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The Gothic Saga #1
Bellefleur
686 pp.
686 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 1, 1980
301 people are currently reading
8095 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
853 books9,624 followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 254 reviews
June 9, 2017
Oates is a modern master of the Gothic novel, and this sprawling, wondrous book really showcases her command of language and how she can push her prose right to the edge of satire while still keeping that Gothic intensity. My only minor complaint is that it's a bit long and meandering in parts, but in truth I really enjoyed it. To give you a flavor of the book, here's the magnificently over-the-top opening sentence:
"It was many years ago in that dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time before Germaine's birth (nearly twelve months before her birth), on a night in late September stirred by innumerable frenzied winds, like spirits contending with one another--now plaintively, now angrily, now with a subtle cellolike delicacy capable of making the flesh rise on one's arms and neck--a night so sulfurous, so restless, so swollen with inarticulate longing that Leah and Gideon Bellefleur in their enormous bed quarreled once again, brought to tears because their love was too ravenous to be contained by their mere mortal bodies; and their groping, careless, anguished words were like strips of raw silk rubbed violently together (for each was convinced that the other did not, could not, be equal to his love--Leah doubted that any man was capable of a love so profound it could lie silent, like a forest pond; Gideon doubted that any woman was capable of comprehending the nature of a man's passion, which might tear through him, rendering him broken and exhausted, as vulnerable as a small child): it was on this tumultuous rainlashed night that Mahalaleel came to Bellefleur Manor on the western shore of the great Lake Noir, where he was to stay for nearly five years."
"It was many years ago in that dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time before Germaine's birth (nearly twelve months before her birth), on a night in late September stirred by innumerable frenzied winds, like spirits contending with one another--now plaintively, now angrily, now with a subtle cellolike delicacy capable of making the flesh rise on one's arms and neck--a night so sulfurous, so restless, so swollen with inarticulate longing that Leah and Gideon Bellefleur in their enormous bed quarreled once again, brought to tears because their love was too ravenous to be contained by their mere mortal bodies; and their groping, careless, anguished words were like strips of raw silk rubbed violently together (for each was convinced that the other did not, could not, be equal to his love--Leah doubted that any man was capable of a love so profound it could lie silent, like a forest pond; Gideon doubted that any woman was capable of comprehending the nature of a man's passion, which might tear through him, rendering him broken and exhausted, as vulnerable as a small child): it was on this tumultuous rainlashed night that Mahalaleel came to Bellefleur Manor on the western shore of the great Lake Noir, where he was to stay for nearly five years."
October 28, 2011
BELLEFLEUR by Joyce Carol Oates is ranked as one of my most favorite novels of all time...I love this book! I savored this gothic tale cover to cover and didn't want it to end. It possesses a life of its own, the characters became ghosts that would haunt me after setting it aside after a short reading and I would look forward to picking it up again. After I finished it, I felt homesick in a peculiar way that no book has ever done to me before; it is very likely that I will revisit the pages of Bellefleur again. Each chapter is an opulent sliver of time that peers into the lives and thoughts of the residents of Bellefleur Manor, an American family of notorious distinction. Their history is rife with joys and sorrows deftly exposed by the astounding craft that is signature in JCO's prolific literary career. The mesmerizing shifts of time, like historical memories, travel from the heights of the imposing Mount Blanc, wind through the decadent rooms of Bellefleur Manor, and plunge into the depths of mysterious Lake Noir where disconcerting spirits dwell. The fanciful characters endear themselves because of their human vitality and cause despair because of their human flaws; they are very tangible and seductive in spite of the brief glimpses into their lives. This is not a book for the faint of heart for it isn't a serene walk in the walled garden of Bellefleur Manor. JCO reveals the grotesque that exists within the soul of the American dream, and with abrupt grace, she divulges the unforeseen twists of fate that arise with incredible violence that will leave you reeling with astonishment. It is a unique and contemplative tale, not to be consumed in a few sittings; however, the temptation of the eloquent prose begs to be gorged until the reader is sated. Open this book and open your mind, and give your imagination a workout. If you read this book with a rigid, black and white mind-set you will come away frustrated by it. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for something out of the ordinary to read.
