The woman with three names

Joyce Carol Oates was awarded this year's Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix.

I read one of her novels for the first time the other week, and I didn't like it much.

This past weekend I saw her interviewed by Jack Kirchhoff, Deputy Books Editer of The Globe and Mail, on the subject of her crime novels.

I find Oates to be very creepy. Her physical persona, gaunt, pale, crazy hair that's being restrained, a bit Emily Dickinson, very gothic. Her subject matter too, uncomfortable. Even the book I didn't like, I loved hating it. Felt like rubbernecking.

Oates gave us a brief overview of crime writing as an exploration of the human dilemma, starting with Ovid, through Dickens and Dostoevsky, to the Americans Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner, and she puts herself in the same lineage.

To write a crime novel seemed more ambitious to her than straight fiction, at which she was already practiced. When she started writing under the pen name Rosamond Smith, the idea was to produce something that was swift-moving and cinematic. She was very witty in describing the experiment of shopping the first pseudoymous novel with a new agent to a new publisher, like she was cheating on her established editorial relationships.

It was an interesting session, but I had a hard time keeping straight when she was talking about her crime novels and when she was speaking more generally about her entire body of work. Kirchhoff did little to keep her on topic, and Oates — you could tell she's done this before — just talked and talked about whatever the last sentence led her to. (The general nature of the discussion meant I decided to forego attending another interview with Oates later in the day.) So this report is a bit scattered, but such was the nature of the hour.

Her writing has a ballad-like structuring, and she refers to Dickens and Hardy quite a bit, with characters that are blind and heedless, but well intentioned.

She quips at one point that one tends to think of psychopaths as male, but then has to clarify to the nervous audience, "That was a joke actually."

She's interested in darkness. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

One of the differences in writing crime is that the tradition demands tying things up; serious fiction allows for irresolute, mysterious endings.

Kirchhoff brought up the point that Oates has been accused of melodrama (but I'm not sure if this was leveled at the crime novels or her fiction in general). She counters that there's little difference between drama and melodrams — Shakespeare was the king of melodrama!

In her early work, Oates felt herself telling a story. Now, she mediates her voice; there's more dialogue.

She likes reading Michael Connelly, and James Ellroy.

Then there are her postmodernist gothic novels (I'm not sure which ones fall into this category). She loves gothic, surreal. She described the spectrum from domestic realism — John Updike, which is beautiful and contained — to the gothicism of Cormac McCarthy, with its rich language and story that is primitive, elemental, and deeply scary.

I think it was in discussing Blonde that Oates went off on a tangent about the United States being "such a tragic, farcical country" and the "demonic forces" among the Republican candidates with their warped nationalism and sense of American exceptionalism, that America is special, and therefore everything about it is good and right. She got pretty worked up. That was something to see.

Of her own novels, Oates' favourites are Blonde (and she spoke at great length about her fascination with Marilyn Monroe, and how public figures can have such vast loneliness), My Sister, My Love (which was suggested by a real-life unsolved case, because we all have the right to speculate, to look at the evidence), and as a straight-up crime novel Take Me, Take Me with You (written as Lauren Kelly).

Definitely I will pick up one of these and give Oates another shot.

Not a fair maiden at all

"You do mean it, Katya? You're not just saying this humor me?"

Humor? Katya wasn't sure what this meant. Unless Mr. Kidder was asking if she was lying to placate him. As girls and women do, to placate men.

Really? Am I missing something? I don't question that girls and women do this, and they learn to do this at a very early age, but for a 16-year-old to use the word "placate" in her head while not understanding the expression "to humor someone"?!

A Fair Maiden is the first book I've ever picked up written by Joyce Carol Oates, and I really didn't like it much at all. Thank gawd it was short.

I'll be seeing Joyce Carol Oates next week at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival — she's the recipient of this year's Grand Prix. I thought it only appropriate that I should read something of hers before then.

