posted by Admin at
9:22 PM
posted by Admin at
9:02 PM
Katie,
You might enjoy "Marya: a Life" and "Blonde". Both are books that for
me, deepened my appreciation and identification with, many of the
struggles of identity of young women growing up (prior to "Women's
Liberation") in our culture, and in Blonde, the revelation of the deep
personal struggles and oppression experienced by someone like Marilyn
Monroe.
Sometime I'd love to have a discussion about these books on this site
.... perhaps there have already been such discussions, but I haven't
been on this list for very long.
I'm going to re-read Black Water, one of JCO's most powerful
novels/novellas to my way of thinking.
ruth
On 20-Jan-06, at 4:51 PM, BoArDiNgcHiCk421@aol.com wrote:
<excerpt>
<color><param>D8D6,2321,9997</param><smaller>Thanks for the
suggestion. I do do sort of that type of thing. At the end of every
year we get a reading list which 4-5 books we are required to read
based on our class. There is also a suggested reading list that is
attached. This past summer, I was not required to read any of the
books on the suggested reading list so I did it by myself. I was happy
with my decision because i ended up reading excellent books like The
Color Purple and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. For now, I am reading
JCOs books to study her in my class. Are they any books that anybody
recommends that they feel were especailly good? I have the book What I
Lived For as my next book to read, but i would like to read more.
Thanks!!!!</smaller></color>
<color><param>D8D6,2321,9997</param><smaller> </smaller></color>
<color><param>D8D6,2321,9997</param><smaller>Katie</smaller></color></excerpt>
posted by Admin at
7:18 PM
Lisa,
That sounds really interesting. Are you able to browse through the archives
they have of JCO's material? Or is it off limits? I know that's something I
could lose myself in for hours by just looking out of curiosity. Good luck
with your internship.
eric
>From: "Lisa Bankert " <lbankert@syr.edu>
>Reply-To: jco@usfca.edu
>To: <jco@usfca.edu>
>Subject: Re: JCO: Re: Black Water
>Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:04:33 -0500
>
>After today's discussion, I had to run upstairs to grab my library's copy
>of Blackwater to re-read. Because hey, I don't have anything better to do
>this weekend (clean the house, write an essay for my archives course,
>complete paperwork for my internship, etc. etc. etc.)
>
>By the way (and slightly off-topic), I'm doing my internship here at
>Syracuse University, in their Special Collections Research Center. SCRC
>has a HUGE collection of JCO's papers and manuscripts - it's very
>impressive and intimidating! Seeing rows and rows of archival boxes in the
>closed stacks gave me a real feel for how truly prolific she is. Amazing.
>
>Hope everyone has a good weekend!
>
>Lisa
>
>
>
>
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posted by Admin at
3:40 PM
posted by Admin at
2:38 PM
Katie,
You might enjoy "Marya: a Life" and "Blonde". Both are books that for
me, deepened my appreciation and identification with, many of the
struggles of identity of young women growing up (prior to "Women's
Liberation") in our culture, and in Blonde, the revelation of the deep
personal struggles and oppression experienced by someone like Marilyn
Monroe.
Sometime I'd love to have a discussion about these books on this site
.... perhaps there have already been such discussions, but I haven't
been on this list for very long.
I'm going to re-read Black Water, one of JCO's most powerful
novels/novellas to my way of thinking.
ruth
On 20-Jan-06, at 4:51 PM, BoArDiNgcHiCk421@aol.com wrote:
<excerpt>
<color><param>D8D8,2323,9999</param><smaller>Thanks for the
suggestion. I do do sort of that type of thing. At the end of every
year we get a reading list which 4-5 books we are required to read
based on our class. There is also a suggested reading list that is
attached. This past summer, I was not required to read any of the
books on the suggested reading list so I did it by myself. I was happy
with my decision because i ended up reading excellent books like The
Color Purple and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. For now, I am reading
JCOs books to study her in my class. Are they any books that anybody
recommends that they feel were especailly good? I have the book What I
Lived For as my next book to read, but i would like to read more.
