Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
Max Alberts
| It's being reviewed as one of her best short sotry collections. And of of her scariest. |
Oehling, Rick
Well I'm mid-way through the stories in SOURLAND. I'm finding the stories superb... and utter debilitating. "Amputee" haunted me for days. Every story hard going. Kids lacerating themselves to ward off catastrophe. Mothers gone sour. None of the stories are about grief in any obvious sense, but the sense of being stuck in TERRIBLE TIME, having to slough through it, reminds me again and again of that part of grieving that is hardest to face, the part of just having to endure it, to get through it. There is nothing redemptive feeling about this part but it has to be survived, I guess. A lot of the stories in SOURLAND seem to involve loved ones growing pale and meager in hospital rooms. Did I read somewhere that SOURLAND comes out the period just after Raymond Smith's death? Maybe the stuck-in-quicksand inertia of the stories has some sort of transferred cryptic link to feelings JCO experienced in the weeks before and after Ray's passing. If so, it makes my heart go out to her. There seems to be a heavy burden of real grief in SOURLAND but the brilliance of the work alters the gray terrain like a lightening-illuminated landscape.
Rick
________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com [tonecl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Max Alberts [maxalbe...@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 10:35 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [JCO:946] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
It's being reviewed as one of her best short sotry collections. And of of her scariest.
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bilcoy
what you say about them being less about grieving than "being stuck
in terrible time, having to slough through it." I personally thought
"Pumpkin Head" was the best and as good as any she has written--far
more artfully composed, for example, than the title story. (And on
the subject of Ray Smith, I'll note that "PH" was first published in
the New Yorker, exactly a year after his death.) But, I really liked
"Amputee" also, which reminded me of "Ugly" in her previous collection
where the protagonists allow others to get only close enough to be
struck, metaphorically speaking. I have never cared for her Sparta
stories, so I'm not a good judge of them.
Shoshanna Crumpler
Good reading, pure JCO, for we who hunger for it, like eager little mice in the wall.
Pure resignation is the thread woven through the tapestry; often enough, resignation with a vengeance. Somewhere beyond stoicism, these characters take the long road to madness, a private madness, all the more frightening for it's insidious and slippery slide. They come not only to accept their horror, but to embrace it.
( Flashback: the final scene in the Rosemary's Baby movie, where Mia Farrow lovingly comforts, rocks and coos to her Little Devil...).
Grief. Abandonment. Anger. Guilt. Punishment.
And then, something else.
These stories end where we cannot follow.
And they are all the same story.
Of course this is about, all about, the loss of Raymond.
What else?
From: "Oehling, Rick" <oehl...@uww.edu>
To: "tonecl...@googlegroups.com" <tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 12:00:43 AM
Subject: RE: [JCO:948] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
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Oehling, Rick
I'm especially struck by the insightfulness of "These stories end where we can not follow." and "And they are all the same story."
I wasn't finding a means to "like" the story "Probate" with its George Toomer (the painter) atmosphere and surreal violence but thinking about it as a road to (temporary?) madness may give me a new angle.
Thanks for the fresh perspective!
R
________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com [tonecl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Shoshanna Crumpler [shojo...@ymail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 6:57 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [JCO:950] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
Yep. Been there, ( only just ) done that.
Good reading, pure JCO, for we who hunger for it, like eager little mice in the wall.
Pure resignation is the thread woven through the tapestry; often enough, resignation with a vengeance. Somewhere beyond stoicism, these characters take the long road to madness, a private madness, all the more frightening for it's insidious and slippery slide. They come not only to accept their horror, but to embrace it.
( Flashback: the final scene in the Rosemary's Baby movie, where Mia Farrow lovingly comforts, rocks and coos to her Little Devil...).
Grief. Abandonment. Anger. Guilt. Punishment.
And then, something else.
These stories end where we cannot follow.
And they are all the same story.
Of course this is about, all about, the loss of Raymond.
What else?
________________________________
From: "Oehling, Rick" <oehl...@uww.edu>
To: "tonecl...@googlegroups.com" <tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 12:00:43 AM
Subject: RE: [JCO:948] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
Hi Max, and Everyone,
Well I'm mid-way through the stories in SOURLAND. I'm finding the stories superb... and utter debilitating. "Amputee" haunted me for days. Every story hard going. Kids lacerating themselves to ward off catastrophe. Mothers gone sour. None of the stories are about grief in any obvious sense, but the sense of being stuck in TERRIBLE TIME, having to slough through it, reminds me again and again of that part of grieving that is hardest to face, the part of just having to endure it, to get through it. There is nothing redemptive feeling about this part but it has to be survived, I guess. A lot of the stories in SOURLAND seem to involve loved ones growing pale and meager in hospital rooms. Did I read somewhere that SOURLAND comes out the period just after Raymond Smith's death? Maybe the stuck-in-quicksand inertia of the stories has some sort of transferred cryptic link to feelings JCO experienced in the weeks before and after Ray's passing. If so, it makes my heart go out to her. There seems to be a heavy burden of real grief in SOURLAND but the brilliance of the work alters the gray terrain like a lightening-illuminated landscape.
Rick
________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com> [tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Max Alberts [maxalbe...@yahoo.com<mailto:maxalbe...@yahoo.com>]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 10:35 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [JCO:946] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
It's being reviewed as one of her best short sotry collections. And of of her scariest.
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Oehling, Rick
Sorry about the typo -- that should read George Tooker.
If you don't know Tooker's work, check him out on Google Images. His painting "The Subway" has been used as cover art for a number of books, and itself is the perfect visual parallel to Oates' terrifying tale ghost story "The Others" (from an anthology entitled THE LITERARY GHOST edited by Larry Dark). "The Others" is among my very favorite Oates' stories and was also included in THE ASSIGNATION. "The Others" centers upon an "I see dead people" experience -- years before the film THE 6th SENSE. THE LITERARY GHOST includes a ridiculous number of classics by Spark, Prichett, Bowles, Gordimer, Greene, Singer...
