Janet Maslin's review of "Widow"

[Ellen]

Dear Randy et al,


I have not yet read the Janet Maslin review, although I would very much appreciate a link to it.  As one who just finished reading "A Widow's Story" (literally yesterday), I can support Randy in all the quotes of Maslin which take JCO's quotes out of context.  Also,  JCO DOES mention at least her meeting with Charles Gross in the epilogue, and even gives it a date; she cannot be accused of claiming to suffer alone any longer than she did.  Raymond Smith died in February of 2008; at the end of the book, on p. 415, under the date August 30, 2008, JCO writes about a dinner party she and a friend had given the night before:

           ........there were only six guests, including me,  and one of these guests was a stranger to me, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, invited by Ebet (the other host of the party); and I could not have guessed how, another time so purely by chance, as years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, it was purely chance that Ray had come to sit beside me, my life would be altered---you must not forget it is a gift freely given you have not deserved.   (italics by JCO).

Anyone who knows anything about JCO's work and life since her husband's death would recognize the description of Charles Gross, to whom she was married some months later.  So she certainly had seven months of grieving before she even met Gross, and it is clearly these months she is trying to describe.

To bring Joan Didion's "Year of Magical Thinking" into the review also seems particularly unpleasant.  As Randy points out, JCO doesn't even mention the book and author by name, and the critical comments she makes are clearly about widows and widowhood in general.  Randy, I think we would all appreciate a link to Maslin's article;  I have always thought of her as a fair and knowledgeable critic, and am most distressed by what seems to me an unprovoked attack on a book and author who do not deserve it.

Ellen

[Adva Weinerman]

Ellen, thanks for your thoughts that further eliminate the situation. JCO never had children, her old folks are long dead and gone and even though she is famous and surely has friends, she must have felt great need for companionship, and if she found new love at such age and so soon, I am very happy for the God of chance and hopefully, her feelings of belonging will help her resume writing as she used to for all our benefit as well as her own.

 

Adva

 

בברכה, אדוה

050-2508617

09-7442327

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[Randy Souther]

The link to the Maslin piece is at the beginning of my blog post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/books/14book.html

Randy

[Ellen]

Thank you, Randy.....for some reason the link at the beginning of your blog did not work when I tried it, so I appreciate your re-printing it for me, where it did work.

Not only is that the most scurrilous review I've ever read, but it literally sounds as though Maslin hasn't read the book herself.  And if I could go through this review pointing out misstatements and misquotes, I can only imagine what you could do with it!

Maslin's most unfair criticism is the main thesis of her review----that JCO only had time to grieve for a brief amount of time before she met the second love of her life, and is therefore exaggerating her suffering.  As a widow myself, I was extremely impressed by how careful Ms. Oates was to note down the dates and the time.  This memoir is about the early extreme suffering that comes when you lose a spouse suddenly, and she NEVER claims that she suffered in anguish for years.  We are talking about a quality of suffering, not a quantity.....and my feelings are that anyone who had been married to a protective husband for 47 years would suffer a great deal, as widows all do at the beginning.  She never pretends that she is going it alone.....she makes it clear that "if not for my friends I would not be alive."

Also, I do not think it is unkind to underscore that this is a woman turning seventy who has worked in a particular environment with one particular person for many years.  To sneer over her having met someone by accident 6 months after her husband's death, and quietly marrying this man over a year afterwards, it both cruel and stupid.  I still look back with such pleasure on the Tonecluster pictures of her after-wedding party, and the tender and funny speech by, I believe, Richard Ford, on giving the bride away.

I was widowed after 25 years of marriage, and I can still remember some of the unkindness when I remarried "only" two years later---a man who had also lost his wife, and had been a good friend to me and my late husband.  JCO's memoir hit much more of a chord for me than did Joan Didion's, which Maslin seems to think is the way writing about loss SHOULD be done.  Knowing nothing about Ms. Maslin's personal life, I imagine I can assume that she is not widowed.  Let us hope, for her sake, that she doesn't have a chance to find out how accurate Ms. Oates' sufferings really are.

Ellen   (with apologies for the personal commentary)

[Oehling, Rick]

Oh, Ellen, thank you so much for this commentary.
rick
(i'm in the middle of the memoir which i bought at "a room of one's own" bookstore tonight... ironic, considering the territory explored in a widow's story...). ________________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com [tonecl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ellen [notenoug...@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 11:55 PM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [JCO:1006] Janet Maslin's review of "Widow"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/books/14book.html

Dear Randy et al,

Ellen

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[rej...@bredband.net]

Thank you, Ellen, for your reply, including the personal note  - I for one really liked it.

Marie

[Anthony]

Joyce Carol Oates interview on WNYC:http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/feb/21/joyce-carol-oates-em-widows-storyem/ #JCO

[Anthony]

"The Camera at Ringside" By JCO The NY Review of Books http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/camera-ringside/ --- On Mon, 2/21/11, Anthony <ah...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[P S Bonas]

I'm half-way through reading My Sister, My Love.
If I had any idea that I would be enjoying this book as much as I am right now I would have read it much sooner.
 
 
Oates' has turned this story into an absolute twisted ride of fun ! !

Peggy 

[Oehling, Rick]

My Sister, My Love is one of my favorites. Oates also wrote a long non-fiction piece about the Jon Benet Ramsey murder case. You can find the link to it on the "My Sister, My Love" page of Celestial Timepiece. There is also a poem included on the page about Jon Benet Ramsey. I never understood the poem until I saw that it's "tornado" shape is intended to resemble the effect of being choked (or, more precisely, "garotted") to death. It's a stunner.
Skyler Rampike is one of my favorite Oates characters.
Rick
________________________________
From: tonecl...@googlegroups.com [tonecl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of P S Bonas [pbo...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:10 AM
To: tonecl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [JCO:1022] MY SISTER MY LOVE

Peggy

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[P S Bonas]

ooohhh...thank you , I'm going to check it out right now,

Peggy 

[Anthony]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/01/president-obama-award-2010-national-medal-arts-and-national-humanities-m Probably broadcast at wh.gov