche
in The Sea The Sea, yet it is still meaningful that the author is female.
It is She reading and writing Him. (Sorry, this is JCO forum...but
I haven't read JCO writing in male voice yet)Though she
could have fooled a lot of  readers under a pseudonym
like George Eliot really did.  Well, think of works like Daniel Deronda,
our response must have been different if we had thought the author a man.

Kim



Subject:  Re: A WOMAN'S WRITER
Date:  Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:08:01 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu

kim-

> This time, I couldn't help writing cause I love Donna Tartt.
> "The Secret History" was simply marvelous.
> Is her second novel out? If it is, is it that good?
> Please let me know if you know.

as far as i know _the secret history_ is still donna tartt's only book -
it really is wonderful writing. i remember being a little disappointed at
the length of the novel in comparison to actual plot but the writing was
so gorgeous. for some reason, i always relate that book to the 
patron saint of liars by ann patchett. both authors are so precise with
their language and so rich with their imagery.
 - jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  DONNA TARTT
 Date:   Sun, 01 Feb 1998 16:18:19 EST
 From:   composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


I have heard no news about Donna Tartt having a new novel out yet.  I
fear she is waiting too long to publish it.  I mean, look at Jean Auel (I
hate those books anyway)--a LOT of people have forgotten about her, or at
least thought the series was over, but I know people who have DIED
waiting for her next one to come out!  Tartt had better get on the
bandwagon before her publisher forgets who she is.  I LOVED LOVED LOVED
"The Secret History."  What a marvelous text!

Kim--
For reading Oates in a male voice, try WHAT I LIVED FOR--still one of my
all-time favorite Oates books!

David C. 
Michigan



Subject:   Re: Lavish Self-Divisions
 Date:  Sun, 01 Feb 1998 16:18:19 EST
From:   composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


Have skimmed through it several times, it doesn't seem to be too bad.  I
love the title.  Have you read the book by Elaine Showalter (an Oates
friend a Princeton cohort) about "Where are you going, where have you
been?"  I found that interesting.

David C.
Michigan



Subject:    ON BOXING & JCO
 Date:   Sun, 01 Feb 1998 16:18:19 EST
 From:    composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


Kim et. al.--

Mailer's essay in THE MUHAMMAD ALI READER is from Life Magazine and is
called "Ego."  He has written a book about boxing, THE FIGHT, about the
Ali-Foreman fight in  Zaire in the 1970s.  George Plimpton wrote a
less-exciting book on the same topic, SHADOW BOX, but nonetheless it is
good.  Both books feature Ali more than Foreman, and boxing more than
Ali.

I found Oates' writing more scholarly in ON BOXING rather than
"narrative."  I think she is a good non-fiction writer, and I certainly
felt like I was being educated while reading ON BOXING.  She definitely
inserted some "Oates-ian" prose througout, giving it some voice, but it
does not compare to her fiction.  Among boxing writers, however, she is
certainly up there with Mailer and Plimpton.

Has anyone here commented on how funny it is that we always refer to
Joyce Carol Oates as JCO?  Oates wrote an essay about that, entitled (I
think) "On Being JCO" or "Living as JCO" or something like that, and she
kind of descrives herself as having two lives, one as Joyce and the other
as JCO, as I recall.  It was published in "Who's Writing This?" edited by
Dan Halpern from Ecco Press (I love Ecco Press, by the way).  It is still
in print in paperback, although I picked up a hardcover edition at Barnes
& Noble for $4.95.  It includes illustrations and essays by each
individual author.  Oates' illustration is a collage of pictures from the
front cover of the hardcover edition of "Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque"
with a picture of herself mixed in.  Other writers in the book include: 
Updike, Harold Brodkey, Henry Roth, Edna O'Brien, Halpern, James
Michener, and a slew of others I can't remember.  It is worth reading.


David C.
Michigan



Subject:  Re: A WOMAN'S WRITER
 Date:   Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:04:30 -0800 (PST)
 From:   joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu


Kim:

I think you could get general agreement that a writer's voice and outlook
are influenced by that writer's experiences as member of whatever groups
(gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, income level, etc, etc) she or he
belongs to.  But these experiences come together with the writer's
inherent characteristics and unique experiences to make up the attributes
of an individual.  The problem of ignoring the writer as individual rather
than as member of some group (and why give priority to membership in a
certain group, such as gender, over membership in another group, such as
income level?) is that it leads to obstructive and valueless reactions
such as the criticism of JCO for writing "On Boxing".  I think that most
(though I'll concede not all) considerations of writers as male/female,
proletarian/bourgeois, Anglo/non-Anglo and so forth are statements about
sociology rather than about writing (I say "rather than" instead of "as
well as"  because the writing gets buried under the preconceived
sociological beliefs;  there is no serious effort to explore with any
subtlety the interactions of sociology and writing).  Which, as you know,
is exactly why Mary Ann Evans decided to publish books as "George Eliot". 
And I think similar attitudes explain why, for example, Toni Morrison has
won a Nobel Prize and JCO hasn't:  I think Morrison deserves her Nobel
Prize, but I think she was found acceptible because a stereotypical
reading of her work can look it as remaining within permitted guidelines
of a black, female American writer dealing with black, female American
characters, even though this reading misrepresents her true accomplishment
and its wider applicability.  JCO violates the stereotypes too blatantly
for a broad range of the literary establishment to feel comfortable with
her.  A man of similar accomplishment might not win the Nobel Prize, but
there would be a lot more complaining about the oversight (and has been
for certain male writers) than we've seen outside this discussion group in
JCO's case. 

Steve



Subject:  Re: ON BOXING & JCO
Date:  Sun, 1 Feb 1998 19:56:55 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, David.  I skimmed through WHO'S WRITING THIS? last summer and found it
rather absurd that all those writers were claiming that "they" did not write
their own novels, stories, whatever.  After perusing the tenth essay, I longed
for one of them to say "Yeah, I wrote it, and I'm proud OF it!"  Apparently
it's the fashion among fiction writers these days to sound all coy and arcane
about what part of their psyche does the writing, an issue I find absolutely
immaterial to the fiction itself. Cyrano



Subject:   Re: WHAT Nobel Prize?
 Date:   Sun, 1 Feb 1998 20:10:36 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

On JCO and the Nobel Prize I cannot get excited.  It's just an award.  It
entitles the winner to a free trip to Stockholm in early December.  I was on a
plane last Dec. with two
men who had won it for physics -- the current winner sat in first class; last
season's winner (they're both from Stanford U.) sat next to the current
winners' two kids and me in cabin.  The guy who sat next to me was distinctly
blase about the whole affair.  We talked about the events around the award.
He conceded that the food was pretty good, although Stockholm was much nicer
to visit during the OTHER  solstice when it's light outside and you can really
appreciate the city's charms.  Later, I was taken on a tour of the city hall,
where all the award ceremonies and dinners take place.  They showed us the new
china and flatware.  It was pretty nice.  There's a restaurant in City Hall
where, if you request a week in advance, you can be served the exact same menu
the winner of your choice enjoyed on his/her big day.  JCO hasn't won the
Pulitzer either, but take a look at the names that have won them since the
prize began in 1918.  Then you'll see that prizes are nice but they simply are
not gospel.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Martin Amis
 Date:   Sun, 01 Feb 1998 17:33:55 +0000
From:   "F. Schwartz" fabela@gte.net


Ellen: Forgot. I *did* sell a novel to Bantam in 1979. It wasn't
published, though... does that count?

Enjoying the opening up of doors in jco forum as much as I am?

Francie



Subject:   WHO'S WRITING THIS?
 Date:   Sun, 01 Feb 1998 20:39:32 EST
From:    composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


Good point.  I just got it to see the authors' drawings of themselves. 
What did you think of JCO's essay?  
DC



Subject:  Of Writing Prizes & JCO
 Date:  Sun, 01 Feb 1998 20:39:32 EST
From:  composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)

On the NOBEL prize:

If Toni Morrison can get the Nobel and John Updike can't, I have zero
faith in it.  Toni Morrison is an OVERRATED writer, period.  Now, Derek
Walcott and Nadine Gordimer DID deserve the prize.  But who in the hell
was that Polish poet who got it a couple years ago?  And Saul Bellow is
such a curmudgeon old goof, I don't think he deserved it either.  You
see, there is just no "sense" or method to it.  A lot of writers say it
ruins their creative flow, limits their writing.  Could Toni Morrison
ever write a mystery novel and publish now that she is a Nobel laureate? 
NO NO NO.  Can JCO still write Rosamond Smith novels?  YES!  YEAH!

On the PULITZER prize:

Here again is a flip-flop award, there are some people who truly deserve
it, and others who do not.  Did Rita Dove deserve the prize for Thomas &
Beuhlah (sp.)?  I don't think so.  I like Rita Dove, but I don't think
she deserved a Pulitzer for that work.  James Dickey went his whole life
without a Pulitzer and I think he should have had three of them:  one for
his poetry collection, THE WHOLE MOTION; and one each for ALNILAM (which
I finally read) and TO THE WHITE SEA.  Did Updike deserve the Pulitzer
for Rabbit is Rich?  No.  Did he deserve it for Rabbit at Rest?  Yes. 
But he won for both.  So, it really is immaterial to base writers on
their awards.  Now, JCO has been nominated, what, twice for the Pulitzer?
 I think once for BLACK WATER and the other time for WHAT I LIVED FOR. 
But it doesn't make her any less of a writer for NOT winning it.

