JCO: Recent video reading and interview of The Gravedigger's Daughter

For those of you unable to make it to any of JCO's readings you may be interested in watching this reading and interview taken during her recent trip to California. You may need to download a video player in order to watch it. She also fields questions concerning some earlier books like Middle Age: A Romance and Blonde.
 
http://www.fora.tv/searchresults.php?keywordsearch=joyce+oates&page=1

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Re: JCO: The Gravediggers Daughter - SPOILERS INCLUDED

Hi, Eric.  I had read the final chapter -- the letters between the two cousins -- last year in a story collection:

High Lonely, I think.  R's cousin, of course, had a completely different background.  She and her family had great struggles in exile from their Austrian home, but those experiences made the cousin (whose name I now forget) into a tough, cosmopolitan person, at a great cost, of course.  Whereas Rebecca remained "buried alive" in her "safe" upstate New York home.  The cemetery theme: how people bury their pasts and suffer as a result, is well done. Both women were both flawed and strengthened by their experiences -- the Dr. is a harsh, aloof, lonely person (hence the story collection title "High Lonely," I wonder.)  Rebecca found a kind husband and moved into a saner life than she had with her frustrated father.  The theme of leaving one's earliest identity behind -- of metamorphosing into a new kind of creature -- goes back to the novel "them" (1969) and beyond that to "Shuttering Fall" (1964)?)  I hope Rebecca made contact with her battered brother, who thinks he recognizes her in a crowd toward the end of Gravediggers Daughter. Neither woman's life is "better" than the other's.  Both lives required self-mutilations in the name of survival.

 (I don't have the book with me; and some of the story and most of the names have faded from my memory.)

  I find it notable  that "recovering" one's Jewish identity in this book and others has gently skirted the whole issue of religion. JCO's heroine's do not visit Jewish places of worship in their explorations, nor do they make contact with practicing Jews.  Perhaps those adventures lie ahead in other stories.  Thus far Jewish heritage pertains simply to blood lines.  I wonder how the two families would have developed had R's cousin's family been able to make it to upstate NY, as planned. It would have broken the nutty, fatal isolation of R's family to some degree.

Best,

Cyrano

 

 

 

Best,

Cyrano

In a message dated 8/14/2007 6:44:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, erickarl78@hotmail.com writes:

Hi Nicole

 

Thanks for your message. I was hoping we could discuss this novel here. I think it's one of my new favorite novels by Oates, one of her absolute best. As Michael Silverblatt commented in his interview with her, Gravediggers Daughter seems to bring together a lot of the themes and subjects which are closest to Oates as a writer. One of the things I think he was referring to was the way in which Oates often writes of the survival of an individual girl who perhaps feels she wasn't meant to survive (either in the personal sense or within her own species)… The man Rebecca meets on the path home who might have killed her or her own father's decision to execute his family.

 

I found the book very moving as well. It's compelling how Rebecca feels throughout her life that she both belongs to America, yet doesn't belong. She's accepted as a bright pretty American girl, but only if she disguises her Jewish heritage. She (finally) finds herself in a successful marriage to a good man, but feels she can't continue her ties with her surviving family in order to maintain her new position. This distortion of the self raises obvious questions about to what degree the individual is really surviving if her identity is so thoroughly transformed and denied. Perhaps because America is such a great melting pot this is why Oates is particularly concerned with this theme in Gravediggers Daughter and so much of her other work.

 

Which parts perplexed you? The ending was quite a surprise – though in a way it felt right as well. Rebecca's long lost cousin is someone who took the complete opposite approach to Rebecca, did not distort her identity and feels absolutely no need to either apologize for who she is or expect different treatment because of her family's struggles. This has, of course, created an entirely different set of problems for her. What we seem to glimpse at the end is a possibility that these two diametric personalities might come together (though for Rebecca it may be too late). They may be able to set aside their strategies for dealing with life within a larger society and come together as a family. If it doesn't sound to achingly sentimental, I think Oates is saying by this ending that family is where many people draw their strength to really survive - from both the supporting influence of their love and the ability to be with those who share a common heritage.

 

I'd love to hear what other people think as well. I'm seeing Oates read from the book tonight in London and will relate anything back to the group which is of particular interest.

 

eric

 

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RE: JCO: The Gravediggers Daughter - SPOILERS INCLUDED

Hi Nicole

 

Thanks for your message. I was hoping we could discuss this novel here. I think it's one of my new favorite novels by Oates, one of her absolute best. As Michael Silverblatt commented in his interview with her, Gravediggers Daughter seems to bring together a lot of the themes and subjects which are closest to Oates as a writer. One of the things I think he was referring to was the way in which Oates often writes of the survival of an individual girl who perhaps feels she wasn't meant to survive (either in the personal sense or within her own species)… The man Rebecca meets on the path home who might have killed her or her own father's decision to execute his family.

 

I found the book very moving as well. It's compelling how Rebecca feels throughout her life that she both belongs to America, yet doesn't belong. She's accepted as a bright pretty American girl, but only if she disguises her Jewish heritage. She (finally) finds herself in a successful marriage to a good man, but feels she can't continue her ties with her surviving family in order to maintain her new position. This distortion of the self raises obvious questions about to what degree the individual is really surviving if her identity is so thoroughly transformed and denied. Perhaps because America is such a great melting pot this is why Oates is particularly concerned with this theme in Gravediggers Daughter and so much of her other work.

 

Which parts perplexed you? The ending was quite a surprise – though in a way it felt right as well. Rebecca's long lost cousin is someone who took the complete opposite approach to Rebecca, did not distort her identity and feels absolutely no need to either apologize for who she is or expect different treatment because of her family's struggles. This has, of course, created an entirely different set of problems for her. What we seem to glimpse at the end is a possibility that these two diametric personalities might come together (though for Rebecca it may be too late). They may be able to set aside their strategies for dealing with life within a larger society and come together as a family. If it doesn't sound to achingly sentimental, I think Oates is saying by this ending that family is where many people draw their strength to really survive - from both the supporting influence of their love and the ability to be with those who share a common heritage.

 

I'd love to hear what other people think as well. I'm seeing Oates read from the book tonight in London and will relate anything back to the group which is of particular interest.

 

eric

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Subject: JCO: The Gravediggers Daughter
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:18:50 -0500
From: ndprovencher@lake.ollusa.edu
To: jco@usfca.edu


I have just finished The Gravediggers Daughter.  I am both deeply moved and perplexed by the work - especially the ending.  Has anyone else read this work?  Any thoughts? 

- Nicole

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JCO: The Gravediggers Daughter

I have just finished The Gravediggers Daughter.  I am both deeply moved and perplexed by the work - especially the ending.  Has anyone else read this work?  Any thoughts? 

- Nicole