Joyce Carol Oates
My oldest child (and I wish I had an icon of just her and me together) took me to hear Joyce Carol Oates last night.
"Do you like Joyce Carol Oates?" she asked when she called to invite me.
"Joyce Carol Oates is the breakfast of intellectuals," I replied.
"You don't have any grandchildren because I think that's hereditary."
"Does it help that I was quoting someone else?"
"No."
Despite that rocky beginning and against her better judgment, she took me along anyway.
The program, which was hosted by the English and Creative Writing Departments of UNC Wilmington, consisted of Oates standing on stage behind a lectern and talking for a bit about her life and writing, then reading one of her stories, then answering questions submitted by creative writing students and read in stilted academic tones by an English professor. There was a reception of sorts and a book signing after, but the poor woman was so mobbed we did not stick around for the chance to say what everyone else was no doubt saying about appreciating the honor of meeting her.
I've always liked Oates' short fiction but have not read any of her novels. (Yes, I know, just blew all credibility as a reader.)
I decided I liked Oates herself when she walked out on stage. Her blouse was teal, UNCW's primary color; a nice gesture toward her hosts. And she was carrying her purse - a largish, practical sort of bag -- as though it hadn't occurred to her to ask someone to hold it and she was too practical to simply leave it lying anywhere. She plopped the bag matter-of-factly on the lectern and pulled out the rolled pages from which she would later read before taking a moment to regard the audience with evident pleasure.
"This is exciting," she began. "I spend most of my life alone in my study obsessed, as all writers are, with structure or this or that or some other aspect of whatever I'm working on with only my cat, who is never impressed with me, so whenever I'm out in public and get to see real people who seem genuinely interested in me, and what I have to say, I'm always a bit giddy.")
She spoke for a while about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. (In very simplistic summary: Nonfiction conveys information, fiction conveys knowledge.) She told us it was impossible to ever say what a story meant; you can recount the events but to be understood the story must be experienced. She used Shakespeare's "King Lear" as an example. She spoke of the differences between art from the heart, such as van Gogh's rich oils, and art from the intellect, which she called calibrated, using James Joyce as an example.
Anecdotes connected and illustrated these points. As she spoke she would occasionally make languid gestures, as though pointing out distant objects, that did not always seem to correspond with her words. My impression was she was indicating where these ideas lay in the landscape of her mind.
The story she read was "Pumpkin-Head," the opening piece of her new anthology Sourland. It is a brutal tale -- brutal in what it does to the reader's expectations and emotions -- and my daughter and I were riveted by Oates' quiet, compelling reading. She lightly affected the accents of her characters, indicating without belaboring the differences in heritage and social status. The description of the violence was surreal in its poesy -- the victim's internal distancing from the event even as it happened made more immediate through Oates' voice. (In discussing the story after the fact, Oates said that neither of the characters was wholly good or wholly bad. I understand her point, but gotta admit I think one was badder than the other.) Sourland is on my buy list.
One of the student questions asked her to explain something she was quoted as saying about writing. "Did I say that?" Oates asked. "I've been around forever and have been talking most of that time. I've said just about everything at one time or another. I have no idea what I meant by that."
Another student challenged her to defend Rape: A Love Story, which she did ably. However based on Oates' summary of the plot, it's not on my read list. I would get too angry and I've got to watch my heart rate these days.
Of interest to me was her response to a question about the characters in the story telling the story in their own voice. Oates quickly set aside the notion of the characters being out of the writer's control, finding their way self-directed through the plot. However, she did say that it is the writer's obligation to find each character's voice. It is damning criticism to have a reader say all of your characters sound the same. It means you as a writer did not take the time to understand who you were writing about. Oates then described her own upbringing, being working class and below working class -- aspiring to have sufficient employment to provide for their own needs. She was the first in her family to complete high school. Though she is an intellectual, she knows that intellectualism is just a manner of organizing thought. The wisdom of others is no less real because they lack the tools to compare and contrast or construct and defend a formal thesis. The writer is by nature an intellectual because the writing process, done well, is an intellectual process -- a craft of carefully calibrated choices. Sometimes you are aware of the calibration process and make deliberate choices going in, other times the process is more organic, but even at its most organic it is a deliberate intellectual act. As a writer to find the voice of your character, particularly if your character is not an intellectual, or even intelligent in the formal sense, you have to respect their wisdom and who they are. They you have to find a voice that is somewhere between their own unintellectual means of expressing themselves and your own intellectual writing process. The craft is in using your skills to give your characters a voice for speaking as themselves.
