The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 [Paperback]

This is an intimate peek at the personal musings of an amazingly talented and prolific writer. It closely follows her career moves and family life for ten years with forays into her childhood and school years. It is a great privilege to witness the inspiration and thought processing of one of the great writers of our time about the dozens of books she worked on during that decade in which she was driven to produce continuously to prove her worth to herself, striving for perfection while fearing it was unattainable.
Embarrassed by her prolificacy after being criticized for it, Oates dives into other interests that happen along (piano lessons, playwriting, book reviews, etc.) to try to distract herself from her incessant writing. "My image is of someone obsessively writing and producing and publishing feverishly..." (p.99). She wants very much to write more slowly, to be more "normal," but once she gets going on an idea she is unable to pace herself. "...Notes on "Bellefleur." More from Raphael's point of view. But slowly. Slowly. I want to take months, years, with this..." (p.263). But despite her desire to write this 592 page novel slowly, her first draft would be completed in eight months and the revision completed in another month and a half.
By the time I reached the middle of the book I was fairly certain of her obsessive/compulsive tendency. Her urge/need to write has a stranglehold on her mind, except when she is obsessing on something else (like music). The hunger - so common in her early characters - is nowhere to be found in the Oates of the journal. What I do find is a marked lack of interest in food. Maybe the physical hunger and cravings for food, with which she endows her characters, is her way of exploring these emotions and feelings to find out what she is missing. In Oates, that hunger/longing is manifested in a powerful creative urge. Only when she is actively involved in classroom instruction or visiting with friends and colleagues, can she push her writing voice away from the forefront of her mind. But even then, the voice is not stilled - merely muffled. Her mind is always writing, writing, writing, the words tumbling over one and other, recording themselves, to spill out later at the slightest beckoning. "I have all I can do to contend with the images that rush forth, in the fullness and complexity of my ordinary days" (p251).
This journal is so intimate and soul-bearing, I am repeatedly struck by her generosity in sharing it with us. One wonders why, since she can't possibly need the money or the name recognition. Perhaps it is apologetics for her phenomenal prolificacy (she has written at least 70 books and probably closer to 100) - a need to convince her critics that she labors as hard over her work as any other writer does. Whatever her reason, as a longtime fan, I am grateful for a chance to get the story behind the writer. I closed the book reluctantly and with hope that more decades of her journaling will someday be published.

REVIEW BY BARBARA LIPKIEN GERSHENBAUM SEE ALL MY REVIEWS

People write journals for different reasons which are usually not created for public consumption; at least not while the writer is still alive. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has been known to happen and THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES 1973-1982 is one such book. Oates is considered the most prolific American writer to come out of the twentieth century and move seamlessly into the twenty-first. If nothing else, this journal humanizes her, which offers fans and readers further understanding of the woman, the writer, her love of teaching and the body of work.

In "A Note on the Text" editor Greg Johnson explains why the ten years between 1973 and 1982 make up the entries chosen to create "THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES: the magnitude of Oates's "4,000 single-spaced typewritten pages" is too much of a project for an editor to complete in a timely fashion. With this in mind he chose one year of "the uniformly high quality ... the journal entries ... [which he] intended to provide an accurate view of Oates's primary concerns" at that time in her writing career. These pieces "focus on her work, her writing process, and philosophical concerns." However some of her very personal experiences and interactions with family, friends, colleagues and students have made their way into this truncated version of her journal.

In her Introduction Oates tells readers that she actually began to keep a journal from 1971-1972 when she was in London and feeling somewhat homesick. " ... This journal seemed to me at the start a haphazard and temporary comfort of sorts, that would not last beyond [that particular time,] yet, astonishingly, ... the journal has endured, and is now thousands of pages housed in the Syracuse University Library Special Collections. My understanding with myself [was] that the journal would remain haphazard and spontaneous ... never revised or rethought; it would be a place for stray impressions and thoughts that shift through our heads constantly; [it] would be a repository ... for experiences and notes for writing."

The Introduction goes on to explain how Oates rationalized, ruminated upon, questioned and analyzed the entire process of journaling. She wonders if she will be too exposed if her journal is published; will the public read it and somehow sense a blurring of her fiction and these entries? If a journal is considered a private place, it is transformed into something else when others read it ... [one] of "the risks of journal-keeping."

She continues her comments: "What I have seen of this edited/abridged journal, so capably presented by Greg Johnson, affects me too emotionally to make its perusal rewarding: revisiting the past is like biting into a sandwich in which you've been assured, there are only a few, really a very few, bits of ground glass." She goes on to opine upon the reasons why she feels this way: "Does the uncensored journal reveal too much of me? Does the journal of the 1970s/1980s return me to a time in which ... my parents were alive" for example. What? Joyce Oates has not read the published version of her journal ... or at least she has not read all of it. When she talks about a "glass sandwich" readers will have a visceral reaction that will provoke them into thinking about having themselves outed in what they had begun as private writing.

Every journal, regardless of its author, will be a collage of memories, dreams, desires, self-regard, internal turmoil, petty arguments ... warm reconciliation, satisfaction and a whole host of personal experiences seemingly of import only to the author. However, journals cannot help but offer readers a window into the writer's personality, a critique on her/his work so far, questions about her/his status in society: as a person, as a professional, as a careerist and in this case as a writer and teacher. Reputation alone is not enough to sustain the ego of talented people and this drives them to keep working. Their fans often want more ... they want to understand a body of work produced by the recipient of their ardor ... offered in a way different from formal biography or autobiography.

THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES 1973-1982 is rich in personal and happy reminiscences about her husband, her parents, her joy in gardening, her passion for entertaining, her respect and great regard for fellow writers and other luminaries she has known and/or continues to see. She is generous and humble. In assessing her life in 1981 about eight months after completing ANGEL OF LIGHT and A BLOODSMOOR ROMANCE she writes: "How gracefully things are taking shape, financial, professional, otherwise. ... In all, a lovely day. Amen."

But not every entry is as bright as this one. An intruder invaded her office and "thrust something at me, a tiny package. A razor blade in it, I'm led to believe." Another encounter with violence occurs in the form of a tongue-lashing: "You're very anti-man, aren't you" ("must be confusing me with the feminists".) Oates writes in her journal: "The pointlessness of violence. ... Not simply for the criminal, but for the victim. I don't think I will, or could, learn anything from the experience. Or could I?"

Perhaps she did. Oates speaks in a very American voice and imbues her writing with myths, history, family, ideas and ideals associated with the suburban, urban, academic, political and street images of the landscape of the United States. Some of her books are overtly violent and others use violence as a device to make a larger statement about the culture we inhabit. Yet, she never preaches nor does she knock the reader over the head with potentially vile ideas.

As a matter of fact, when she talks about writing, the process of writing, the formation of characters, the flow of dialogue, the choice of setting, the pace of the plot and in what century or universe the book resides, she concludes: "If I wonder where my personality really exists, in what form it best expresses itself, the answer is obvious: in the books. Between hard covers. Hard covers. The rest is Life."

Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

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There are some great insights into writing and creativity here, mingled with mundane concerns that sometimes give insight into Oates herself, who is occasionally neurotic. I read it also to see if it shed light on her amazing creativity. It does, a bit, tho nothing is going to tell you where she gets her energy, I suppose. She's written so many books. As journals go, I gave it 4 stars, very much recommended if you like reading writers' journals.