Oates, Joyce Carol

Early Years and Education

Oates was born in Lockport , New York . Parents - housewife Carolina Oates and Frederick Oates, tool designer ^[4] . Her family professed Catholicism , but now she has become an atheist ^[5] . Oates grew up in the working-class farming community of Millersport , New York ^[6] , and described her family as “a happy, united, and unremarkable family for our time, place, and economic situation” ^[4] . Her paternal grandmother, Blanche Woodside, lived with them and was “very friendly” with Joyce ^[6] . After her death, Joyce found out that Father Blanche committed suicide, and subsequently she hid her Jewish background; over time, Joyce described her grandmother's life in the novel The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007) ^[6] . In 1943, her brother Junior was born, and in 1956, sister Lynn Ann, who is severely autistic ^[4] .

At the initial stage of her education, Oates attended the same “one-room school” where her mother went in her childhood ^[4] . She became interested in reading early and recalls Lewis Carroll's “ Alice in Wonderland ”, a gift from Blanche, as “a great treasure of childhood and the strongest influence of literature on my life.” It was love at first sight! ” ^[7] In his early teens, Joyce eagerly read William Faulkner , Fyodor Dostoevsky , Henry David Thoreau , Ernest Hemingway , Charlotte and Emily Bronte , whose“ impact is still very strong ” ^[8] . Oates started writing at age 14, when Blanche presented her with a typewriter ^[6] . Oates later transferred to other suburban schools ^[4] and in 1956 completed secondary education at Williamsville Southern High School, where she wrote for the school newspaper. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school ^[4] .

Oates won a scholarship to study at the University of Syracuse , where she joined Phi Mu ^[9] . She found Syracuse “a very exciting place, academically and intellectually” and tried to “write novel after novel and throw it away when she finished” ^[10] . Only at this time, the writer gets acquainted with the novels of David Lawrence , Flannery O'Connor , Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka and nevertheless notes that their works also influenced her work ^[8] . At the age of nineteen, she won the Best College Story contest, sponsored by Mademoiselle magazine. Oates graduated from the University of Syracuse in 1960 and received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1961.

Evelyn Font, president of Vanguard Press , met Oates shortly after. “She was not spoiled by the school, and I think she was brilliant,” said Font. Oates' first book, a short story collection, By the North Gate , was published by Vanguard Press in 1963 ^[11] .

Literary activity

When Oates was 26, Vanguard Press published her first novel, With a Shuddering Fall (1964). In 1966 saw the light of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? - A story dedicated to Bob Dylan , written after listening to his song It's All Over Now, Baby Blue ^[12] , based on the story of the American serial killer Charles Schmid , also known as the " Tucson Pied Piper " ^[13] . The story was repeatedly included in the anthology ; in 1985, the film “ Smooth Talk ” was shot with Laura Dern in the title role. In 2008, Oates said that despite the large number of published works, she is best known as the author of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? ^[14]

Another well-known short story, In a Region of Ice (1967), depicts a fascination with a protest against the world of education and prudence established by a generation of parents, depression and, ultimately, the murder and suicide of a young talented American Jewish student. As in many other of her works, the case from real life inspired the writing of this story, Oates was familiar with the prototype of the protagonist. She returns to this topic in the eponymous story from the collection of Last Days (1985).

Roman Oates "Their Lives" (1969) in 1970 received the National Book Award ; the action takes place in Detroit between the 1930s and 1960s, in a black ghetto where crime , drugs and racial - class clashes flourish. Some key characters and events are also copied from real people whom Oates knew while she lived in this city. Since that time, she wrote an average of two books a year, mostly novels. Most often, she was interested in rural poverty, sexual violence, class contradictions, a thirst for power, a female childhood and youth, and sometimes supernatural. Violence is constantly present in her works, which prompted Oates to write an essay in response to the question “Why are your works so cruel?” In 1990, she analyzes her novel Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990), which also addresses the topic of racial contradictions, and says that the period of his writing was "so stressful that it seemed electrified" ^[15] .
Oates' preoccupation with cruelty and other traditionally masculine issues earned her the respect of male writers such as Norman Mailer .

Oates is a fan of the poetess and writer Sylvia Plath , and speaks of her only novel , Under the Glass Cap, as an “almost perfect work of art,” but although Oates is often compared to Plath, she does not recognize Platov’s romanticization of suicide , and among the heroes of Sylvia Joyce more attracted by persistent, strong men and women who continue to live.

In the early 1980s, Oates began writing short stories in the Gothic and Horror genre : during her immersion in these styles, she said that she was “influenced by Kafka ” and felt a “literary relationship” with James Joyce ^[16] .

In 1996, Oates published the book We Were the Mulvaneys , a novel about the decay of an American family that became a bestseller after being selected by the Oprah Book Club in 2001 ^[14] . In the 1990s and early 2000s, Oates wrote several books, mostly mystical novels and detective stories, under the pen names Rosamund Smith and Lauren Kelly.

For over twenty-five years, Oates has been spoken of as the “favorite” among the nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature ^[17] . Seventeen of her unprinted short stories and four unfinished novels are among Syracuse University’s writings. Oates herself said that most of her early unpublished works were “easily thrown away” ^[18] .

One of the reviews of the collection of short stories The Wheel of Love, released in 1970, says that "the author’s talent deserves attention," but is currently "far from world-wide" ^[19] .

Teaching

Oates taught for a year in Beaumont , Texas , before moving to Detroit in 1962, when she began working at the University of Detroit . Due to the Vietnam War , racial unrest in Detroit, she accepts the offer and moves with her husband to Canada to teach at the University of Windsor . Since 1978 he has been teaching at Princeton University .

