The Gravedigger's Daughter: A Novel (P.S.)
by Joyce Carol Oates
Book Summary Information
Author: Joyce Carol OatesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0061236837
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780061236839
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Gravedigger's Daughter: A Novel (P.S.)
Book Review: Would someone please tell me what the big deal about JCO is?
Summary: 2 Stars
I'll give her credit, she's prolific, but boy oh boy, do I not get what the big deal is about Joyce Carol Oates. Or, as I like to think of her, Joyce "A good work ethic and/or graphomania does not a good writer make" Carol Oates. This is the first book of hers I've read--I sort of felt like I had to read SOMETHING of hers--and, unless I am forced at gunpoint to pick up another one, it'll be the last.
Flat narrative, a plot that meanders so listlessly I'm actually wondering in retrospect if there was one, humorless, joyless, peopled with characters I wish would just hurry up and off themselves as they seem on the edge of doing throughout the entire book (praise be, some of them do), no dialogue worth reading aloud (a guilty pleasure of mine, if I'm alone, or if I'm in a place where I don't care if the people around me think I'm meshuggeh), and a conclusion with such an awkward and implausible deus ex machina as to make Bulwer-Lytton blush--dear God, how did I manage to finish this one? More importantly, why?
The Schwarts--this godawful book's German-Jewish refugee family from the Third Reich that finds itself (inexplicably) in rural upstate New York--are so utterly unlike any family of similar circumstances that I've known or read about makes me wonder if Ms. Oates did any research whatsoever. There is absolutely none of the gemutlich familiengefuhl that generally characterizes such families, and none of the edelkeit, either. Depression on the part of refugees from the Third Reich we understand. Such utter abandonment of everything that made them who they were and are is not only puzzling, it's implausible in the extreme. This miserably blighted family saga centered around the utterly personally-less Rebecca Schwart is just... lousy.
I will say that Ms. Oates has a gift when it comes to describing grotesque things in gruesome detail. I'll give her that. If you want to know how gross it is to drink from the same bottle that some unwashed alcoholic with a mouthful of tobacco beat you to, well, then, she's your girl. Frankly, I can live without it.
Apparently, this story is vagueishly based on some episode from her own family's past. Ms. Oates--let some sleeping dogs lie, huh? I'm not much of a praying man, but please, dear God, baruch atah adonai eloheinu, please don't let her write anything ever again. I don't wish any harm upon her, but please, make all her pencils snap in two, fry her motherboard, and make all her pens run out of ink. Yours be the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory Forever. Inshallah.
Summary of The Gravedigger's Daughter: A Novel (P.S.)
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father-a former high school teacher-is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. When local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty give rise to an unthinkable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca heads out into America. Embarking upon an extraordinary odyssey of erotic risk and ingenious self-invention, she seeks renewal, redemption, and peace-on the road to a bittersweet and distinctly ?American? triumph.
Oates, Joyce Carol Books
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