April 3, 2020
I found this novel, above all, to be exuberant, ambitious, bold, and extremely readable. JCO has wrung all the suggestion and menace she could from her sumptuous setting. Not familiar with the author's infinite body of work - I have only stumbled across a few short stories, liked them, and never sought out any of the novels before recently - I was genuinely surprised. The structure of the novel may be disorienting for some, and the elevated style is extremely old fashioned, and includes the extensive use of parenthetical statements, as well as a dangerous number of adverbs. But as a historical novel, and one intended for entertainment, it is very effective. Plus, these "flaws" are mere stylistic choices, and I am sure the author has mastered any number of styles, judging by the variety of genres and modes she has dipped into during her Methuselah-esque career.
An artful storyteller, she quickly establishes the Gothic dimensions of her project, sets down roots in the territory of nightmare and the macabre, amplifies the atmosphere and aesthetic to be found in Hawthorne and Poe, and infuses the manor at the heart of the book with an astonishing level of detail, while managing to sustain a menacing tension throughout.
It culminates into a sprawling, violent, exuberant masterpiece of sorts. She might have chosen to focus on fewer characters, to tell a seamless, chronological tale, but she deviates, streaks wildly through time and dramatic scenes, only to twist her storytelling into contortions of the odd and grotesque. Some pieces of the resultant mosaic are elegant in excess, reverence-inducing, heart-stopping, guttural, and others are irreverent, almost silly, charming and straightforward accounts of character pratfalls and baboonery.
Dealing with 6 generations, all equally eccentric, of an impressively dysfunctional family, it is a chronicle, but not in the traditional sense. I knew I was in the hands of a gifted storyteller from the start, because I didn't care about the artful jumps through time, the skipping around, the seemingly random characters introduced and reintroduced at different stages. The whole thing was good, and of course, the pieces begin to fit together by and by. JCO is a literary giantess, and I will have to begin reading the rest of her oeuvre, over the inevitable decades it will take to do so, especially since she keeps adding on new, lengthy, breathless masterpieces year by year, as if she were writing them in her sleep. Someone, probably, will ghost-write her future novels via Ouija board. This is the first in a vast Gothic saga of historical monoliths, and a thrilling entry into her world. Any story including bears and haunting entities, malevolent cats and declining aristocracy is bound to be interesting. The characters must deal with acts of God, malingering psychic children, and worst of all, each other.
The novel is also pervaded by Biblical language and Biblical fear, trembling, uncertainty, and shadows in human shape sleepwalking through immense hallways, closed off rooms, and across the eternally frozen lake. These landscapes and interiors are no less dark and foreboding than the corridors of their minds.
Some sinister repeated refrains remind us of the fates of previous Bellefleurs echoing through the ages. With intellectual daring, the author explores the dark secrets, the bizarre aberrations, and the obscene lusts and fascinating horrors lurking in the well-to-do manor-dwellers' hearts. With an endless array of historical details, the interconnected web of stir-crazy, passionate humanity will stick with me. It's splendidly perverse in parts, particularly the supernatural deaths, which are morbid but somehow fitting
"The dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time," she mentions is of course, Lake Noir. The complex quilts woven by Mathilde symbolize the patchwork family and its incomprehensible disintegrations through time. Their family fortune does not make them immune to misfortune. The infidelity, the hatred, the pettiness, the irresponsible philandering! Those qualities propel them toward inevitably doomed ends.
Occasionally excessive, frenzied, ornate, or melodramatic, but usually mesmeric, rhythmic, and harrowing, I can't recommend the book enough. Its great moments of unexpected horror intrude, entice, and punctuate the well-conceived tragedies. At the very least, you will witness a huge range of character emotions and viewpoints.
My favorite chapter recounts Nightshade's solution to the Bellefleur rat infestation. It's an example of her humor in a dark, and provocative light. Vanity, dissolution, antisocial behavior, anxious, ignorant fear of outsiders, bloody vengeance, and any number of other distinctly human flaws present themselves throughout. For some of the 49 principles characters, their injuries define their behavior in unexpected ways. Wounds, both physical and psychological, contribute to their growth and descent.
