Post by Smilla on Jan 16, 2009 8:13:02 GMT -4
I did a search of the site and didn't find a thread on her, so I thought I'd start one.
JCO is one of my literary bad habits. She's a writer I don't really like and whose writing doesn't strike me as brilliant, but whom I still read from time to time, mostly for the shock value. What irritates me about Oates are the occasional flashes of pure genius I see in her work that get overshadowed by a lot of filler, nonsense and crap.
Her Wiki entry[/color] is pretty good, and contains a bunch of stuff I didn't know about her, including the fact that she's published several books of poetry. (I'm a huge poetry fan who considers herself familiar with most of the American canon and I've never encountered even one JCO poem—how weird is that?)
I love the Wiki link for giving some reign to her harsher critics; it even mentions the James Wolcott piece from the '82 issue of Harper's called, "Stop me before I write again: Six hundred more pages by Joyce Carol Oates," in which he suggests that Oates has OCD. I'm not much for attempting to psychoanalyze famous authors, but my guess is that her problem is bipolar mania or something of that ilk. I once read that she used to write for twelve hours a day, every day.
To date, (I counted so you don't have to) she's published eight novellas and thirty-six novels under her own name, (with three more forthcoming) and put out eleven novels under her pseudonyms (eight as Rosamond Smith and three as Lauren Kelly). She's also written eight plays, thirty-four short-story collections, five books of young adult fiction, two children's books, nine volumes of poetry, (with one forthcoming) and twelve books of criticism. Whew!
My favorite Oates novel so far is Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart, which I read in 11th grade because its title references a poem by my beloved Stephen Crane. Since I recently got curious about her early work, I'm currently reading Childwold.
JCO is one of my literary bad habits. She's a writer I don't really like and whose writing doesn't strike me as brilliant, but whom I still read from time to time, mostly for the shock value. What irritates me about Oates are the occasional flashes of pure genius I see in her work that get overshadowed by a lot of filler, nonsense and crap.
Her Wiki entry[/color] is pretty good, and contains a bunch of stuff I didn't know about her, including the fact that she's published several books of poetry. (I'm a huge poetry fan who considers herself familiar with most of the American canon and I've never encountered even one JCO poem—how weird is that?)
I love the Wiki link for giving some reign to her harsher critics; it even mentions the James Wolcott piece from the '82 issue of Harper's called, "Stop me before I write again: Six hundred more pages by Joyce Carol Oates," in which he suggests that Oates has OCD. I'm not much for attempting to psychoanalyze famous authors, but my guess is that her problem is bipolar mania or something of that ilk. I once read that she used to write for twelve hours a day, every day.
To date, (I counted so you don't have to) she's published eight novellas and thirty-six novels under her own name, (with three more forthcoming) and put out eleven novels under her pseudonyms (eight as Rosamond Smith and three as Lauren Kelly). She's also written eight plays, thirty-four short-story collections, five books of young adult fiction, two children's books, nine volumes of poetry, (with one forthcoming) and twelve books of criticism. Whew!
My favorite Oates novel so far is Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart, which I read in 11th grade because its title references a poem by my beloved Stephen Crane. Since I recently got curious about her early work, I'm currently reading Childwold.
