Joyce Carol Oates writes a lot. I don't mean that she's prolific; I
mean she's an android. She puts out books like most people deal
cards. She's pumped out scores of novels and novellas, a jillion
short stories, and a handful of plays and essays and books of
criticism. She's also written books for young adults and children,
and there are probably a couple geared toward infants too. Fact of
the matter is, I'm not entirely convinced that even Oates has read
all of her work.
I'm commenting on this because when you're dealing with a body of
work this substantial, you've got to wonder where to start, and you
want that starting point to be good; I mean, no one's ever said,
"You know, I've never read Shakespeare. I think I'll start with
Timon of Athens." You sort of work your way to that.
This September, Modern Library reissues in paperback Oates's
Wonderland Quartet, consisting of A Garden of Earthly Delights,
Expensive People, Them, and Wonderland, all four of which
either won or almost won the National Book Award. Is this the best
of Oates? How would I know? I've only read a few dozen of her
works. But it is certain that these are the novels that turned the
world's attention to Oates.
The Wonderland Quartet are books of struggle against poverty and
violence, against social class; these characters struggle harder
than Oates's printer, and, when you really get down to it, this
quartet ain't that funny. Take Them, for example. Who are
these them? In her afterword, Oates says: "The title
Them came to me as inspiration, with its sly suggestion
that there is in fact a them and an us; in our
democratic nation, a category of them at whom we can gaze
with pity, awe, revulsion, moral superiority, as if across an
abyss; a them not entirely civilized, yet eager to 'rise'
in class; a them who constitute the ideal, impressionable,
ever-naive and ever-hopeful consumers of American
dream-products." In other words, them are the people you see on
Cops, their chests puffed up with that
shoulda-coulda-woulda chip on their shoulders. In still other
words, them are the people you see when you visit your
hometown.
Poor, violent migrant workers make up A Garden of Earthly
Delights, while the titular fourth in the Wonderland Quartet
can be best illustrated by Amazon.com customer reviewer L.M. Young
(Marietta, Georgia): "I was forced to read this book in college … I
finally gave up halfway through and threw the book against the
wall." I think we can all appreciate that sentiment. Expensive
People begins with the festive line, "I was a child murderer."
Joyce Carol Oates tries to act so nice with her old-lady first name
and her breakfast-y last name, but something spooky lurks behind
those big nerdy glasses. And it's not just the menace following
that line. There's evil in the air, I tell you; no one can write
that much without help from dark forces. I, for one, don't trust
anyone who can be solemn and comical, gothic and prim, weighty and
light, and then put it all together and call it
Wonderland. But until I can prove that Joyce Carol Oates
is an agent of evil, I have no other choice but to continue reading
her work, however squinty-eyed my suspicion gets.