RE: JCO: We were the Mulvaneys
Julie
I am a peculiar sort of feminist. I am a gay man who began reading women
writers in high school in the 70's because I was already listening to women
songwriters like Mitchell. My sense is that women writers like Oates who
venture into the dangerous waters of depicting rape were, are and always
will be viewed suspiciously by some readers.
(That suspicion may have reached a peak in the late 70's.) It is also my
experience that, when a reader decides a writer is politically incorrect,
that reader can devote ENORMOUS amounts of energy defending that view. Even
responses by the writer don't help.
There are many rapes depicted in the works of Joyce Carol Oates, often with
a concern in the narrative for the irresolvable questions of fate and free
will. I have read dozens of novels by Oates and I have had to experience
the painfulness of reading many of these scenes. Being the sort of
feminist-for-life I am, I still cringe when I read an Oates title like
Rape: A Love Story. But then I read the book.
Oates and Doris Lessing are our most complex thinkers about identity
(female and male) Later generations will see how they were feminists on
the far horizon of our time. Even now, Lessing is being attacked for her
new novel The Cleft by certain readers who feel it is anti-feminist. I read
the book and I disagree. (For a start, it decimates the tale of Adam and
Eve. That smoke over there is Eden burning...)
Which is a long-winded way of saying I think you ought to trust your own
feelings on this. read the cristicisms, weigh their merits, but in the end
listen to your own heart.
Rick
I am a peculiar sort of feminist. I am a gay man who began reading women
writers in high school in the 70's because I was already listening to women
songwriters like Mitchell. My sense is that women writers like Oates who
venture into the dangerous waters of depicting rape were, are and always
will be viewed suspiciously by some readers.
(That suspicion may have reached a peak in the late 70's.) It is also my
experience that, when a reader decides a writer is politically incorrect,
that reader can devote ENORMOUS amounts of energy defending that view. Even
responses by the writer don't help.
There are many rapes depicted in the works of Joyce Carol Oates, often with
a concern in the narrative for the irresolvable questions of fate and free
will. I have read dozens of novels by Oates and I have had to experience
the painfulness of reading many of these scenes. Being the sort of
feminist-for-life I am, I still cringe when I read an Oates title like
Rape: A Love Story. But then I read the book.
Oates and Doris Lessing are our most complex thinkers about identity
(female and male) Later generations will see how they were feminists on
the far horizon of our time. Even now, Lessing is being attacked for her
new novel The Cleft by certain readers who feel it is anti-feminist. I read
the book and I disagree. (For a start, it decimates the tale of Adam and
Eve. That smoke over there is Eden burning...)
Which is a long-winded way of saying I think you ought to trust your own
feelings on this. read the cristicisms, weigh their merits, but in the end
listen to your own heart.
Rick
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posted by Admin at
8:09 AM