"Do you like Joyce Carol Oates?" she asked when she called to invite me.
"Joyce Carol Oates is the breakfast of intellectuals," I replied.
"You don't have any grandchildren because I think that's hereditary."
"Does it help that I was quoting someone else?"
"No."
Despite that rocky beginning and against her better judgment, she took me along anyway.
The program, which was hosted by the English and Creative Writing Departments of UNC Wilmington, consisted of Oates standing on stage behind a lectern and talking for a bit about her life and writing, then reading one of her stories, then answering questions submitted by creative writing students and read in stilted academic tones by an English professor. There was a reception of sorts and a book signing after, but the poor woman was so mobbed we did not stick around for the chance to say what everyone else was no doubt saying about appreciating the honor of meeting her.
I've always liked Oates' short fiction but have not read any of her novels. (Yes, I know, just blew all credibility as a reader.)
I decided I liked Oates herself when she walked out on stage. Her blouse was teal, UNCW's primary color; a nice gesture toward her hosts. And she was carrying her purse - a largish, practical sort of bag -- as though it hadn't occurred to her to ask someone to hold it and she was too practical to simply leave it lying anywhere. She plopped the bag matter-of-factly on the lectern and pulled out the rolled pages from which she would later read before taking a moment to regard the audience with evident pleasure.
"This is exciting," she began. "I spend most of my life alone in my study obsessed, as all writers are, with structure or this or that or some other aspect of whatever I'm working on with only my cat, who is never impressed with me, so whenever I'm out in public and get to see real people who seem genuinely interested in me, and what I have to say, I'm always a bit giddy.")
She spoke for a while about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. (In very simplistic summary: Nonfiction conveys information, fiction conveys knowledge.) She told us it was impossible to ever say what a story meant; you can recount the events but to be understood the story must be experienced. She used Shakespeare's "King Lear" as an example. She spoke of the differences between art from the heart, such as van Gogh's rich oils, and art from the intellect, which she called calibrated, using James Joyce as an example.
Anecdotes connected and illustrated these points. As she spoke she would occasionally make languid gestures, as though pointing out distant objects, that did not always seem to correspond with her words. My impression was she was indicating where these ideas lay in the landscape of her mind.
The story she read was "Pumpkin-Head," the opening piece of her new anthology Sourland. It is a brutal tale -- brutal in what it does to the reader's expectations and emotions -- and my daughter and I were riveted by Oates' quiet, compelling reading. She lightly affected the accents of her characters, indicating without belaboring the differences in heritage and social status. The description of the violence was surreal in its poesy -- the victim's internal distancing from the event even as it happened made more immediate through Oates' voice. (In discussing the story after the fact, Oates said that neither of the characters was wholly good or wholly bad. I understand her point, but gotta admit I think one was badder than the other.) Sourland is on my buy list.
One of the student questions asked her to explain something she was quoted as saying about writing. "Did I say that?" Oates asked. "I've been around forever and have been talking most of that time. I've said just about everything at one time or another. I have no idea what I meant by that."
Another student challenged her to defend Rape: A Love Story, which she did ably. However based on Oates' summary of the plot, it's not on my read list. I would get too angry and I've got to watch my heart rate these days.
Of interest to me was her response to a question about the characters in the story telling the story in their own voice. Oates quickly set aside the notion of the characters being out of the writer's control, finding their way self-directed through the plot. However, she did say that it is the writer's obligation to find each character's voice. It is damning criticism to have a reader say all of your characters sound the same. It means you as a writer did not take the time to understand who you were writing about. Oates then described her own upbringing, being working class and below working class -- aspiring to have sufficient employment to provide for their own needs. She was the first in her family to complete high school. Though she is an intellectual, she knows that intellectualism is just a manner of organizing thought. The wisdom of others is no less real because they lack the tools to compare and contrast or construct and defend a formal thesis. The writer is by nature an intellectual because the writing process, done well, is an intellectual process -- a craft of carefully calibrated choices. Sometimes you are aware of the calibration process and make deliberate choices going in, other times the process is more organic, but even at its most organic it is a deliberate intellectual act. As a writer to find the voice of your character, particularly if your character is not an intellectual, or even intelligent in the formal sense, you have to respect their wisdom and who they are. They you have to find a voice that is somewhere between their own unintellectual means of expressing themselves and your own intellectual writing process. The craft is in using your skills to give your characters a voice for speaking as themselves.