Wow, now I am out of breath.  Now who is going to give me grief about the
Toni Morrison comment.

David C.
Michigan



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:51:53 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu

David-
I'll give you grief for the Toni comment...
I think Toni and JCO are both enormously talented and very different
writers...
I think Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye are brilliant works.
SHe combines Marquez-esque magical realism with moments of intense lyrical
beauty and writes universally about humans. Picking up Song of Solomon, I
think everyone can relate to Milkman's struggle with identity.
And I think to an extent, Beloved *is* a mystery novel - and more...
Now, I've always struggled with John Updike - I loved Brazil but other
than that, I have always had to wrestle with his work...
And I think Cyrano (was it Cyrano who said it?) is right - a prize is just
a nice thing to have. We're talking about wonderful writers here so the
prize just becomes something else to add to their lengthy list of
accomplishments.
 - jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: WHO'S WRITING THIS?
Date:  Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:33:37 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Hi, David.  I don't have a copy of WHO'S WRITING THIS at hand.  What I recall
thinking about JCO's essay was that I'd read much the same thoughts in essays
that she had published  elsewhere, notably in WOMAN WRITER.
     A note on using JCO's initials.  The first work of hers that I ever read
-- I think it was "Accomplished Desires" -- was in the mid-1960s in some
anthology, and she published it under the by-line "J.C.Oates."    Cyrano  



Subject:   Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
 Date:   Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:41:54 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

Hi, David.  The Pulitzers are funny.  They seem to be partly lifetime
achievement awards.
Upton Sinclair won in 1942 for DRAGON'S TEETH, but every high school student
(well, MANY of the literate ones) knows that his masterpiece was THE JUNGLE.
Updike got all three apples on the slot machine for RABBIT IS RICH: Pulitzer,
National Book Award, and National Book Critics' Circle -- the top US awards.
I liked the novel enormously, but
I'd have to review 1982's roster of candidates to say whether it was FAIR that
he won all three prizes. 
     I don't see why winning the Nobel would prevent an author from writing
anything he/she wanted ... or even writing a script for THE SIMSONS (Here we
go again!)
Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Women as decoys for other women
Date:   Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:55:48 EST
From:  Shmoopak@aol.com


Thanks Ellen!
Yes I read your message as well, and I think that you are absolutely right.
The therapist's relationship with Ingrid is just as traumatic as the other
relationships were, perhaps even moreso because it is such an insidious form
of abuse.



Subject:   Re: Women as decoys for other women
Date:  Sun, 1 Feb 1998 23:06:56 EST
From:  Shmoopak@aol.com

Steve,
If there were a "Man Crazy Part II" I think the brief little outline you
provide might actually be the plot of that story.  Mainly because that's
exactly what JCO has done in other stories where a weak vulnerable woman seems
to find solace with an authoritarian, domineering, much-older man, but then
gets sick and disgusted first with herself, and then with him.  And then
somehow, she manages to escape.  I am again thinking of Elena's relationship
with Marvin Howe in Do with me what you will, but there are many other
instances.  What is interesting about the the ending to Do with me what you
will again, is that it too is bittersweet.  We are glad she leaves Howe, and
we think she might actually be taking a step toward liberation and happiness,
but what does she do?  Fly right into the arms of the married Jack - another
doomed relationship just waiting to happen.  I am dying for a happy ending
here.  The next book I read (after I reread Expensive People) is going to be
the Mysteries of Winterthur that you recommended!



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:49:00 -0500 (EST)
From:   Matthew A Cheney macheney@cisunix.unh.edu

William Gass has a wonderfully caustic essay about the Pulitzers and other
prizes in his collection "Finding a Form".  The final paragraph: "No, this
prize for fiction is not disgraced by its banal and hokey choices.  It is
the critics and customers who have chosen and acclaimed them, who have
bought the books and thought about them and called them literature and
tried to stick them like gum on the pillars of our culture.  It is they
who have earned the opprobrium of this honor."

Recently, the BBC came up with a list of the 100 most important works of
art in the 20th Century, and they're planning on doing shows about each of
the works.  It is an idiotic list, the whole project a waste of time.
(And no, Oates was not listed -- only ten women were.)

Lists of "bests" and awards can be fun games, intellectual sports, but if
we take them as much more serious than that then we're in trouble.  I was
psyched that Dario Fo won the Nobel this year, but if Arthur Miller ever
does then I'll be screaming that the committee has no taste, the refs are
blind.

To my mind, the best thing the awards can do is bring attention to writers
who deserve it but might have been neglected, like the Polish poet (if
people would stop complaining that they can't pronounce her name and read
her poetry with an open mind, they might discover a new author to
appreciate, god forbid!)  I'm glad Morrison won because it caused me to
stop procrastinating and to sit down and read one of her books; my life is
fuller because of it.  But don't overestimate the power of these awards --
all the awards in the world combined don't have a quarter the power of
Oprah's Book Club!

In the end, the list of the winners of all the various awards is just
about as distinguished as the list of oversights.

Matt Cheney



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 00:50:04 EST
 From:   Ehaggar@aol.com


Hi--I  love you Jen, but I have to support David on the Toni Morrison
comment---BELOVED is a brilliant work of art, the rest of the novels could
have been turned out by any literate politically correct black woman.  The
brilliance, the daring, the damn it all genius of JCO is simply beyond
compare---if there are no prizes for her, then prizes indeed no longer
matter.....

Ellen Haggar



Subject:   Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 01:29:29 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu

 By any "politically correct black woman?" Morrison's mastery of language
is something that few writers that I know of have ever surpassed. I can
completely understand if you dont enjoy Morrison but that comment seems a
bit overstated.

- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: ON BOXING & JCO
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 18:01:19 +0900
From:   "±Ëº±«," 


>I found Oates' writing more scholarly in ON BOXING rather than
>"narrative."  I think she is a good non-fiction writer, and I certainly
>felt like I was being educated while reading ON BOXING.  She definitely
>inserted some "Oates-ian" prose througout, giving it some voice, but it
>does not compare to her fiction.  Among boxing writers, however, she is
>certainly up there with Mailer and Plimpton.


David,

Wow, you really keep me thinking, thinking, thinking!
What a refreshing stimulation!

Certainly, I don't deny that.
I also learned a lot about boxing while reading it.
When I said "narrative", however, I wasn't suggesting
ON BOXING itself is not a scholarly essay but a real "narrative".
I meant that JCO contemplates some problems and issues
concerning "narrative" while writing about boxing.
Mmm, How about putting it this way?
I think JCO tries to read various "narratives" from(into) boxing.
And most of all JCO reads a boxing match as a "text",
or a "narrative" in a wider sense the narratologists use these days.
And this is one intriguing aspect of this book. Like the following:

"The fighters in the ring are time-bound ...... but the fight itself is
timeless. In a sense it becomes all fights, as the boxers are 
all boxers. By way of films, tapes, and photographs it quickly 
becomes history for us, even, at times, art."

History, Art, and Time...aren't these three elements
what "narrative" concerns?
In addition, I found it very interesting that she consistently
relates boxing to the activity of reading and writing.

"The artist senses some kinship, however oblique and one-sided,
with the professional boxer in this matter of training.....
One might compare the time-bound public spectacle of the 
boxing match with the publication of a writer's book, 
That which is "public" is but the final stage in a protracted, 
arduous, grueling, and frequently despairing period of preparation."
Or, " That no other sport can elicit such theoretical anxiety lies
at the heart of boxing's fascination for the writer...The writer
contemplates his opposite in the boxer ...... "

Also she tends to see the relationship between performer
and observer as that between writer and reader.

"In no other sport is the connection between performer
and observer so intimate, so frequently painful, so unresolved."
or "the moment in which the fight is turned around.....
is not an isolated moment but the moment ---mystical, universal."
but "we are apt to *read* this "triumph" as merely temporary
and provisional."

and finally, she considers a boxing match as a narrative, a drama.


"This sense of an ending, a limit, a final and incontestable
judgment --boxing in its greatest moments suggests
the bloody fifth acts of classic tragedies, in which
that mysterious element we call "plot" achieves closure."

David, I think you were right to point out my expression. 
I should have qualified it. 
Thanks for giving me the opportunity.


Kim 
from Korea



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:50:28 -0500
 From:  cafuller@EVE.ASSUMPTION.EDU (Catherine Fuller)


        Toni Morrison is not an overrated writer.  Here's your flak....

        And about women writers, how about this...the only writers
qualified to lasso the topic properly , are you ready "David C" are bell
hooks and adirenne rich.  Apples.



Subject:   Re: Cars
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:54:55 -0500 (EST)
From:    diamond@math.wvu.edu (Harvey Diamond)


Re the car thing:
A favorite quote from Oates:

        "As long he had his own car he was an American and could not die."

>From "Them"; the protagonist ( I forget the name) looks out the window,
sees his car, and is comforted at the thought of "escape".

Harvey Diamond



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:02:57 EST
 From:   Ehaggar@aol.com

Jen---

I think I did say LITERATE politically correct black women , but you are
right, I somewhat overstated my case there.  I am so used to people who like
Toni Morrison saying they liked everything EXCEPT "Beloved"  (my own personal
favorite) that sometimes I forget there is a case to be overstated.  Perhaps
it would clarify my point more if I said that I think Morrison is no better
than Alice Walker and certainly no better than Gloria Naylor, one of the great
underappreciated writers of whatever sex or color.