Oates succeeds in making A Fair Maiden an uncomfortable read — what does a wealthy old man want with a teenage nanny? — but the characterization is poor, the langauge is off (the narration switches from Katya's perspective to if not exactly Mr. Kidder's, then Katya's approximation of what Mr. Kidder's perspective might be; all the adverbs are in awkward places; and "mansion-sized houses" just sounds dumb), and the fairy tale element thrown in toward the end is laughable (or make the whole thing fairytalesque and throw out the first 100 pages).

Every other page is he's funny, no he's creepy, is he sincere in his quaint way, or is he mocking me, he wants me, pervert, no he really loves me, I want everyone to look at me, everyone wants me, no don't look at me I'm ugly, and this gets very tiresome. Yes, 16-year-old girls are confused, and often naive, but some of the contradictions Oates builds into Katya's character make her stupid, and I don't buy it.

There's simply no subtlety in it.

There are a few points in the Paris Review interview (1976) that lead me to suspect that in writing A Fair Maiden, published in 2010, Oates actually identifies with the old man.

Excerpt.

Some reviews
(Despite their reservations, they're still much warmer than my feelings toward this novella.)
– The Guardian
– The Independent states that Katya is "only vaguely aware of his more sinister intentions" but this is false — she perceives (rightly or not) perverted sexual intentions by page 8!
– Popmatters ranks this "as one of Oates' stronger works," but then quantifies it as a 7 out of 10 (the rest of her work rates lower?).
– Washington Post

Is Oates possibly still riding on the success of 1969's Them? Is there a particular novel of hers you would recommend? (I'm not much for short stories, of which I know she's written quite a few, but I'm game to try one of her crime novels before next week's event.)

Blue Metropolis 2012

The Blue Metropolis Literary Foundation this morning held a press conference to announce its line-up for the 2012 Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival. The Festival once again changes venue this year. It will be held at the Opus Hotel on Sherbrooke, April 18-23.

This year's theme: Le pouvoir des mots [The power of words]. This comes through strongly in the emphasis on the children's portion of the festival, promoting literacy and the culture of reading in youngsters. (I'll see if I can get my daughter to attend an event and report on it.)

The 2012 programming for the main festival has a couple main areas of focus. One is Cuban literature, and the other is crime writing.

The 2012 Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix winner is Joyce Carol Oates, who, coincidentally, has a large body of crime-related novels. She will be awarded the prize at a special event on Saturday, April 21. (I have not read any Joyce Carol Oates. Where do you recommend I start?)

(Past winners include some of my favourite writers: A.S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster.)

Noteworthy:

• Read Dating (literary speed-dating)
• Collaboration with Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (several events will be held at the Grande Bibliothèque)
• Shoe Stories, a fundraising event (books! and shoes! — two of my favourite things!)
• Read & Ride, a cross-promotion with the Société de transport de Montréal, encouraging the use of public transportation, so you can read on your commute

For those of you who are unable to attend, I will be blogging the festival, so you can live it vicariously through me. I'll have access to several events and festival participants. So let me know if you have an interest in a particular event and I'll see about attending it for you. (For those of you who are able to attend, well, maybe we can compare notes.)

Finally, I'm excited to announce that I'll be hosting a Lunch and Literature event: A Georges Simenon Salon, at noon on Sunday, April 22. Held in the Koko Restaurant, the event itself is free but the purchase of lunch is required.

If you've ever read Simenon — whether his romans durs or his Maigret novels — please come out for lunch and contribute to the conversation. I've nurtured a mild obsession with Simenon since I first discovered his romans durs about a year and a half ago, and I'm curious to know what other readers see in him.

Sadly, I cannot attend the panel discussion on translating David Foster Wallace (Scott Esposito is on the panel), as it conflicts with my Simenon lunch.

You can find full program details on the festival's website (which has been given a long overdue facelift).

Also check out Programming Director Gregory McCormick's blog, Azure Scratchings, for more festival-related news and commentary.