Re: Tooker, odd that he paints in egg tempera rather than oil so his palette is very distinct. So haunting, Hopper with crowds... of dead people.
Rick
________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com [tonecl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Shoshanna Crumpler [shojo...@ymail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 6:57 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Yep. Been there, ( only just ) done that.
Good reading, pure JCO, for we who hunger for it, like eager little mice in the wall.
Pure resignation is the thread woven through the tapestry; often enough, resignation with a vengeance. Somewhere beyond stoicism, these characters take the long road to madness, a private madness, all the more frightening for it's insidious and slippery slide. They come not only to accept their horror, but to embrace it.
( Flashback: the final scene in the Rosemary's Baby movie, where Mia Farrow lovingly comforts, rocks and coos to her Little Devil...).
Grief. Abandonment. Anger. Guilt. Punishment.
And then, something else.
These stories end where we cannot follow.
And they are all the same story.
Of course this is about, all about, the loss of Raymond.
What else?
________________________________
From: "Oehling, Rick" <oehl...@uww.edu>
To: "tonecl...@googlegroups.com" <tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, October 26, 2010 12:00:43 AM
Subject: RE: [JCO:948] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
Hi Max, and Everyone,
Well I'm mid-way through the stories in SOURLAND. I'm finding the stories superb... and utter debilitating. "Amputee" haunted me for days. Every story hard going. Kids lacerating themselves to ward off catastrophe. Mothers gone sour. None of the stories are about grief in any obvious sense, but the sense of being stuck in TERRIBLE TIME, having to slough through it, reminds me again and again of that part of grieving that is hardest to face, the part of just having to endure it, to get through it. There is nothing redemptive feeling about this part but it has to be survived, I guess. A lot of the stories in SOURLAND seem to involve loved ones growing pale and meager in hospital rooms. Did I read somewhere that SOURLAND comes out the period just after Raymond Smith's death? Maybe the stuck-in-quicksand inertia of the stories has some sort of transferred cryptic link to feelings JCO experienced in the weeks before and after Ray's passing. If so, it makes my heart go out to her. There seems to be a heavy burden of real grief in SOURLAND but the brilliance of the work alters the gray terrain like a lightening-illuminated landscape.
Rick
________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com> [tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Max Alberts [maxalbe...@yahoo.com<mailto:maxalbe...@yahoo.com>]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 10:35 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com<mailto:tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [JCO:946] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
It's being reviewed as one of her best short sotry collections. And of of her scariest.
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g.p...@hotmail.com
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
V L Bucci
>>> lightening-illuminated landscape<<<
gee rick these words really capture JCO's initial effect on me some 35 yrs
ago: you have it in a nutshell! Up till now I've only been able to
visualize it. I remember thinking, it was as though I were standing at the
edge, gazing into clouds, yet somehow invigorated.. Alternatively (this may
mean something to some, I hope), I pictured a John R Neill drawing from an
early Oz book which has Dorothy bowed under a low but inestimably long
Kansas horizon, amid clouds and wind, gazing toward (one presumes) the
Deadly Desert, and beyond, Oz.
At that time there was trouble brewing in my personal life, though I knew
nothing but a sense of foreboding; JCO's works helped me become articulate
in all sorts of trouble which foreshadow themselves thus. I have returned
to her work several times since then, most recently when a family member was
becoming increasingly ill over a period of years.
I have always looked to JCO to 'illuminate' 'the gray terrain.'
THANK YOU.
Ginny
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Oehling, Rick" <oehl...@uww.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 12:00 AM
To: <tonecl...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [JCO:948] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story
Jane Ward
of the work alters the gray terrain like a lightening-illuminated
writing.
Jane
--
Jane Ward
Lewistown, Illinois
http://walkwithmepart2.blogspot.com/
http://eaglenature.com/
Shoshanna Crumpler
| ||
|
shifteh emami
I'm from Iran.
These days i'm translating The pumpkin.
It's wonderfull and ofcourse it is so hard to translate in persian.
I'm trying my best.but in some lines i stop.and i'm getting so
confused about the translation.can anyone who read the story help me
with my problems?
I mean the one whio is native.
Please if anyone can help, tell me then i will write down my problems.
Thanks.
shifteh
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Shoshanna Crumpler
Though I'm unable to help with translation ( I live in multi-lingual Miami, Florida, and can barely tell you where the bathroom is in Spanish ) -
but I am so impressed by your effort. I would have imagined a gap in both language and culture so deep that it defeats the job.
Even if you are at an impasse, clearly your desire to share JCO with Persian readers shows that emotions are not held by such boundaries.
Truly, the world is " getting smaller".
Blessings, and best of luck.
Shoshanna
From: shifteh emami <shifte...@gmail.com>
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, December 14, 2010 1:30:18 AM
Subject: Re: [JCO:981] Has anybody read SOURLAND yet? (JCO's new story collection)
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Also, Seasons Greetings to all the JCO crew!
Best,
Gordon
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
shifteh emami
Thanks for your reply.
I know about the differences in our cultures and languages.but i will
try my best to convey the amazing words of JCO to my people.of course
i know never i can find such beutiful phrases in my own languag.Thanks
God i can read english and so i can enjoy JCO.
warm regards.
Shifteh
On 12/20/10, g.p...@hotmail.com <g.p...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Shoshanna, you're my hero. Seriously, you have a very charming personality.
>
> Also, Seasons Greetings to all the JCO crew!
>
>
> Best,
> Gordon
>
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
>
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