The idea of handing out prizes on the grounds of political correctness is a
very sore point with me.  One of the things I admire so much about JCO is not
just how good she is, but how good she sometimes ISN'T----that is, she is
willing to take risks, to try new forms of writing, to write on different
subjects,.  She does not write simply about the black condition, or the female
condition or the boxing condition or whatever--she is as at home in the rural
areas of New York State as she is in the halls of Princeton.

I truly despaired of the Nobel Prize every being given to anyone worthy after
they passed over Graham Greene so many times; and I am afraid that their track
record continues to be pretty awful.

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: ON BOXING & JCO
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:08:06 -0500 (EST)
 From:   diamond@math.wvu.edu (Harvey Diamond)

David,

        I think "JCO and I" is on the web page somewhere, I remember seeing
it recently. It's apparently based on the essay "Borges and I" in which
Borges discusses the life of Borges the celebrity writer and Borges the
regular guy (who is writing the essay). It's in the collection "Labyrinths".

Harvey Diamond



Subject:   Re: Re: Cars
 Date:   Mon, 02 Feb 1998 07:41:32 -0700
 From:     "Jennifer Hambly" jhambly@mailcity.com


Cars are a traditional metaphor in American Literature: On the Road, Grapes of Wrath,
and so forth.  They are used as a tangible  symbol of the American desire to explore.
 Oates re-works this traditional significance of the car in Them and Foxfire.  In
both works, the protagonists use cars to escape their suffocating environments. 
But, unlike Kerouac's characters who find freedom through their journeys, Oates'
characters attempts to use cars to find freedom fail: Legs goes to jail and Jewel
becomes desolated and sick.

To me, this inversion of a traditional American symbol is part of Oates' attempt
to present the "other" Americans' experiences with the American Dream. "Other" Americans'
are mostly those who are poor and disenfranchised.

Cheers,
Jennifer



Subject  Re: On Boxing and JCO
Date:   Tue, 3 Feb 1998 01:18:14 +0900
From:    "±Ëº±«," 


David and everyone --
 
I just got my own message and read it, and thought 
I'd better add this.  
I really don't think ON BOXING is about literature. 
I do think ON BOXING is on boxing. But I also think 
ON BOXING is not just on boxing but about many more things 
including literature(reading, writing, text, narrative etc.). 
I found ON BOXING a very good read, though I'm not 
a boxing fan. What a fascinating prose. 
Now I'm really into JCO. I'm taking up FOXFIRE today. 
 
Kim 
 


Subject:   RE: On Boxing&JCO(Correction)
Date:   Tue, 3 Feb 1998 01:33:29 +0900
From:   "±Ëº±«," 

Sorry, everybody. 
The parenthesis(reading, writing...etc) in the above message
goes with "literature", not "many more things". 
I should have deleted the parenthesis part. -_-;
 
Kim  



Subject:   Re: Hostile Sun
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 11:39:29 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com


Who was looking for HOSTILE SUN -- JCO's booklet on D.H. Lawrence?  Try
Bookstreet
in NYC email: books@interport.net.  Happy hunting.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:10:58 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


Ellen-
First of all, I loved Beloved. Second of all, I don't think Toni
Morrison's work is limited to her race or her gender - following Virginia
Woolf's model, she has adopted a kind of "androgynous mind" where she can
examine Milkman in Song of Solomon or Sethe in Beloved with precise and
beautiful language. 
Cornel West in his book Race Matters calls Toni Morrison the only
"rece-transcending prophet" who the present generation has produced who
has "a commitment to fusing the life of the mind with the struggle for
justice and human dignity." And I think that is the most accurate
description of her writing I have ever read.
Furthermore, I don't think Morrison's Nobel can be
attributed to "political correctness" and I am very curious as to why you
think that.
 - jen

P.S. Yes, I think Gloria Naylor is a wonderful author - both Mama Day and
The WOmen of Brewster Place were extraordinarily rich novels...

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: ON BOXING & JCO
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:12:00 -0500 (EST)
From:    Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


Harvey-
I'm so glad you mentioned Borges who is one of my favorite authors --- Borges and I is a wonderful story and
"Labyrinths," "Fictions," and "The Aleph" are three brilliant books which
I highly reccomend.

- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:   Re: Hostile Sun
 Date:   Mon, 02 Feb 1998 09:32:40 -0800
From:    Randy Souther Randy Souther


The Hostile Sun is also reprinted in JCO's collection New Heaven, New
Earth: the Visionary Experience in Literature--which may be easier to
locate.

Randy



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:45:18 EST
From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

Hi, I've read all of Toni Morrison's books.  Her focus is almost entirely on
black characters, which is fine.  In her latest, PARADISE, she has a young
white woman character who nearly eluded me and two very secondary middle-aged
white women who are.  
such feckless, selfish types that they are practically caricatures of the
selfish middle-class white bitch.  I'd call BELOVED race-transcending in that
it its characters and their issues have universal status.  I remember the
woman who reviewed BELOVED in the NYT made the crass remark that TM is too
good to confine herself to just black characters (it was said a bit more
graciously than that, but that was the gist of it).  Imagine a reviewer
saying, for instance, that Jane Smiley is too good a writer to confine herself
to just white characters.  Needless to say, that reveiwer caught hell in
subsequent NYTBR letter columns.  Cyrano



Subject:   Re: Re: Cars
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:38:09 -0800 (PST)
From:   Anthony Risser ahris@yahoo.com


Jennifer,

   Hello.

   Wasn't one of the interesting things about the use of automobiles
in "The Grapes of Wrath" that they was used to symbolize both aspects
of then comtemporary life: those that "had" were able to go to those
shiny new car dealerships to purchase one to meet that desire and
those that "had not" (like the Joads) could only see one as a means of
escape or as a means to get to a better place where they might have
their shot at escaping poverty and becoming enfranchised.

   Not to mention that wonderful episode where the yahoo (or yahoos)
in the vehicle swerve to deliberately hit the turtle, rather than to
avoid it...

Anthony H. Risser, Ph.D.
ahris@yahoo.com



Subject:  Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:37:49 EST
From:  Ehaggar@aol.com


Jen--

It is always a pleasure to read your comments---they are thoughtful and
insightful.  But none of Toni Morrison's book every gets outside the "blacks
oppressed by whites in many imaginative ways" topic.  I don't deny it is a
very real topic---but after awhile I wonder if she has any extension to her
creativity at all.  That was what fascinated me so about BELOVED---I felt she
might be getting out of her self-made NOIR literary prison and into some
issues about parents and children, the horrors of sacrifice gone wrong and so
forth.

The Nobel Literary Committee very carefully distributes prizes so that no one
will ever accuse them of favoring white males who speak English---this leads
to the absurdity of obscure Italian poets and playwrights, suicidal Japanese
cult figures and so forth being chosen over people who can actually WRITE.  If
forced to give the award to an English writer because the public is finally
tired of obscure and incoherent foreigners, they go to the next best
thing----second-rate black women writers.  I frankly don't care how much Toni
Morrison has suffered as part of the black experience---literarily speaking,
that doesn't matter.  Joyce Carol Oates is a far superior writer.  and if we
want to stick with black authors, James Baldwin (too good a writer for the
black community, which often shunned him), Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker are
much more deserving of that honor.  Too late of course for James Baldwin, or
Langston Hughes, or Lorraine Hansberry---all black writers now dead who could
really write!

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: WHO'S WRITING THIS?
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 12:52:46 -0800
From:   composer2@juno.com


Cool, I didn't know that she actually had published anything under any
name but Joyce Carol Oates, save Rosamind Smith (sp.).  Intitials are a
funny think, I always thought that people put them before their names to
give a degree of scholarship or lofty esteem, "M. Roland Biederman"  or
"J. Douglas Hanson" sounds pretty academic.  Or, when writers use their
full names and middle initial (Scott C. Davis), it just seems like an
grade-school essay that you want Mom to be proud of when she reads it,
"That's my son."  Pretty funny.

David



Subject:   WOW! The Morrison Inferno
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:13:58 -0800
 From:   composer2@juno.com


Dear Group!

Wow, I didn't expect quite the feedback I got from my Toni Morrison
comment, but I am standing by it.  For those that missed it, I said "Toni
Morrison is an OVERRATED writer.  Period."  And I have no qualms about
that.  Now, that comment does not say I don't like her or don't think she
is talented, I just think that people make too big of a deal about her. 
I do not think her work is nearly as ecumenical or accessible as JCO, or,
for that matter, Gloria Naylor or Alice Walker as Ellen pointed out. 
Alice Walker lacks many of the same ecumenical qualities Morrison does,
but her prose is much more accessible and direct, with less "fluff"
(save, perhaps, "The Temple of My Familiar").  The difference between the
two is that Morrison has been touted and glorified and "scholarized" and
idolized and deified and paraded through the media as this "highly
educated, scholarly, academic, literary magnate."  I am not denying
Morrison's very respectable knowledge nor her position as an academic,
scholarly figure, but I am so sick to death of Time Magazine and People
Weekly and other publications showcasing Morrison as a literary
bulwark--as if they, the media, have uncovered this wonderful creation
who produces good literature--and boy she is one of a kind, there has
never been anything like her and there will never be anything like her,
yadda yadda yadda.  It makes me resentful that other good writers,
because their topics may not be as politically correct as racism and
sexism, get little or no attention in the commercial media.  What ever
happened to Paul Theroux?  Or J. California Cooper?  Or Philip Roth?  Or
even, for that matter, William Gaddis?  Ernest J. Gaines?  James Dickey? 
Reynolds Price? and the list goes on and on.  Nope, TONI MORRISON is the
literary queen!