In 1995, the Oates introductory writing course takes Princeton student Jonathan Safran Foer . Oates, who became interested in his works, said that he possessed "the most important quality for the writer - energy." Foer later recalled that “she was the first to let me know that I needed to try and write in any serious genre. After that, my life really changed. ” Oates advised Foer on his final dissertation, as well as an earlier version of his novel Full Illumination , published in 1999 and approved by the general public.

Personal life

While studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , Oates met Raymond J. Smith , with whom she studied, in 1961 they got married. Smith became a professor of 18th-century literature, and later an editor and publisher. In 1974, when Oates served as an assistant editor, the couple co-created the literary magazine Ontario Review. In 1980, Oates and Smith founded the independent publishing house Ontario Review Books. In 2004, Oates describes the union with Smith as “a marriage of kindred minds — we both, my husband and I, are interested in literature, we read the same books; as soon as he reads a book, I read it - we change books and discuss what we read at meal [...], we are a very close-knit and creative couple. ” Smith died of complications after pneumonia on February 18, 2008. In an interview in April 2008, Oates wrote: “After my husband’s unexpected death, I got much less energy [...] My family — my love for my husband — was the most precious thing in my life, more expensive than writing. Compared to the death of her husband, literary activity is of little interest to me now. ” In early 2009, Oates married Charles Gross, a professor at the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Neurology at Princeton, who had previously been married twice. They met at a dinner party at Oates House six months after Smith's death.

Oates is fond of running and says that “in the imagination of a runner writer sweeps through the expanses and cities of his works, like a ghost in a real environment.” During the run, she presents scenes from her novels and solves the constructive problems of drafts already written; the writer formulated the idea of ​​the novel You Must Remember This (1987), when she “looked up and saw the ruins of a railway bridge”, which reminded her of “mystical northern New York in the right place”.

In 1973, Oates began to keep a detailed diary of her personal and literary life, which eventually grew to "more than 4,000 pages of printed text in one interval." In 2008, Oates “moved away from keeping an official diary” and instead saves copies of emails. Oates is a member of the Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fund .

Oates writes by hand, without using shorthand, working from "8am to one every day, then again two or three in the evening." Creative fecundity has become one of its most prominent features. The New York Times in 1989 called the Oates name “synonymous with productivity,” and in 2004, The Guardian noted that “almost every review of the Oates book begins with a list of [her published works].” In a magazine article written in the 1970s, Oates writes sarcastically to his critics: “So many books! So much! Obviously, the career of Joyce Carol Oates culminated in the number of publications; so many names, and she would be better ... what? .. to give up all hope of a “reputation"? [...] But I work hard and for a long time, and while the clock is running, I seem to be doing more than I expected; more, undoubtedly, than allowed to the "serious" author. I have a lot of stories left [...]. ” In The New York Review of Books in 2007, Michael Dirda hints that scornful criticism of the writer “stems from the fear of the reviewer: how can someone judge Oates' new book if he is not familiar with most of the previous works? Where should he start? ”

Several publications have printed lists of the best, in their opinion, Oates books to help readers sort out a frightening list of her works. In 2003, in the article “Joyce Carol Oates for Dummies”, The Rocky Mountain News advises starting with her early stories and novels such as A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), them (1969), Wonderland (1971), Black Water (1992 ), and Blonde (2000). The 2006 Times' list of recommendations includes them, On Boxing (1987), Black Water, and High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories - works written in 1966-2006 - as "Joyce's Carol Oates Favorites." Entertainment Weekly in 2007 highlights such “favorites” as Wonderland, Black Water, Blonde, I'll Take You There (2002), and The Falls (2004). In 2003, Oates herself says that she thinks she will be remembered, and she would really like the readers who first took her book to read them and Blonde, but adds that “she could easily change the number of titles.”

• 1963 - A storybook " Going North " ( Eng. By the North Gate )
• 1964 - With Shuddering Fall
• 1966 - Short Storytelling ( Upon the Sweeping Flood )
• 1967 - the novel " Garden of Earthly Delights " ( Eng. A Garden of Earthly Delights )
• 1969 - the novel " Their Lives " ( Eng. Them )
• 1971 - the novel "Wonderland" ( Eng. Wonderland )
• 1974 - The Goddess and Other Women short story collection
• 1980 - The Bellefleur novel
• 1982 - novel "A Love Story in Bloodsmoor " ( Eng. A Bloodsmoor Romance )
• 1984 - The Mysteries of Winterthurn
• 1986 - the novel " Mary: a biography " ( English Marya: A Life )
• 1987 - the novel " Life of the Twins " ( English Lives of the Twins ) (under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith)
• 1990 - the novel “ Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart ” ( Eng. Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart )
• 1992 - the novel "Black Water" ( English Black Water )
• 1998 - The Collector of Hearts storybook
• 1998 - The Confession of My Heart novel ( MY HEART LAID BARE )
• 2000 - the novel "Blonde" ( Eng. Blonde )
• 2007 - the novel "Grave Digger 's Daughter " ( Eng. Gravedigger's Daughter )

• 1970 - US National Book Award for "Their Lives"
• 2010 - US National Humanitarian Medal

Member of the American Philosophical Society (2016).

• Angel of light. Stories. - M., Rainbow, 1987 .-- 736 p.
• Garden of earthly joys. - M .: Press, 1993 .-- 560 p., 200,000 copies.
• Angel of light. - M., AST, 2002 .-- 496 p.
• Collector of Hearts. - M., AST, 2004, 448 pp.

• Oates, Joyce Carol in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• Oates, Joyce Carol // Encyclopedia of “ Around the World .”
• Oates J.K. Zalitsiannya, Lipen 1953 (Ukrainian)