JCO reminds us of the riches to be found in literature. Her opulent output, her boldness, her bravado, all reinforce her fiction's ability to move us. I know my image of the author will evolve as I delve deep into her novels, stories, journals and that notorious biography. All in good time.
An artful storyteller, she quickly establishes the Gothic dimensions of her project, sets down roots in the territory of nightmare and the macabre, amplifies the atmosphere and aesthetic to be found in Hawthorne and Poe, and infuses the manor at the heart of the book with an astonishing level of detail, while managing to sustain a menacing tension throughout.
It culminates into a sprawling, violent, exuberant masterpiece of sorts. She might have chosen to focus on fewer characters, to tell a seamless, chronological tale, but she deviates, streaks wildly through time and dramatic scenes, only to twist her storytelling into contortions of the odd and grotesque. Some pieces of the resultant mosaic are elegant in excess, reverence-inducing, heart-stopping, guttural, and others are irreverent, almost silly, charming and straightforward accounts of character pratfalls and baboonery.
Dealing with 6 generations, all equally eccentric, of an impressively dysfunctional family, it is a chronicle, but not in the traditional sense. I knew I was in the hands of a gifted storyteller from the start, because I didn't care about the artful jumps through time, the skipping around, the seemingly random characters introduced and reintroduced at different stages. The whole thing was good, and of course, the pieces begin to fit together by and by. JCO is a literary giantess, and I will have to begin reading the rest of her oeuvre, over the inevitable decades it will take to do so, especially since she keeps adding on new, lengthy, breathless masterpieces year by year, as if she were writing them in her sleep. Someone, probably, will ghost-write her future novels via Ouija board. This is the first in a vast Gothic saga of historical monoliths, and a thrilling entry into her world. Any story including bears and haunting entities, malevolent cats and declining aristocracy is bound to be interesting. The characters must deal with acts of God, malingering psychic children, and worst of all, each other.
The novel is also pervaded by Biblical language and Biblical fear, trembling, uncertainty, and shadows in human shape sleepwalking through immense hallways, closed off rooms, and across the eternally frozen lake. These landscapes and interiors are no less dark and foreboding than the corridors of their minds.
Some sinister repeated refrains remind us of the fates of previous Bellefleurs echoing through the ages. With intellectual daring, the author explores the dark secrets, the bizarre aberrations, and the obscene lusts and fascinating horrors lurking in the well-to-do manor-dwellers' hearts. With an endless array of historical details, the interconnected web of stir-crazy, passionate humanity will stick with me. It's splendidly perverse in parts, particularly the supernatural deaths, which are morbid but somehow fitting
"The dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time," she mentions is of course, Lake Noir. The complex quilts woven by Mathilde symbolize the patchwork family and its incomprehensible disintegrations through time. Their family fortune does not make them immune to misfortune. The infidelity, the hatred, the pettiness, the irresponsible philandering! Those qualities propel them toward inevitably doomed ends.
Occasionally excessive, frenzied, ornate, or melodramatic, but usually mesmeric, rhythmic, and harrowing, I can't recommend the book enough. Its great moments of unexpected horror intrude, entice, and punctuate the well-conceived tragedies. At the very least, you will witness a huge range of character emotions and viewpoints.
My favorite chapter recounts Nightshade's solution to the Bellefleur rat infestation. It's an example of her humor in a dark, and provocative light. Vanity, dissolution, antisocial behavior, anxious, ignorant fear of outsiders, bloody vengeance, and any number of other distinctly human flaws present themselves throughout. For some of the 49 principles characters, their injuries define their behavior in unexpected ways. Wounds, both physical and psychological, contribute to their growth and descent.
JCO reminds us of the riches to be found in literature. Her opulent output, her boldness, her bravado, all reinforce her fiction's ability to move us. I know my image of the author will evolve as I delve deep into her novels, stories, journals and that notorious biography. All in good time.
September 11, 2010
One of those long reads that most either seem to love or hate. I finished it this summer after picking it up in a yard-sale. I'd only read short stories by Oates before taking this one on.