Thanks!!!!</smaller></color>
<color><param>D8D8,2323,9999</param><smaller> </smaller></color>
<color><param>D8D8,2323,9999</param><smaller>Katie</smaller></color></excerpt>
posted by Admin at
2:28 PM
From: BoArDiNgcHiCk421@aol.comTo: jco@usfca.eduSent: Friday, January 20, 2006 4:51 PMSubject: Re: JCO: Re: Black WaterThanks for the suggestion. I do do sort of that type of thing. At the end of every year we get a reading list which 4-5 books we are required to read based on our class. There is also a suggested reading list that is attached. This past summer, I was not required to read any of the books on the suggested reading list so I did it by myself. I was happy with my decision because i ended up reading excellent books like The Color Purple and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. For now, I am reading JCOs books to study her in my class. Are they any books that anybody recommends that they feel were especailly good? I have the book What I Lived For as my next book to read, but i would like to read more. Thanks!!!!Katie
posted by Admin at
2:24 PM
posted by Admin at
2:10 PM
posted by Admin at
1:57 PM
Hi Katie,
Now that I am not involved in the academic world, I read first for
enjoyment, and then a second and third time for a more clear
understanding. In the busy world of graduate students (or undergrad or
high school, I'm not sure where you are in your studies), students do
not always have the luxery of multiple readings; but if you do have
time, I suggest you try reading for enjoyment first and then reading a
second time for deeper symbolic meanings. Perpaps you can obtain the
reading list for a class and read the material ahead of time for pure
enjoyment and then read it again with the class you are taking for
greater themes and symbolism. Anyway, that's the advice that I received
but rarely followed when I was a student.
As I remember the early chapters of Black Water, it seems that JCO
wanted us to understand Kelly's intoxication with the Senator and the
politacal world of power, and how vulnerable that left her. Kelly could
have exerted control, but she chose to go with the Senator. As far as
why she did not try to save herself, I may not remember that part well,
because my memory tells me that she did try but was unable to get out of
the car. I'll have to read it again to see how that plays out in the
book.
This story is different from most of JCO's work in that it is based upon
easily recognized historical events. When I read Black Water, I could
not stop thinking about the very real person who was left to drown when
Ted Kennedy paniced and left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown without getting
help. At the time of the historical incident, I was young and idealized
the Kennedys and could not reconcile his actions with my idealized
vision. I tried to understand how the Senator must have felt, must have
paniced and must have blamed himself, must still blame himself
(justifiably) for her death. It wasn't until years later, when I read
Black Water, that I began to think about how Mary Jo must have suffered
before she died from asfixiation.
JCO has the power to take us places we could never go by ourselfves.
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: <BoArDiNgcHiCk421@aol.com>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: JCO: Re: Black Water
>I can relate to Jane in the sense that the fun of reading has slipped
>from
> me sometimes. After have Mrs Cleary last year for english, I learned
> how to
> find the deeper meanings in books. Dont get me wrong I love
> understanding the
> book symbolically but sometimes its better to just read. In this
> book, it
> seems as though she is intoxicated with the Senator. She may or may
> not have
> control but she definitly was not herself in the events. It seems
> very perculiar
> to me that she would not try and save herself. She sits as the car
> fills with
> water telling herself that he will come back for her and THEN she
> will swim
> to safety and rescue herself. Why does she wait for him? Why can she
> not fit
> herself through the space where he did (she is most likely smaller
> than him)
> and save herself? There may be an underlying message that Kelly is the
> characterization of the women of the world that cannot stand up for
> themselves.
> This seems to be a very common theme because I found it in You Must
> Remember
> This as Enid was very insecure with herself and allowed her uncle to
> take
> advantage of her.
>
> Katie
>
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posted by Admin at
1:41 PM
The second reading often moves me more than the first, because I can
take the time to notice the structure of the work, which allows me to
follow the story with a greater understanding of the characters. The
characters in JCO's longer works are so complex that several readings
may be necessary to fully understand.
I love my hardback copies of her work, especially the three signed first
editions that I own, but I enjoy reading a used paperback that I can
mark up with a pencil even more. Then I can make marks or comments that
I can review on my next reading to help remember what I was thinking the
last time I read the book. (I recently picked up my paperback copy of
"Do with Me What You Will" that I had written in when I last read it
twenty years ago, and it made me smile to see the few shy marks--I was
just beginning my habit of writing in my paperbacks--but it also alerted
me to some important scenes that helped me understand Elena's
predicament and her final liberation from the control of others.)
Currently I am reading American Appetites. I thought this was one of her
books that I had missed when it was first published. I looked forward
to that first reading when I found a soft cover version in a used book
store, but as I read the chapter about the fight between Ian and Glynnis
McCullough that resulted in Glyniss falling through the plate glass
window, I realized that I have read it before. For the life of me, I
cannot remember reading it, but the story is familiar, as in a second
reading. I assume I read a library copy when it was published. On the
first reading I must have been going with the flow, moving from the
beginning of the book to the end without pause. On this reading, I am
much more aware of the structure of the novel, the prescient comments
that begin each section of the book, the division into prologue, parts 1
through 4, and epilogue, the titles of the chapters of each section, the
division of chapters into numbered parts, the image of broken glass on
the title page of each chapter. I'm sure I will have to read it a third
time for a better understanding of the characters.