David
Michigan

p.s.-- As surprising as it may be, I liked Toni Morrison's SONG OF
SOLOMON, liked even less BELOVED, and could have done without JAZZ.  But,
THE BLUEST EYE, I thought, was truly great.  So, she writes in vernacular
speech?  So does Elmore Leonard.



Subject:  Re: WHO'S WRITING THIS?
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:55:57 EST
 From:   Ehaggar@aol.com


Hi---a gentle and I hope non-controversial piece of information after all the
Toni Morrision bashing I have been doing, here is a list of the Rosamond Smith
books:

LIVES OF THE TWINS
SOUL-MATE
NEMESIS
YOU CAN'T CATCH ME
SNAKE EYES

and the most recent

DOUBLE DELIGHT

I thought TWINS, NEMESIS and SOUL-MATE were superb, SNAKE EYES was ok, DOUBLE
DELIGHT  was good, and YOU CAN'T CATCH ME was very poor, with a plot almost
plaigarized from an old Daphne Du Maurier book called "The Scapegoat"  Anyone
else have strong opinions about any of these?

Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: WOW! The Morrison Inferno
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:03:39 EST
 From:  Ehaggar@aol.com


Dear David---

Don't worry, boy---I'm standing right by you in the midst of the Morrison
inferno---have you seen some of the letters that I am getting LOL?

Ellen



Subject:   Re: Of Writing Prizes & JCO
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 14:27:35 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


Ellen-
Thats where I think you are wrong - Toni Morrison's books constantly
transcend the theme of oppression. Take a look at Song of Solomon -
Milkman goes on an odyssey to discover who he is. This book is
fundamentally about self-discovery and self-awareness. YES, Milkman is a
black man. But the novel is not solely about his blackness. The novel also
discusses intenesely love, frindship, history, and family.  I am also
really saddened that you think of her as a "second-rate black
women writer." To read her work solely on the level of a black writer is
to miss so many levels of her work, the richness of her comments about
humanity as to read Woolf's A Room of One's Own as a "women's book" would
be to miss so much of what she is saying as a writer.
I don't disagree with you, Baldwin is a wonderful writer as are Naylor and
Walker. And past a certain level of excellence, it is really hard to tell
who the best is.
I suggest you take another look at Morrison. I think you are missing a lot
about what Toni Morrison is saying about HUMANITY.
 - jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: WOW! The Morrison Inferno
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:25:37 -0500 (EST)
From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


david-
no one is denying that there are other talented writers. my god - i
agree...
i think alice walker and philip roth and JCO and garcia marquez and gloria
naylor are all immmensely talented people. 
but to criticize toni morrison for the fact that jco (or other writers)
havent gotten a nobel is absurd.
- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



From:  composer2@juno.com
Subject:   Magic Realism
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:47:51 -0800
 
I am not sure who posted it, but to say that Toni Morrison has the same
quality or type of magic realism as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or V.S.
Naipaul is truly absurd.  Compared to them, Morrison does not have a
prayer in magic realism.

Who will argue for JCO's dabbling, if any, in magic realism?

David
Michigan



Subject:    AMEN!
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:41:30 -0800
From:   composer2@juno.com


Ehaggar writes:

The Nobel Literary Committee very carefully distributes prizes so that no
one
will ever accuse them of favoring white males who speak English---this
leads
to the absurdity of obscure Italian poets and playwrights, suicidal
Japanese
cult figures and so forth being chosen over people who can actually WRITE

Dearest Ellen,

AMEN!  Should we start the list of white males who speak English that
deserve such a prize: 
        1. Updike
        2. DeLillo
        3. Phil Roth
        4. Mailer (my wonderful, dear Mailer!)
        5. a posthumous award should go to James Dickey just because he
is the MAN
        5. keep adding

David
Michigan



Subject:  The Morrison Inferno
 Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:34:30 -0800
 From:   composer2@juno.com


I don't care how much Morrison has suffered either.  What about the
Irish-Americans, the Belgian-Americans, etc. who have suffered as well. 
That's a totally different subject, so we won't go down that road.  But,
I must agree that Gloria Naylor, Langston Hughes, definitely James
Baldwin, and perhaps even Zora Neale Hurston remain without much
recognition on the professional level (Nobels, Pulitzers, etc.). 
Comparing Joyce Carol Oates to Toni Morrison is like comparing apples to
oranges, and I am not saying she is a horrible writer, but like I said
before I do not find her work very ecumenical or accessible to everyone. 
Could a White-Irish Catholic middle age man in Nebraska appreciate
Morrison's work?  Yes, he could appreciate it.  Could he identify with
it?  No.  Now, could he appreciate JCO's work?  Yes.  Could he identify
with it?  Not all, but definitely some novels, eg WHAT I LIVED FOR.  The
point I am trying to make is, JCO has something for everyone.  Toni
Morrison is far enough into her career and grooved enough in her style
that I highly doubt we will see anything from her of a diverse or unique
flavour.

David 
Michigan



Subject:  Re: AMEN!
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 16:48:22 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


i honestly feel like this is ridiculous...
yes, there are many white men who deserve the nobel and haven't won it. as
there are hispanic men who deserve it and haven't won it, (jorge luis
borges, one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived never won a nobel) as
there are many races of women and men who deserve the nobel and have never
won it. the nobel is an award - it is as flawed and biased as any other.
respect that the people who get them are talented but that there are
hundreds of other authors who are also immensely talented. 
alice walker is wonderful, she won the pulitzer. toni morrison is
wonderful, she won the nobel. zora neale hurston is wonderful, she didn't
win the nobel. who cares? i love her regardless. 
its like jd salinger said at the end of franny&zooey - an artist's only
concern is to shoot for something bautiful for themselves - not for us,
not for some committee of people who are as biased as we are.
- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: The Morrison Inferno
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 17:07:23 -0500 (EST)
From:  Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


 i dont think a writers responsibility is to create something
for everyone - their responsibility is to write from what they know - it
is our responsibility as readers to find something in that beauty which we
can relate to. as a black female, there are not many jco characters who i
can relate to but i can certainly relate to aspects of some of her
characters as i can relate to aspects of some of toni morrison's
characters. to say that the fact that morrison a white irish-catholic
middle age man in nebraska can't relate to morrison is not the most valid
of criticisms...perhaps he couldn't relate to baldwin either, perhaps
garcia marquez wouldn't be as wonderful for him as it is for me. it
doesn't lessen the value of the work. 
 - jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: Hostile Sun
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 17:32:09 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com

Thanks, Randy.  I'd forgotten "Hostile Sun" is part of that book.  NEW HEAVEN,
NEW EARTH should be easier to locate, AND it contains an essay on Sylvia
Plath. Cyrano



Subject:  Morrison Nobel
 Date:   Mon, 02 Feb 1998 14:49:36 -0800
From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther


Swedish Academy
                The Permanent Secretary

                Press release: Nobel Prize for Literature 1993

                October 7, 1993

Toni Morrison

"who, in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import,
gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."

"My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an
African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly
racialized
world". These are the words of this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature,
the American writer Toni Morrison, in her book of essays "PIaying in the

Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination" (1992). And she adds, "My
project rises from delight, not disappointment..."

Toni Morrison is 62 years old, and was born in Lorain, Ohio, in the
United States. Her works comprise novels and essays. In her academic
career
she is a professor in the humanities at the University of Princeton, New
Jersey.

She has written six novels, each of them of great interest. Her oeuvre
is unusually finely wrought and cohesive, yet at the same time rich in
variation. One can delight in her unique narrative technique, varying
from book to book and developed independently, even though its roots
stem
from Faulkner and American writers from further south. The lasting
impression is nevertheless sympathy, humanity, of the kind which is
always
based on profound humour.

"Song of Solomon" (1978) with its description of the black world in life
and legend, forms an excellent introduction to the work of Toni
Morrison. Milkman Dead's quest for his real self and its source reflects
a basic theme in the novels. The Solomon of the title, the southern
ancestor, was to be found in the songs of childhood games. His inner
intensity had borne him back, like Icarus, through the air to the Africa
of his
roots. This insight finally becomes Milkman's too.

"Beloved" (1987) continues to widen the themes and to weave together the
places and times in the network of motifs. The combination of realistic
notation and folklore paradoxically intensifies the credibility. There
is enormous power in the depiction of Sethe's action to liberate her
child from
the life she envisages for it, and the consequences of this action for
Sethe's own life.

In her latest novel "Jazz" (1992), Toni Morrison uses a device which is
akin to the way jazz itself is played. The book's first lines provide a
synopsis, and in reading the novel one becomes aware of a narrator who
varies, embellishes and intensifies. The result is a richly complex,
sensuously conveyed image of the events, the characters and moods.