My advice to anyone planning on readng it is to abandon the thought of a linear structure as a novel and take it as delivered; a series of episodes or short stories as chapters of several generations of the Bellefleurs in their castle above Lake Noir. Forget about timeline, forget about historical perspective. There is love, betrayel, vengeance, madness, magic and mystery, a shapeshifter, a hermit, a murderer and a ghost or two. Yes it's long, but once you give yourself up to it, Bellefleur is pretty good company.
My advice to anyone planning on readng it is to abandon the thought of a linear structure as a novel and take it as delivered; a series of episodes or short stories as chapters of several generations of the Bellefleurs in their castle above Lake Noir. Forget about timeline, forget about historical perspective. There is love, betrayel, vengeance, madness, magic and mystery, a shapeshifter, a hermit, a murderer and a ghost or two. Yes it's long, but once you give yourself up to it, Bellefleur is pretty good company.
February 25, 2025
There were so many Bellefleurs, people said, but perhaps most of them had never existed. They were just stories, tales, anecdotes set in the mountains, which no one quite believed and yet could not disregard...
This is a twisted Alice-through-the-looking-glass vision of America and its history via a single, sprawling family of the Bellefleurs.
Extravagant, polychromatic, with the uncanny air of fairy tales as well as gothic literature (I was thinking of Angela Carter a lot), there's no linear pull-through as the dead and living are intermingled and time is displaced from a neat chronology. To that extent, this rather outstayed its welcome with me as 700+ pages is a lot with this kind of whimsical style. I was reminded of the paintings of Marc Chagall, that kind of surreal universe where 'reality', dreams and nightmares commingle on a single plane.
Amidst the myriad strands, ideas and images, JCO gives us Leah who makes a pet of a giant black spider which she calls Love, a skin drum (reminding us of the human skin lampshade displayed by the commandant of Buchenwald?), there are clairvoyants and capitalists, violence amidst the French Indian wars and slavery, uncountable wealth and lost political influence, desire for land and love, racism and industrial disputes, patriarchy and manifest destiny as well as an acutely dysfunctional family, and a would-be prophet wandering in a wilderness, though exposed at the end for his withdrawal from responsibility.
The fertility of JCO's imagination is vast and unstoppable but this doesn't have the focus of, say, her The Accursed, the final book in her Gothic series. While this is an extravaganza of fanciful inventiveness that keeps the pages turning, by the end I was ready to finish it.
3.5 stars rounded up for pure verve.
February 7, 2018
Novela gótica, saga familiar, realismo mágico, Bellefleur es una novela absolutamente fascinante, plagada de excéntricos e inolvidables personajes, una obra inmensa.
A pesar de sus más de 900 páginas, si pienso en todo lo que me ha contado Oates aquí, en todo lo que he vivido con los Bellefleur, me parecen pocas. Tantas generaciones, tantas relaciones, tantas vidas e historias perfectamente diferenciadas...
Me parece magistral cómo maneja el tiempo, cómo pasa de una generación a otra, incluso en el mismo párrafo, cómo los sitúa a todos en una época mítica, de leyenda. Una vez se construye la mansión es casi como si el tiempo se hubiese detenido.
A pesar de sus más de 900 páginas, si pienso en todo lo que me ha contado Oates aquí, en todo lo que he vivido con los Bellefleur, me parecen pocas. Tantas generaciones, tantas relaciones, tantas vidas e historias perfectamente diferenciadas...
Me parece magistral cómo maneja el tiempo, cómo pasa de una generación a otra, incluso en el mismo párrafo, cómo los sitúa a todos en una época mítica, de leyenda. Una vez se construye la mansión es casi como si el tiempo se hubiese detenido.
March 10, 2019
A gothic family saga, complete with lunatic relatives, serial killers, mythological monsters, absurd occurences, strange distortions of place and time, and cats.
This book was freaking huge. At first, I was like, "Why am I doing this to myself?" Then I started to pick up on some of the little discrepancies. "What? Is that true? Could that be true? How could that possibly work?" I fought it for a while, trying to make everything make sense.
Then I realized that this was the American Gormenghast and just went with it.
Recommended for people who enjoyed Gormenghast, readers of gothics, and readers who enjoy a story that is, at one moment, a sly joke, and the next, a tragedy.