I continue to find JCO's books different every time I read them, and
so, for me, her fiction can never be fathomed in the sense that Lawrence
meant. The meanings are never fixed, and our discussions on this forum
help keep the work alive.
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: "aria376" <aria376@yahoo.com>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: JCO: Re: Black Water
> D.H. Lawrence -- a writer with whom Ms. Oates is certainly not
> unfamiliar -- wrote
> in Apocalypse (1931): "Once a book is fathomed, once it is known and
> its meaning
> is fixed or established, it is dead. A book only lives while it has
> the power to move
> us and move us differently, so long as we find it different every
> time we read it." For
> me, none of her fiction has ever failed to move me, then move me
> again on second reading.
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posted by Admin at
1:20 PM
I've always considered Black Water a novella.
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Couzens" <gjcouzens@btinternet.com>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 1:41 PM
Subject: Re: JCO: Re: Black Water
> Completely off topic, and maybe a little pedantic, but I wonder why
> Black Water is usually listed as one of JCO's novels rather than one
> of her book-length novellas (e.g. Triumph of the Spider Monkey,
> Beasts, First Love, Rape: A Love Story)? It's no longer than they are
> (about 30,000 words or so, by my estimate) which makes it a novella to
> my eyes.
>
> Gary
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posted by Admin at
1:17 PM
posted by Admin at
12:01 PM
Completely off topic, and maybe a little pedantic, but I wonder why Black
Water is usually listed as one of JCO's novels rather than one of her
book-length novellas (e.g. Triumph of the Spider Monkey, Beasts, First Love,
Rape: A Love Story)? It's no longer than they are (about 30,000 words or so,
by my estimate) which makes it a novella to my eyes.
Gary
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posted by Admin at
11:46 AM
>
>When writers like JCO create, do you think they have these greater themes and deep symbolisms in mind, or are they simply writing a good story? Is it we the readers who find meaning in the story?
>
I have no doubt that JCO carefully plans the symbolic and thematic elements of her novels, but it is possible to go overboard in extracting them. JCO once wrote, in regards to a seminar on her work:
"Criticism ... is more an expression of the critic's mind than it is a description of the work of art itself. Even when allusions are playful and obvious, as in one of my novels--in which Alice in Wonderland, one of the novels of my childhood, figured heavily and deliberately--it is possible for the narrow, grimly rigid critic to overlook them, and snatch up other "allusions" which, in fact, do not exist. I was also amused and disturbed to see, in the same paper, dogged tracings of proper names back to their OE and IE roots, where of course they "mean" something--as what word does not?--when I had, deliberately, chosen names from a Detroit telephone directory in order not to choose symbolic, meaning-laden names. "
Randy
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posted by Admin at
11:21 AM
posted by Admin at
11:10 AM
It has been a long time (20 years) since I had to expound upon symbolic
and thematic elements in a novel. I remember graduate courses that made
me so frantic to find all the "allusions" that I almost missed the
enjoyment of reading. As one no longer involved in the academic world, I
now savor the flavor of the books that I read. What I have missed is the
open discussion and the differing interpretations that increase my
enjoyment and understanding. That is why I enjoy the discussions on this
mailing list; they help me appreciate aspects I might not have
considered if I simply read the books on my own.
What novel is JCO talking about "in which Alice in Wonderland . . .
figured heavily and deliberately"?
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Souther" <tinmachine@earthlink.net>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: JCO: Re: Black Water
> >
>>When writers like JCO create, do you think they have these greater
>>themes and deep symbolisms in mind, or are they simply writing a good
>>story? Is it we the readers who find meaning in the story?