As the motivation for the award implies, Toni Morrison is a literary
artist of the first rank. She delves into the language itself, a
language she
wants to liberate from the fetters of race. And she addresses us with
the lustre of poetry.



Subject: Re: doug coupland
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 17:27:05 EST
 From:   Cyranomish@aol.com


Jen. This may not be the best time to ask, but what book is your Doug Coupland
quote from?  I'm eagerly awaiting his new GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: The Morrison Inferno
Date:   Mon, 2 Feb 1998 15:05:54 -0800 (PST)
From:   Anthony Risser ahris@yahoo.com

---composer2@juno.com wrote:
>
>...Could a White-Irish Catholic middle age man in Nebraska appreciate
> Morrison's work?  Yes, he could appreciate it.  Could he identify with
> it?  No.  Now, could he appreciate JCO's work?  Yes.  Could he
identify
> with it?  Not all, but definitely some novels, eg WHAT I LIVED FOR....


   Do you really wish to withhold the capacity for empathy (in
fiction, if not in real life) from a segment of the population based
upon demographic background? One might not be able to "identify" with
a character or narrative, yet still be moved, become intellectually
engaged, and challenged by these works, based upon the ability respond
with empathy.

   Perhaps it is the ability to allow the reader to transcend the
demographics of the character(s) to be taken and engaged by their
challenges that make these authors, including JCO, successful
(regardless of medal status).

   No?

   Anthony H. Risser, Ph.D.
   ahris@yahoo.com



Subject:   Re: Morrison Nobel
 Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 18:12:19 EST
 From:   Ehaggar@aol.com


The reasons why the Nobel Committee chose Toni Morrison are exactly the ones I
cited.

The Committee stands condemned by its own words to upholding political
correctness rather than literary excellence.

Ellen Haggar



Subject:   Re: doug coupland
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 18:21:30 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu

cyrano-
im eagerly awaiting GIAC too....my quote is from Life After God -
GIAC is scheduled to be out 4/1 but for those of us in the Boston area or
those in the NY Area, he will be doing a few readings where (from what I
understand) copies of GIAC will be available. These readings are scheduled
to take place during the last two weeks of March.

I adore him.
- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject: 
Date:  Mon, 2 Feb 1998 23:07:25 -0500 (EST)
 From:   Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu

anthony-

i am really glad that you said this...

>    Do you really wish to withhold the capacity for empathy (in
> fiction, if not in real life) from a segment of the population based
> upon demographic background? One might not be able to "identify" with
> a character or narrative, yet still be moved, become intellectually
> engaged, and challenged by these works, based upon the ability respond
> with empathy.
> 
>    Perhaps it is the ability to allow the reader to transcend the
> demographics of the character(s) to be taken and engaged by their
> challenges that make these authors, including JCO, successful
> (regardless of medal status).

I agree with you completely - we as the readers have the reponsibility of
interpretation. It's like James Baldwin said "one writes out of one thing
only - one's own experience. everything depends on how relentlessly one
forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can
possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate
out of the disorder of life that order which is art."
I have often found myself unable to relate with JCO's characters on a
literal level, but I can find myself engrossed with her themes, with the
struggles of the characters that she presents. 
And I think you are right - the mark of a great artist is the universality
of their work. When I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I was completely
engrossed in Marquez's Macondo, not because I had experienced something
like it in my life but because of his imagery, his beautiful mastery of
language, and his briliant imagination. 

- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:   Morrison Inferno Extinguished
Date:   Mon, 02 Feb 1998 20:47:09 EST
From:   composer2@juno.com (D. C. C.)


Jen, don't get me wrong I completely respect your position and admire
your posts greatly.  But I think writers, as Tabitha King once told me,
who disguise their life's plight as fiction are lazy.  I congratulate and
admire, perhaps even idolize Morrison for her language and literary
style.  It is definitely a somewhat personal thing how readers connect to
writers (the white Irish Catholic guy in Nebraska), but in reality I
think Morrison benefit greatly if she lent her gifted pen to other
topics--I might be interested in what she has to say about other things
than race and how it relates to gender.  I am sick of reading her
ethnocentric novels, though.  They are well-written, and I would truly be
humbled in Morrison's literary presence, but I just don't get all the
"hoopla" about her.  She seems like the type of person I would love to
have as a grandmother. who would tell me stories as I'm rocked off to
sleep.  So, my point is let's take her stories for what we take all
stories -- as stories.  They are not end-all literature.  People in the
middle part of this century thought John Steinbeck, Hemingway,
Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were the end-all writers period.  Personally I
think Hemingway sucks (whoa, I keep digging the whole deeper).  But,
that's just one man's opinion.  I think that society has adopted Morrison
as a 90s, or modern, Hemingway, which is unfortunate.  She is a very good
writer; no she doesn't deserve the roast she got in NY times from the
same critic as Oates, that Mikichko or whatever the critic's name is (not
surprisingly, the critic likes some trite writer like Bobbie Ann Mason,
but grill Oates and Morrison--I'd like to see Michkidosioiaf or whatever
write something even close--Morrison, in TIME, said that
Michikdioaasifh's book review read like a 3rd-grade book report). 
Anyway, let's drop Morrison now and get back to our "beloved" (pardon the
pun) JCO.

Thanks for all your insightful comments.
David
Michigan

"My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an
African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly
racialized world". These are the words of this year's Nobel Laureate in 
Literature, the American writer Toni Morrison.



Subject:  Re: AMEN!
 Date:   Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:31:28 +0900
From:   "±Ëº±«," 

Ellen and David, and others ---

I think everybody is forgetting the fact that Nobel is an
*international* award. Not just for English speaking people.
I am well aware of the fact that the Nobel Prize Committee is
one hell of a battleground of all the political lobbies conceivable.
I also agree that the Nobel Prize should not be regarded as
flawless, sacred measure of a writer's ability. For instance,
I stand by Jen in that Borges should win a Nobel.

Still, I do think it's fairly nice doing.
Especially in case of Morrison, I really think Toni Morrison
deserves the prize,not for her political correctness
but for her literary achievement.
Even, I'm not yet sure JCO is a better writer than Morrison.
The Bluest Eye is simply a gorgeous piece of literature.
I think she is one of the rare contemporary writers
writing in English not condemned to pessimistic weariness.

And anybody said who's ever heard of Szymborska?
Maybe all the Polish people have and they must cherish her.
Szymborska is a poet and she suffered a translation.
I suspect she lost a lot from it.
Have you ever heard of Jiha Kim? He was nominated many times for
the Nobel prize. He is a really great master of language.
All the Korean people know and love him.
But it is practically impossible to translate his poetry
into English and convice you that he's worth awarding.
Vice versa, In Korea here, Nadine Gordimer and Seamus Heaney
suffered a horrible translation. Everybody wondered why they got it.

So don't  be so confident. The same thing can happen to you all.
I think it's not fair you should dish another writer for your favorite
writer is not awarded. If "the suicidal Japanese cult figure" is
for Kawabata Yasnari or Oe Kenzaburo, I think the expression is
not very fair. As far as I know, they are much better writers
than Updike or at least Mailer, not to mention Zora Neal Hurston.
Japanese language is hard to translate into English. And both writers
tend to carve their language very carefully and delicately.
If you read in English, you are sure to have lost a lot from it.
So please don't be hasty in judging.
I have all the names that I cherish and love,
but they haven't got a Nobel and you don't know them.

I think one of the functions of Nobel Prize is to discover some
eminent non-English-speaking writers and introduce them to
international literary circle and vice versa. Isn't it true that
English writers more easily draw the international attention?
Who would have cared for Marquez or Oe Kenzaburo
if they had not won the Nobel?

Well, prizes are just prizes. Like all the human operation, it can't
be perfect. However, they still work as a useful guideline for a
foreign reader like me(or more common readers not so avid as you).
I like to consider prize-giving as a respectable form of reviewing.
Like all the reviews, they are just "opinions", not an absolute verdict.
We still have our own standard, and we don't worship
the prize-winners only because they won prizes, or vice versa.
That's why we're in this hot discussion!

Happy to be a part of it!

Kim



Subject:   Re: ON BOXING & JCO
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 08:55:22 -0500
From:   "Anthony" jackv@ptdprolog.net



I don't know that it's a compliment for JCO to be "right up there with
Mailer and Plimpton".  I like Mailer and what he does to illumine  the
gargantuan icons of the ring like Muhammad Ali.  Plimpton?...erudite and
pretty much in the mold of a little Lord Byron, the aesthete aristocrat
hanging out at Fives Court London imagining that his physical skills (and no
doubt his penis)   are every bit the equal of the thuggish prizefighters who
used to accumulate there on weekends to communicate the learned texts of the
Sweet Science.

JCO's "On Boxing" is a nice collection of essays without the posturing and
pretentiousness almost de rigeur in the male boxing writer. I've read all of
the above books mentioned (about boxing)  but altogether I'd have to say
that A.J. Liebling has the most understanding of the sport, the best grasp
of its language and habits, and the most fluid punching style of any writer.
His book "A Neutral Corner" is also full of the history of things like old
Stillman's Gym in New York and other things that real fight people remember.

Enjoyed your remarks, though, and I'm going to look for the life magazine
article.



