Meghan P. (CompulsiveBookBuyer) reviewed The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 on + 41 more book reviews
I wrote this review for Amazon (a little lengthy, but I just could not shut up):
If I had nothing else to do but write, I would write constantly and would be what is known as 'prolific.' Which, of course, I wouldn't want." (pg. 74) I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of this because it is mindboggling the amount she produced during the decade this journal represents. I lost count, but she writes at least 6 or 7 novels, a couple of which weren't even published because of the "logjam" of manuscripts that her publisher had. And of course in between, she is writing stories, reviews, poetry and letters, in addition to the time and energy she put into her teaching, piano, and socializing. I also chuckled a bit when I read "Certainly there must be something 'queer,' there is something demonstrably 'queer,' about anyone who has written as much as I have ... and on the subjects I have chosen. This is a conclusion I wouldn't seriously challenge ... if I were someone else, someone at a distance." (pg. 380).
(I don't usually quote from books I review ... but the main reason I choose to do so now is because one reason it took me a while to take this off of the shelf and read it is that I was afraid it would be like some of her writings that I wasn't fond of. I was very happy to realize how consistent her journaling voice is and found that it was difficult to put down because of that.)
She writes on page 135: "In glancing through another's diary or journal one cannot help but be struck by the often mundane quality of the entries." A few pages later: "So a journal by its very nature is not representative of its author's life. It represents its author's thoughts - the process of thinking itself" ('thoughts' and 'thinking' are underlined) (pg. 138). And this pretty much sums up the journal's content. Greg Johnson stated that he edited out "family news, or academic gossip" and anything else that might have embarrassed living persons. Although I thoroughly enjoyed reading these journals, I found myself wishing more had been included, even though I understood that due to space and time constraints, it wasn't possible.
The majority of the journal we are presented offer descriptions of her writing process and how she feels about her writing (this alone would have been worth buying the journal, in my opinion). She mentioned multiple times her passion and love for language. She asks herself questions and tries to answer them. (I got the idea that she might have been trying to come up with new things to ask her students and she was trying to come up with an answer herself before she posed the question to them.) She also devotes a lot of time and space to trying to figure out who this "Joyce Carol Oates" is and wonders why she can't just be "Joyce Smith." It's very interesting to learn how conflicted she is about the personas she presents to other people (her readers, her friends, family, interviewers, etc.), which leads her to wonder who the real Joyce is.
I am very glad I read this journal. I would recommend it to anyone who is passionate about reading and writing.
If I had nothing else to do but write, I would write constantly and would be what is known as 'prolific.' Which, of course, I wouldn't want." (pg. 74) I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of this because it is mindboggling the amount she produced during the decade this journal represents. I lost count, but she writes at least 6 or 7 novels, a couple of which weren't even published because of the "logjam" of manuscripts that her publisher had. And of course in between, she is writing stories, reviews, poetry and letters, in addition to the time and energy she put into her teaching, piano, and socializing. I also chuckled a bit when I read "Certainly there must be something 'queer,' there is something demonstrably 'queer,' about anyone who has written as much as I have ... and on the subjects I have chosen. This is a conclusion I wouldn't seriously challenge ... if I were someone else, someone at a distance." (pg. 380).
(I don't usually quote from books I review ... but the main reason I choose to do so now is because one reason it took me a while to take this off of the shelf and read it is that I was afraid it would be like some of her writings that I wasn't fond of. I was very happy to realize how consistent her journaling voice is and found that it was difficult to put down because of that.)
She writes on page 135: "In glancing through another's diary or journal one cannot help but be struck by the often mundane quality of the entries." A few pages later: "So a journal by its very nature is not representative of its author's life. It represents its author's thoughts - the process of thinking itself" ('thoughts' and 'thinking' are underlined) (pg. 138). And this pretty much sums up the journal's content. Greg Johnson stated that he edited out "family news, or academic gossip" and anything else that might have embarrassed living persons. Although I thoroughly enjoyed reading these journals, I found myself wishing more had been included, even though I understood that due to space and time constraints, it wasn't possible.
The majority of the journal we are presented offer descriptions of her writing process and how she feels about her writing (this alone would have been worth buying the journal, in my opinion). She mentioned multiple times her passion and love for language. She asks herself questions and tries to answer them. (I got the idea that she might have been trying to come up with new things to ask her students and she was trying to come up with an answer herself before she posed the question to them.) She also devotes a lot of time and space to trying to figure out who this "Joyce Carol Oates" is and wonders why she can't just be "Joyce Smith." It's very interesting to learn how conflicted she is about the personas she presents to other people (her readers, her friends, family, interviewers, etc.), which leads her to wonder who the real Joyce is.
I am very glad I read this journal. I would recommend it to anyone who is passionate about reading and writing.