>>
>
> I have no doubt that JCO carefully plans the symbolic and thematic
> elements of her novels, but it is possible to go overboard in
> extracting them. JCO once wrote, in regards to a seminar on her work:
>
> "Criticism ... is more an expression of the critic's mind than it is a
> description of the work of art itself. Even when allusions are playful
> and obvious, as in one of my novels--in which Alice in Wonderland, one
> of the novels of my childhood, figured heavily and deliberately--it is
> possible for the narrow, grimly rigid critic to overlook them, and
> snatch up other "allusions" which, in fact, do not exist. I was also
> amused and disturbed to see, in the same paper, dogged tracings of
> proper names back to their OE and IE roots, where of course they
> "mean" something--as what word does not?--when I had, deliberately,
> chosen names from a Detroit telephone directory in order not to choose
> symbolic, meaning-laden names. "
>
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posted by Admin at
11:01 AM
>
>When writers like JCO create, do you think they have these greater themes and deep symbolisms in mind, or are they simply writing a good story? Is it we the readers who find meaning in the story?
>
I have no doubt that JCO carefully plans the symbolic and thematic elements of her novels, but it is possible to go overboard in extracting them. JCO once wrote, in regards to a seminar on her work:
"Criticism ... is more an expression of the critic's mind than it is a description of the work of art itself. Even when allusions are playful and obvious, as in one of my novels--in which Alice in Wonderland, one of the novels of my childhood, figured heavily and deliberately--it is possible for the narrow, grimly rigid critic to overlook them, and snatch up other "allusions" which, in fact, do not exist. I was also amused and disturbed to see, in the same paper, dogged tracings of proper names back to their OE and IE roots, where of course they "mean" something--as what word does not?--when I had, deliberately, chosen names from a Detroit telephone directory in order not to choose symbolic, meaning-laden names. "
Randy
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posted by Admin at
9:23 AM
posted by Admin at
8:15 AM
Power is seductive, to those with power and to those near the powerful.
We are all complicit in our own fate, but, that being said, there is no
way Kelly could have anticipated her specific fate when she got in the
car with the Senator. She is the victim of the Senator's ambition, which
is so powerful that it prevents him from doing what almost any other
individual would have done had their passenger been trapped in a car
under water. He could have tried to rescue her but chose not to. He
could have called for help but chose not to. She must have thought he
would return to save her or would at least send someone down into the
black water to save her. Anyone in such dire circumstances would
continue to hope until the oxygen was depleted enough for them to fall
unconscious.
I haven't read Black Water in several years, but the horror that Kelly
faced in the cold black water stays with me emotionally, even after I
have forgotten most of the details of the story.
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: <boardingchick421@aol.com>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: JCO: Discussion Question
>I think in a way she is some what responsable for her fate. She allowed
>the Senator to have complete control over her and not standing up for
>herself. --She would not speak up about going the wrong way--. Although
>she obviously can not see into the future about her fate with this man,
>she should not have let him overpower her the way he did.
>
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posted by Admin at
8:05 AM
Hi Randy,
I appreciate your intervention as moderator of this list. Too many times
discussion on this list has been stopped short by more experienced JCO
list members who respond rather too quickly with sarcasm to a new
member's post. It is very hard to speak up for the first time on a group
mailing list such as this; a sarcastic response to one's initial post
can feel like a slap in the face. Perhaps we should remember to review
our responses before presssing <Send> to remove sarcasm, which can sound
like a personal insult even it the remarks were not meant as such.
I agree that the initial request might have been worded differently, but
it seemed to me like a genuine attempt to start a conversation.
Conversations on this list have been very sparse lately, and I for one
welcome a discussion of any of Ms Oates' work.
I also appreciate Rfoley's and Eric's responses, which might provide an
opening for a discussion of this short novel. Because I am one of the
group members who read JCO strictly for pleasure, I have never been one
to look for metaphor's in her work. However, I do appreciate it when
more literary minded members point to the possibility of a larger
meaning. This book, with it poetical rhythm, is ripe with such
possibilities.
Thanks again, Randy, for being such a polite and sensitive moderator and
for encouraging further discussion rather than allowing it to be cut
short.
Jane
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Souther" <tinmachine@earthlink.net>
To: <jco@usfca.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: JCO: Discussion Question
>I think treating the request seriously was the right thing to do. Our
>new member got off to a bad start not knowing how to begin a discussion
>in this type of forum, but she's paid for it dealing with a great deal
>of sarcasm.
>
> Eric suggests the incident could be a metaphor for society's behavior,
> but I'll throw the question back to Katie on a more literal level: do
> you think it is reasonable to say that Kelly is complicit in her own
> fate, or is saying that too much of "blaming the victim?"
>
> Randy
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posted by Admin at
8:04 AM
This was the archive for the Joyce Carol Oates email discussion group from August 2004 to June 2008. You can join the group at the Joyce Carol Oates web site: Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page Click on the link to "Discussion."