Subject:  Re: AMEN!
Date:   Tue, 3 Feb 1998 09:09:26 EST
From:    Cyranomish@aol.com

Kim.  Thanks for a good dose of realityville.  English is only one of the
world's languages, 
and it stands to reason that any work will suffer from even the most pains-
taking translation.  Writers from other countries deal with issues and
histories about which most of us Usonians (to use a Frank Lloyd Wright term
for those who dwell in the U.S.)
haven't a clue.  It's our privilege to be introduced to them by such brilliant
artists in a way that will perhaps draw us into learning more about other
societies.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: WOW! The Morrison Inferno
Date:  Tue, 03 Feb 1998 08:26:19 +0000
 From:  John ivan139@spiritone.com

David,

I feel, perhaps, you are not saying exactly what you mean, because after
reading your latest post (well latest as I read them), I feel that the fact
that TM is being touted and glorified by the media is not at all TM's fault.
It's her good fortune, and your bad fortune.  But it is the fad-crazed,
mono-thematic media who is to blame.  I congratulate you though for resisting
the bandwagon.

Unrelated:
As long as we are sharing some quotes, let my add my personal fav:

"No matter how deeply I go down into myself my god is dark, and like a webbing
made of a thousand roots that drink in silence."

Ivan (John) (whomever)



Subject:    Re: Magic Realism
Date:   Tue, 03 Feb 1998 08:29:46 +0000
 From:   John ivan139@spiritone.com


Don't know much about JCO's magical realism, but having finally read The
Shipping News, I found the bit at the end where Jack is magically resurrected
a tad absurd.  

Also, while it is an extremely well written book, that the story culiminates
in a not so very dramatic revelation that love can be experienced without pain
or misery I found a bit disappointing.

Talk about not worrying about 'write what you know', just write whatever you
want and make sure you include something everybody knows, or at least those
who'll probably read the book know.

Ivan



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date:   Tue, 03 Feb 98 12:59:56 EST
From:   Mark Sutton MSUTTON@VM.SC.EDU


The only two examples of Oates using magical realism I know of are the
novel _Bellefleur_ (where there's everything from a teenage chaning into a
dog to mysterious disappearances linked to a mirror to implications of
vampirism) and the short story "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly"
(_The Turn of the Screw_ with real ghosts).  Otherwise, I think she tends
to write more about psychological disturbances than supernatural, though
I'm sure there are other examples of the former.

One question (slightly unrelated):  Is anyone else bothered by the concept
of magical realism?  It seems like to me that many works with supernatural
elements are realistic, except for that element.  If they aren't, the
fantasy elements aren't as scary.

Mark



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 13:24:21 -0500 (EST)
 From:  Jennifer Nash jnash@fas.harvard.edu


I think JCO's most evident magical realism is in The Bellefluers which
wasnt one of my favorites...
but I remember that it reminded me a lot of Cien Anos de Soledad.

- jen

"...these hands-the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that
touch the lips, the lips that speak the words-the words that tell us we
are whole..."

- douglas coupland



Subject:  Re: AMEN!
 Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 98 15:48:10
From:  "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

Sorry to be expanding an overly belabored topic but since the subject of 
Hispanic men just came up I`d like to point out that Juan Rulfo and Julio 
Cortazar are both dead, Juan Jose Arreola is ill and even Carlos Fuentes is 
getting old. None of them have their Nobels



Subject: Re: Hostile Sun
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 98 15:52:28
 From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

I`ve never seen the Black Sparrow Press version of Hostile Sun but I have 
read the one in New Heaven, New Earth. Are they the same or is there a 
variation between them?



Subject: Re: Morrison Inferno Extinguished
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:53:29 EST
 From:  Ehaggar@aol.com

Dear David,

I agree--(although I too think Hemingway sucks LOL)---time to drop Morrison,
let those who love her, love her, those who don't, dont (my the grammar went
that time), and get our discussion back on track where it should be, to JCO's
works:)


Ellen Haggar



Subject: Re: Hostile Sun
 Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 19:13:50 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com

How time flies!  Black Sparrow Press books have become a rare bird indeed.
NEW HEAVEN NEW EARTH is the first collection of JCO's criticism.  It contains
9 essays:
Virginia Woolf & Henry James; D.H. Lawrence; Beckett; Hariette Arnow's THE
DOLLMAKER; Sylvia Plath; Flannery O'Connor; Norman Mailer; and James Dickey.
Bibilofind or Abebooks on the net may be able to steer you toward a bookstore
that carries the interesting collection. Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Morrison Inferno Extinguished
 Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:44:26 -0800 (PST)
From:   joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu


Wow!  I don't check my E-mails for a couple of days and the Group has
provided the discussion equivalent of the Biblical flood.  It's been
fascinating to read.  I think we've proven that you can't possibly get a
unanimous verdict on who the best writers are, so that Nobel awards must
inevitably disappoint at least some people (I, for example, would be
disappointed if any of the white, male U.S. writers on David's list--I
think it was David, excuse me if I'm mixed up--got the Nobel prize.  But
that's only what I think, and every day I prove to myself how fallible I
am).  Also, there have been more good writers in the world since 1901 than
there have been years to give them Nobel prizes.  The end result about the
Nobels is what Cyrano said:  it's a nice thing.  Its limitations mean it
can't be more than that.  But I'd still maintain my original point:  that
when you have two very good writers such as TM and JCO (and I believe they
both are), the Nobel is much more likely to go to the one who can be
perceived as politically correct, whether or not the perception is
accurate (the Nobel Committee has been excluding authors for not being
politically correct from the beginning;  in the first decade of the award,
Ibsen and Tolstoy were deliberately bypassed for that reason). 

Steve



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:52:00 -0800 (PST)
From: joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu

Jen:

I agree with you about "Bellefleur" resembling "100 Years of Solitude" in 
a number of ways (and I say this when "Bellefleur" IS one of my 
favorites).  I was irritated by the universally destructive endings of 
both books, but my wife (fortuitously named Joyce) changed my mind last 
night.  She is halfway through reading "Bellefleur" at the moment, and 
I've made a point of not saying anything about the parts that she hasn't 
read.  Even so, during dinner she told me "I don't see how JCO can ever 
end this book unless Bellefleur Castle gets destroyed and everyone in the 
family is killed".  Naturally, that got me to thinking, and I suppose 
that now I see a structural and thematic point to it.

Speaking of "Bellefleur", does anyone else agree with me that the book
seems to be structured like a quilt, including having patches, folds and
flat spots? 

Steve



Subject:  Re: WHO'S WRITING THIS?
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:58:59 -0800 (PST)
 From:  joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu

David:

JCO also published a book under the name of an imaginary Portuguese 
writer (male, I believe).  I can't remember the name of either the writer 
or the book, but Cyrano and Randy probably know.

Steve



Subject:  Re: Women as decoys for other women
  Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:06:13 -0800 (PST)
From: joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu


Sue:

It was a thrill to hear that JCO has actually done things more or less 
like what I was suggesting about "Man Crazy", as in "Do With Me What You 
Will"--I don't yet know any of her work earlier than "Bellefleur".  Also, 
I wanted to mention something so that I don't accidentally mislead you.  
The book that I know has the happy ending is "A Bloodsmoor Romance" (and 
if you read it, I'd be interested to know whether or not you agree with 
me that even John Quincy gets what is really a happy ending).  I've only 
just started "Mysteries of Winterthurn" (I think I spelled the name wrong 
in my previous message);  from the narrative hints, I suspect this one 
has one of the ambiguous endings.

Steve



Subject: Re: Magic Realism
Date:  Tue, 03 Feb 1998 18:10:05 -0800
From:  Randy Souther Randy Souther


> Speaking of "Bellefleur", does anyone else agree with me that the book
> seems to be structured like a quilt, including having patches, folds and
> flat spots?
>

Steve,

Tell your wife to let you know when she reaches the part dealing with "Celestial
Timepiece" -- evidence for your theory, and source of my web site name.

Randy



Subject:  Re: Women as decoys for other women
Date:  Tue, 03 Feb 1998 18:29:04 -0800
 From:   Randy Souther Randy Souther


> The book that I know has the happy ending is "A Bloodsmoor Romance" (and
> if you read it, I'd be interested to know whether or not you agree with
> me that even John Quincy gets what is really a happy ending).  I've only
> just started "Mysteries of Winterthurn" (I think I spelled the name wrong
> in my previous message);  from the narrative hints, I suspect this one
> has one of the ambiguous endings.
>


Ah, my favorite JCO novel! (Winterthurn) I think each of the Gothic series
has a subversively "happy" ending. How happy you choose to be about them I
think depends on your expectations. Winterthurn's "happy" ending is the more
delicious of the three for being something of a surprise, and rather
shocking. Maybe I like that book so much because of all the work I had to
put into it--I couldn't quite make it out until the *second* reading.

Randy



Subject: Re: Re: Magic Realism
Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:01:59 +0900
 From:  "±Ëº±«," 

>One question (slightly unrelated):  Is anyone else bothered by the concept
>of magical realism?  It seems like to me that many works with supernatural
>elements are realistic, except for that element.  If they aren't, the
>fantasy elements aren't as scary.