This book was freaking huge. At first, I was like, "Why am I doing this to myself?" Then I started to pick up on some of the little discrepancies. "What? Is that true? Could that be true? How could that possibly work?" I fought it for a while, trying to make everything make sense.
Then I realized that this was the American Gormenghast and just went with it.
Recommended for people who enjoyed Gormenghast, readers of gothics, and readers who enjoy a story that is, at one moment, a sly joke, and the next, a tragedy.
July 18, 2011
"The living and the dead. Braided together. Woven together. An immense tapestry taking in centuries."
A little over 100 pages into this novel I stumbled across the above lines, and even though I had another 500+ pages to go, I instinctively sensed that I had discovered the key to this immense, sprawling narrative, a description of what Oates was attempting to accomplish with Bellefleur. Literally spanning centuries, seven different generations and involving dozens of distinct characters, this is the story of the Bellefleurs, a privileged and moneyed family of the type usually characterized as American aristocracy. But Oates intentionally shatters her story into countless little shards of narrative so that with each chapter—all which function as their own stand-alone vignettes or even short stories—the reader is pulled between vastly different times and characters, with no obvious correlation from one to the next. At first it's disorienting, but Oates does eventually create the vague impression that the entire thing is indeed operating by its own internal logic and intricately designed rhythms. Frankly, this is a novel to get lost in, and one must be willing to make that decision intentionally.
Because it's literally impossible to keep things straight from one page to the next, sometimes even one paragraph to the next—there are many examples of two characters sharing the same name, and this family's history often seems to have a habit of operating on an endless loop. In this way I was reminded of Oates's own description of another novel that often came to mind while reading Bellefleur:
"Wuthering Heights... ambitiously diffuses its consciousness among several contrasting perspectives; its structure is not so complicated as it initially appears, but chronology is fractured, not linear, and certain of its most powerful images... require a second reading to be fully comprehended. What is mystery becomes irony what is opaque becomes translucent poetry. There are numerous flash-forwards, as well; and a mirroring of characters across generations."*
Reading back over that description of Brontë's novel, it seems clear to me that this was exactly the modus operandi behind Oates's own work. And while Oates doesn't quite reach the same heights of feverish ecstasies of her model, she did manage to create countless characters and images and actions in Bellefleur that I won't soon forget.
Which is not to say that I loved this novel unconditionally—several hundred pages in I knew which characters I didn't find very interesting and began to skim the chapters they appeared in, and I really did have to force myself to finish the last 100 pages or so (which is a shame, because it really does all lead up to an unexpected and incendiary conclusion).
Basically I wanted a leisurely summer read—"a voluptuous novel crammed with people and events," as Oates herself called it**—and that's exactly what I got. And for the most part, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
_____________________
* - Uncensored: Views and (Re)views
** - The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982
A little over 100 pages into this novel I stumbled across the above lines, and even though I had another 500+ pages to go, I instinctively sensed that I had discovered the key to this immense, sprawling narrative, a description of what Oates was attempting to accomplish with Bellefleur. Literally spanning centuries, seven different generations and involving dozens of distinct characters, this is the story of the Bellefleurs, a privileged and moneyed family of the type usually characterized as American aristocracy. But Oates intentionally shatters her story into countless little shards of narrative so that with each chapter—all which function as their own stand-alone vignettes or even short stories—the reader is pulled between vastly different times and characters, with no obvious correlation from one to the next. At first it's disorienting, but Oates does eventually create the vague impression that the entire thing is indeed operating by its own internal logic and intricately designed rhythms. Frankly, this is a novel to get lost in, and one must be willing to make that decision intentionally.
Because it's literally impossible to keep things straight from one page to the next, sometimes even one paragraph to the next—there are many examples of two characters sharing the same name, and this family's history often seems to have a habit of operating on an endless loop. In this way I was reminded of Oates's own description of another novel that often came to mind while reading Bellefleur:
"Wuthering Heights... ambitiously diffuses its consciousness among several contrasting perspectives; its structure is not so complicated as it initially appears, but chronology is fractured, not linear, and certain of its most powerful images... require a second reading to be fully comprehended. What is mystery becomes irony what is opaque becomes translucent poetry. There are numerous flash-forwards, as well; and a mirroring of characters across generations."*
Reading back over that description of Brontë's novel, it seems clear to me that this was exactly the modus operandi behind Oates's own work. And while Oates doesn't quite reach the same heights of feverish ecstasies of her model, she did manage to create countless characters and images and actions in Bellefleur that I won't soon forget.
