6/97
Copyright ©1997 Cathy Fuller
Friday, June 20, 1997 with JOYCE CAROL OATES at the Boston Center for Adult Education was an evening of magic. The "Mansion" where the reading took place, in a rococco-gilt and mirrored salon, is located in a ritzy, residential area of Boston, next door to the French Consulate. The neighborhood around the Boston Public Gardens with its swan boats, flower beds, and an elephant-sized statue of Paul Revere is a deceiving one. By daylight it is a tourist's delight, but sunset here is tinted with more than the approaching dark. At dusk the night people begin to emerge. The Poe plaque marking the location of a theater alley where Eliza Poe lived and performed and baby Eddie first discerned shapes, maybe, seems like a perfect signpost. Can you think of a better venue for a talk by Joyce Carol Oates?
Ms. Oates, en route from Philadelphia, was stranded due to consecutively cancelled flights and finally arrived at about 9:15, clearly exhausted. She went on to to give a spirited reading, full of airport humor. Ms. Oates the comic is as good as any live or t.v. stand-up. In a relaxed and familiar delivery, she did a well-timed "funny thing happened on the way to Boston" routine. She played the audience, had them in her hand, throughout the program. Everyone seemed delighted, despite a 2 1/2-hour delay and the cancellation of a planned reception with the author.
Joyce Carol Oates read the well known, two couple/Chinese restaurant story from "The Assignation" collection. She also read from MAN-CRAZY, her new novel due out in the fall, chronicling the exploits of "Dog-Girl", on the prowl for new girls in a ring of narcotics, prostitution, and Satanist characters. The book sounds chilling and I can't wait until fall! Kittens' mews are the ruse that the drug-crazed Dog-Girl uses to trap a new victim, until her conscience surfaces and she allows an escape. With MAN-CRAZY, our own mistress of the grotesque promises her readers some tricks, and more importantly, she promises them another work of compassion and love, the true Oates trademarks.
Ms. Oates highlighted her presentation with remarks about the value of writing independent segments within the novel. Sherwood Anderson was mentioned here, and Winesburg, Ohio was given as a good example of the technique. Ms. Oates emphasized the benefits of the short story as a stand-alone piece or as a starting point. The starting point in the creative process can be a vision; images may rise from the horizon of a writer's thoughts, like dreams. The writer should "play the self", according to Ms. Oates, and take for a setting any dream into which she might walk and immediately begin her part. Narratives may be conceived as separate units, according to the author. Ms. Oates spoke of the "psychic risk" inherent in writing, especially when attempting a long novel. (All writing may present this danger, Ms. Oates pointed out. Sylvia Plath let the creative currents of her poetry carry her out too far, and this contributed to her self-destruction.)
Writing a novel can be like taking a bold plunge into unknown waters, according to Ms. Oates, with the bank on the other side of the river visible at the beginning of the crossing. The river's currents may help or hinder the writer/swimmer in reaching the other side, and that shore will never be the one imagined before the plunge. The author spoke of the endless possibilities of cultivating independent units in terms of events, plot, and time. Time can move in very interesting ways across the fictional landscape, she emphasized. Reference was made to James Joyce's progression over the years in his revisions of Dubliners, and to his grand progress toward Ulysses.
In conclusion, Joyce Carol Oates answered a few questions:
1) "Why do you write?"
A rich and sinuous Oatesian reply followed, with more literary references. Her concluding pronouncement was that "creativity is a mystery".
2) "How do you draw your characters so effectively?"
Again, the answer lies in the creative imagination. Ms. Oates mentioned the common element of the criminal and the fictional imagination: FANTASY. To illustrate this idea, Ms. Oates brought up serial murderer/cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer, who was allegedly observed in fugue states at family functions! "Fantasy was alive here", Ms. Oates said. In the creative process of fiction, fantasy results in the story.
3) My question to Ms. Oates: "Is Rosamond Smith here to stay?"
Her response was an entertaining history of the R.S. author-persona; how R.S. came to life basically as an attempt at baggage-free authorship (loose from social/political concerns as well as from the constraints of an established reputation). Here Ms. Oates included a few R.S. publisher/reviewer anecdotes. Our favorite author did not really answer the question! This was to my own "double delight"*:
a. Rosamond Smith may be alive and well, and planning future books. Hope somebody snaps up the film rights to Ava-Rose*!
b. Of course Joyce Carol Oates did not answer this question! Legerdemain/then the wand, or, watch/then WAIT AND SEE!
Joyce Carol Oates created an evening of her very own magic in Boston. Thanks to Randy Souther and the *Celestial Timepiece's internet calendar of Joyce Carol Oates appearances, I was lucky enough to be there, to watch as the author flipped the hour-glass and cast her spell under a handkerchief of stars, crescents, and hearts. PRESTO!
* Double Delight, by Rosamond Smith, novel released 6/97.
Ava-Rose is a character from this book.
* "Celestial Timepiece", poem by Joyce Carol Oates, and also the title of the calendar of events on the Internet JCO Home Page.