>Mark

Mark,

So am I. I'm still a fan of dear old Lukacs in the matter of realism,
and I think if "realism" is not for Zola but for Tolstoy(like Lukacs argued)
the term IS a real high praise and it should right go with Garcia Marquez
without any further qualification. For that matter, I think Morrison
(sorry to bring up her name again...)is another contemporary writer
who also deserves the term "realism". So is Isabel Allende. I mean,
despite their fantasy elements. The fantasy elements
they are using are very efficient ways to delve deeper into
historical reality, not an exit to escapist fantasy.

Well, I first saw the jargon "magic realism" in Franco Moretti's Modern
Epic, which is a pretty insightful, challenging piece of criticism.
But I remember I wondered if he had coined the term himself.
Now I see this term is pretty widespread, anybody knows where
this term comes from? I want to know the context.

Kim

Anyway, everyday I get this list of JCO books I'm dying to READ!
Ahh, Wish I had *one* library of contemporary English books! *sigh*



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 23:10:57 EST
From:    FredMancor@aol.com

The problem if you write Cien anos de soledad is that there are too many anus
even if they are of solitude. Maybe, you better write años, or write it in
English.
I agree, anyhow, that Bellefleur is too directly influenced in style.

About the Morrison querelle I think some people shouldn't make this place a
cult sect.



Subject:  Re: AMEN!
Date:  Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:56:19 EST
 From:  FredMancor@aol.com

I wonder why anybody worries about Nobels. In the Hispanic world the prize was
given to Echegaray, one of the worst writers ever. He was so bad that when
given rhe prize there were riots of protest in Madrid. Another freak prize was
Benavente. The only Spanish (from Spain) writers who won the Nobel with some
good reason were Aleixandre (poet of the same generation of Lorca, Salinas and
Cernuda, for example) and Cela, if we only take in account his novels until
1969. So, who cares?



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 00:30:29 -0500 (EST)
 From:  Matthew A Cheney 


The book of "translations from the Portugese" by JCO is called "The
Poisoned Kiss".  I haven't read too much of it, but it's by far the
strangest book by her that I've read (or, more accurately, glanced at).

Matt Cheney




Subject: Re: WHO'S WRITING THIS?
 Date:  Wed, 04 Feb 98 11:19:55 EST
From:  Mark Sutton 

It was _Poisoned Kiss: Stories from the Portugese_.  Can't believe I forgot
that one (I'm discussing it in my thesis).

Mark



Subject: Re: Morrison Inferno Smouldering
Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:35:31 EST
From:  Cyranomish@aol.com

I wonder if "politically correct" is the right word for the Nobel committee's
choice of TM over JCO.  Perhaps they wanted to cover an area of literature --
African American -- that they hadn't gotten around to acknowledging yet,
having missed the boat with Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.  I like the
comment made here that there haven't been enough years between 1901 and now to
give each deserving writer the award...the built-in limitation of any prize
system.  Cyrano



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 98 14:54:03
From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx


The Poisoned Kiss "translated" by Oates from Fernandes de Brio is one of 
Oates`most interesting collections of stories. I liked it, but I remember 
thinking at the time that I read it that the introduction wasn`t very 
convincing. She spoke of the stories as something quite unlike the sort of 
thing that she would have written herself. Yet the stories themselves seem 
to deal with typically Oatesean themes. 

At the time (I think this was about 1975) I remember thinking that the most 
notable deviation from the other Oates collections that I had read was the 
variation in story length. Nowadays, of course, there are many published 
Oates stories that are either very short or very long.

Although the book seemed to me to be recognizably Oates, there was also a 
similarity to Borges in several of the stories. I remember especially The 
Plagiarist and one about chess. A few years later in fact I remember 
looking through the book for The Quixote of Pierre Menard and then 
realizing that it was written by Borges not Oates. 

I took The Brain of Dr. Vicente to be an interpretation of the Crocodile by 
Dostoyevski. Two interesting stories, Our Lady of the Easy Sorrow of 
(somewhere) and The Son of God and His Sorrows, are written from points of 
view unlike those we would expect to find in Oates but once we accept the 
points of view the themes are not unusual for Oates.

There is at least one story that one would expect to have been written by 
Fernandes that was published as part of a different Oates collection. I 
can`t recall the name. I think it was collected in Night-side. It takes 
place in Lisbon. The protagonist, it turns out, is a character in someone 
else`s story who rebels against his death, goes into hiding, and embarks 
upon an independent life. Neither he nor we realize that he is actually a 
character in a fiction until toward the end of the story. It reminded me of 
both Borges and The Poisoned Kiss.

I nearly sent some comments about this book a few months ago when everyone 
was discussing Rosamond Smith. I`m not sure that either Fernandes or 
Rosamond Smith books are substantially different from Oates books. Smith 
may be a little more plot-centered, more streamlined, Fernandes, a little 
more exotic in it`s allegory. Elements in more recent books such 
as Bellefleur, Bloodsmoor, and Winterthurn as well as collections such as 
Night-side and Haunted go beyond realism as much as those in The Poisoned 
Kiss. But the images of the former are more native to the United States.

Maybe I shouldn`t muse anymore without glancing through the book again.

Frank



Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 16:41:30 -0800 (PST)
From: joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu
Subject: Gothic Series


Does anyone know (Greg, perhaps, if you feel it's appropriate to comment) 
why JCO has not published "The Crosswicks Horror"?  I've just read the 
chapter that Randy has put on the web page, and was struck by the 
copyright date of 1983.  Now, a new Gothic novel will be coming out, so 
we're told, but not this "old" one.  It's hard to judge from just one 
chapter, but I gather that much of the plot must take place in and around 
Princeton, involving people with unsavory ideas on race.  Has JCO been 
concerned about damaging her relationship with the University?

Steve



Subject:  Re: Women as decoys for other women, "Man Crazy," Therapists
 Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 1998 16:52:46 -0800 (PST)
From:  joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu

Anthony:

Somehow I missed your message from January 31 giving the therapists'
standards until today.  Very helpful.  As far as both Ingrid and her
therapist being manipulative, I think that Ingrid's text certainly could
be taken as an attempt to manipulate her therapist into being the best
Daddy substitute/lover of them all.  Presumably her behavior in their
sessions was directed in the same way.  But then, isn't that exactly what
a therapist ought to have been expecting from her, and on guard against? 

Steve



Subject:  Re: Gothic Series
Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 1998 21:49:40 EST
From:  RJohn713@aol.com


I don't think non-publication of THE CROSSWICKS HORROR has anything to do with
Princeton.  It's just a combination of JCO's producing so many books that some
inevitably become delayed indefinitely, and commercial considerations.  JCO
would have to become "reinspired" to revise CROSSWICKS (as happened with MY
HEART LAID BARE) before it could be published.  After MY HEART LAID BARE, one
other JCO novel, a collection of stories, and two Rosamond Smiths are already
waiting in line....  Patience.

Greg J.



Subject:  Re: Women as decoys for other women, "Man Crazy," Therapists
 Date:  Wed, 4 Feb 1998 17:30:38 -0800 (PST)
From:  Anthony Risser ahris@yahoo.com

   Hi, Steve. Thanks for your commentary.

   Yes. In real life, a therapist need not be a Freudian to know and
recognize that both transference (from client onto therapist) and
counter-transference (from therapist onto client) issues between a
client and a therapist always need to be considered.

   In a fictional context, when such an interaction is introduced, I
always maintain an open perspective on what could emerge between the
characters as they develop and the plotlines unfold. When I started
reading "Man Crazy," my sense of the therapist, initially, was that
perhaps he possessed an element of naivete and I left the possibility
open in my mind as I read the novel that maybe JCO would take things
in that direction. If any writer could do that convincingly, she would
be my choice.

   Anyhow, I posted the guidelines just as an informative thing---in
case readers had an interest of the factual context against which the
fictional relationship could be contrasted. In my spare time, I am a
fact-checker and a researcher for a writer in Toronto and that's the
type of information I like to present to her, as needed.

   Best wishes,

-Anthony

Anthony H. Risser, Ph.D.
ahris@yahoo.com
________________



Subject: Re: Gothic Series
 Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 98 11:41:33
From:   "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

Greg

In an earlier message you mentioned that Joyce Carol Oates has several 
completed novels from quite a long time ago that somehow never got 
published. You named My Heart Laid Bare, The Crosswicks Horror and another 
called Jigsaw as examples. Do you know how many others there are? Or the 
names of any others? Are these all novels that she may decide to publish 
one day or are there some that she has abandoned? Does the publication of 
My Heart Laid Bare indicate she may be ready to prepare the Crosswicks 
Horror for publication as well?

Frank

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



Subject:  The Poisoned Kiss
 Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 98 11:50:26
 From:  "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

The last time I was at school I sent a message about The Poisoned Kiss 
with  several errors. The name of the story that seems similar to Borges is 
Plagiarized Material. Another story that I mentioned is named Our Lady of 
the Easy Death of Alferce. The story in Night-side that seems related to 
the Poisoned Kiss stories is Further Confessions. There is also a story in 
The Poisoned Kiss called Impotence which is very much like a story by Juan 
Jose Arreola

Frank

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



Subject: Re: Gothic Series
Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 1998 14:36:33 EST
From:   RJohn713@aol.com

All the unpublished novels (and story collections) in the Oates Archive at
Syracuse will almost certainly stay unpublished.  I don't have the list at
hand (it will be in the index of INVISIBLE WRITER) but off the top of my head
there are JIGSAW and GRAYWOLF: LIFE AND TIMES (alternate title THE EVENING AND
THE MORNING), novels from the '70s; and SUNDAY BLUES, a collection of stories.
Insatiable Oates fans can travel to Syracuse to read these, along with a
collection of stories focused on Constantine Reinhardt (some of these have
been published, such as "The Sunken Woman" in PLAYBOY) and other aborted
collections (including one collecting the stories published under the name
"Rae-Jolene Smith").  Another long novel of the 1970s, HOW LUCIEN FLOREY DIED,
AND WAS BORN, was destroyed by JCO a few years ago; an excerpt was published
in NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW under the title "Corinne" in 1975.  Finally, in the
biography I mention some long-ago, destroyed novels such as SLEEPWALKER and
THE WHEEL OF LOVE, from the 1960s, and others whose titles JCO can't even
recall.

As I mentioned previously, THE CROSSWICKS HORROR could be published if JCO
becomes re-inspired and decides to revise it extensively, as she did with MY
HEART LAID BARE.  As far as I know, she has no such plans at the moment.  The
next Oates novel will be called BROKE HEART BLUES and will probably come out
in 1999.  THE COLLECTOR OF HEARTS: New Tales of the Grotesque will come out in
Fall 1998.

Hope this is helpful,

Greg



Subject:  next reading?
 Date:   Fri, 06 Feb 1998 12:43:24 PST
From:  "LORIL JAY" loril_j@hotmail.com


Does anyone know at WHICH Barnes & Noble in NY, NY 
our Bard will be reading on Feb. 11?  
Gee, I'd hate to miss her, schlepping
bookstore to bookstore trying to find her!
Also, perchance, have we a guestimated time
of the reading?



Subject:  MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
 Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 1998 17:32:46 EST
 From: RJohn713@aol.com


Congratulations are due to Randy Souther, to whom JCO has dedicated her
forthcoming novel MY HEART LAID BARE.  I'm sure you all agree that Randy's
excellent (and altruistic) work on Celestial Timepiece is more than deserving
of this honor!

Greg J.



Subject: Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 18:47:08 EST
From:  Ehaggar@aol.com

Dear Randy,

Congratulations on the book dedication (and if I may, a chaste congratulatory
kiss from South Carolina);  this JCO link has meant so much to me, and I have
LEARNED so much from so many people, and I have enjoyed YOUR comments in
particular.

You are a sweetheart---long may you write and long may you continue your role
as our JCO guru.  Ms. Oates could not have chosen anyone more deserving

Love and hugs
Ellen Haggar



Subject:  Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:26:20 -0500
 From:   "Anthony" jackv@ptdprolog.net

>Congratulations are due to Randy Souther, to whom JCO has dedicated her
>forthcoming novel MY HEART LAID BARE.  I'm sure you all agree that Randy's
>excellent (and altruistic) work on Celestial Timepiece is more than
deserving
>of this honor!
>
>Greg J.

Yeah....ditto that...congratulations to Randy Souther....Celestial Timepiece
is a unique experience and its a wonderful gesture that he is so properly
recognized.

Anthony



Subject:  Re: Magic Realism
Date:   Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:31:35 -0500
From:    "Anthony" jackv@ptdprolog.net

>I am not sure who posted it, but to say that Toni Morrison has the same
>quality or type of magic realism as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or V.S.
>Naipaul is truly absurd.  Compared to them, Morrison does not have a
>prayer in magic realism.
>
>Who will argue for JCO's dabbling, if any, in magic realism?

Who needs "magic realism" if they know how to write?  The flavor of the
month club?  But hey, who asked me?  I'm always mixing up
"deconstructionist" theory with destructionist theory.  Anyway, JCO's
realism is what appeals to me and I would hope that she doesn't ever feel
she requires accoutrement.

turk



Subject:  Re: Gothic Series
Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 98 19:32:11
From:  "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

Greg

Thank you for that information. Your mention of a destroyed novel 
called The Wheel of Love provokes another question. Were some of the 
stories in Crossing The Border ever intended to be part of a novel. I`ve 
wondered about that for years.

Frank

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



Subject:  Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 98 19:42:32
 From:  "Frank Malgesini" fmalgesi@uach.mx

Randy

I`d like to add my congratulations. Joyce Carol Oates has been my favorite 
author for nearly thirty years but thanks to Celestial Timepiece I think 
I`ve learned more about her work in the last eleven months than in any 
previous decade.

Frank

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



Subject:   Re: Gothic Series
 Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:39:22 EST
 From:   RJohn713@aol.com

No, I don't think so--they were written as "linked stories," like those in ALL
THE GOOD PEOPLE... about Annie Quirt, and the Cecilia Heath and Constantine
Reinhart stories (uncollected).

Greg



Subject:  i need wisdom and guidance
Date:  Fri, 6 Feb 1998 23:53:08 EST
From:   Eka1@aol.com


To whomever may possess wisdom,
  I am a junior in high school, and for my term paper, i have selected the
feminist approach to Blackwater by Joyce Carol Oates. If anyone out there
would have any ideas or places to look, I would greatly appreciate the advice
and discussion. 

Thank you,
Erica Maharg   



Subject: Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 07:08:02 -0800 (PST)
From:  Anthony Risser ahris@yahoo.com

Randy Souther:

   As a newcomer to the discussion group, but a frequent visitor to
the site, I'd like to
add my congratulations and join in the agreement over the nature of
your work in making and keeping this site a premium one.

-Anthony

Anthony H. Risser, Ph.D.
rissera@yahoo.com



Subject:  Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date:  Sat, 7 Feb 1998 16:35:53 EST
 From:  Doozer411@aol.com

Yes, Randy- Congratulations!



Subject:  Winterthurn
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 14:34:35 -0800 (PST)
From: joyce l merritt jlm29260@email.csun.edu


Randy:

My congratulations, too, on the dedication!  I've shared in the group's
general sense of having our lives enriched by participating in the
discussion and through enjoying the other features of your web site. 

I've just finished "Mysteries of Winterthurn";  I see what you meant 
about needed to read the book twice.  I'm going to start over 
this weekend so I can read the first part of the book with the 
information from the last part more or less fresh in my mind.  
"Winterthurn" is so rich with themes, allusions and significant details 
that I've been quite overwhelmed trying, and failing, to keep up with it 
all.  I haven't read anything else by JCO where the ostensible plot was 
such a small (if crucial) part of the totality of what was going on.

There is something that I'd like to ask you, and anyone else in the group
who has read "Winterthurn", about:  In "The Virgin in the Rose-Bower", JCO
formed various blatant links between Georgina and Emily Dickinson.  Then,
in "The Cruel Suitor", she formed somewhat fewer but still blatant links
between Valentine and Oscar Wilde.  I read "The Bloodstained Bridal Gown" 
expecting something similar, but didn't find it (granted that it's in "The
Bloodstained Bridal Gown" that we get the final piece of evidence
clinching the relationship between Simon Esdras and Wittgenstein).  I
would have expected Xavier himself to be the linked person in this case,
with Ellery Poindexter and Perdita as less likely possibilities, but,
within the limitations of my knowledge, I can't come up with a parallel. 
Early on in "The Bloodstained Bridal Gown" Xavier's behavior (listlessness
between cases, obsessiveness while working, substance abuse, etc) is
described in terms reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, but I don't think this
comparison is in quite the same category as the others.  Have I missed a
link?  Is Simon Esdras really the third part of the pattern (I love the
idea of Wittgenstein as Dickinson's uncle)?  Is the pattern different from
what I think it is?  Is there not really a pattern?  And, if there is a
pattern, doesn anyone have any thoughts on what the pattern means?  I sure
haven't figured it out, so far. 

Steve



Subject: Re: MY HEART LAID BARE dedication
Date:  Sat, 7 Feb 1998 17:35:35 -0800
 From: composer2@juno.com


Randy--

Many congratulations.
You have done magnificent things for Joyce Carol Oates,
and it is not surprising that she has chosen to recognize you
as an outstanding-enough person in her life to dedicate to you
one of her books.  Now, that makes 2 people from this list that
have had JCO books dedicated to them.  There may not be hope
for the rest of us.

Best, Randy

David C.
Michigan 



Subject:  No Subject
Date:  Sat, 7 Feb 1998 18:56:22 EST
From:    Jenn380@aol.com

        I recently started reading jco 's "haunted"; my first jco.   I really have
enjoyed the stories but sometimes I have no idea excatly whats happening..
For instance in Poor Bibi, the story about the dog(?)and the vets office, what
did that couple do to that dog; was it a dog?  
        Did i miss something or am I meant to be wondering?

        Jean



Subject:   Tone Clusters
Date:   Sat, 07 Feb 1998 20:21:38 -0800
From:    Randy Souther Randy Souther


Dear Group,

Thanks for all your kind comments regarding the dedication. As I'm sure
you can imagine, it is quite an honor.

This discussion group is one year old today, and is a bit overdue for a
name. I have decided to call it "Tone Clusters" after the JCO play. I
have updated the discussion group web page to reflect this. Last month
and this month have proven to be the busiest by far of the entire year
for the group. I'm sure that with all of JCO's publishing activity due
this year, and certainly with Greg's biography due in seven or so weeks,
that we will have a lot to talk about!

Randy

Maintained by Randy Souther
Last updated 2-2-98
Send comments and suggestions to Randy Souther