Which is not to say that I loved this novel unconditionally—several hundred pages in I knew which characters I didn't find very interesting and began to skim the chapters they appeared in, and I really did have to force myself to finish the last 100 pages or so (which is a shame, because it really does all lead up to an unexpected and incendiary conclusion).
Basically I wanted a leisurely summer read—"a voluptuous novel crammed with people and events," as Oates herself called it**—and that's exactly what I got. And for the most part, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
_____________________
* - Uncensored: Views and (Re)views
** - The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982
June 21, 2013
I really enjoyed this epic by Joyce Carol Oates, the first of her Gothic Saga novels. If anyone was wondering, the books are not sequential and do not contain the same cast of characters (except if a historical figure pops up in more than one which I believe might be the case). They can be read in any order.
Bellefleur tells the story of the Bellefleur family, a prominent and wealthy line who own a large amount of land in the Adirondacks as well as a large mansion. The novel jumps back and forth and tells the stories of six generations of this family, from its lunacy to its failures to its triumphs. This book has supernatural elements to it, but I would not call it a supernatural book. It's more surreal than supernatural, and these elements are very rarely the focus of one of the stories.
The biggest strength of this book is the creation of a history. With six generations, myths and events happen and pass. Due to the non-linear nature of the tale, often an event will get alluded to before the story has been told in the narrative.
I don't want to say that this book isn't a page turner because I do not want people to think that I was not excited to see what would happen next, or indeed what had happened before, but it is not a book that is filled with suspense. It's not a book that one would devour in one sitting (and I'm not sure many people could even be able to do that because of its incredible length). It's a leisurely read and one that I enjoyed from start to finish.
Bellefleur tells the story of the Bellefleur family, a prominent and wealthy line who own a large amount of land in the Adirondacks as well as a large mansion. The novel jumps back and forth and tells the stories of six generations of this family, from its lunacy to its failures to its triumphs. This book has supernatural elements to it, but I would not call it a supernatural book. It's more surreal than supernatural, and these elements are very rarely the focus of one of the stories.
The biggest strength of this book is the creation of a history. With six generations, myths and events happen and pass. Due to the non-linear nature of the tale, often an event will get alluded to before the story has been told in the narrative.
I don't want to say that this book isn't a page turner because I do not want people to think that I was not excited to see what would happen next, or indeed what had happened before, but it is not a book that is filled with suspense. It's not a book that one would devour in one sitting (and I'm not sure many people could even be able to do that because of its incredible length). It's a leisurely read and one that I enjoyed from start to finish.
October 22, 2017
Chaos. What started as an enjoyable book, ended as a crazy mix of 500 characters, 50 different stories, and unexplained paranormal and psychic activity. Oates is an incredibly inventive and imaginative writer, that’s a fact, but this book surpassed my patience. Hero after hero, story after story, she takes us deep into the family tree of the aristocratic inhabitants of the Bellefleur castle. In this book you have everything. A medium, a vampire, a shapeshifter, enchanted objects, a man going into a room only to disappear completely, a hermit looking for God’s face in the wilderness, some people with strong political beliefs, and I’m sure I’m leaving out a dozen more - it’s all fascinating until the moment you reach page 900 and realise it will never add up to anything and it will never make any sense. Not to mention the writing is too detailed and full of side stories and clarifications, half of which could have been omitted.
Even though I enjoyed some of the stories and found them very captivating, my impatience to finish reading it and the felling of “unfinishedness” kind of ruined this book for me.
Even though I enjoyed some of the stories and found them very captivating, my impatience to finish reading it and the felling of “unfinishedness” kind of ruined this book for me.
September 10, 2008
In my English class junior year, we had a choose an author and write a critical paper about several of their books. My 8th grade English teacher highly recommended Joyce Carol Oates, so I decided to read some of hers for this paper.
Why I chose this tome is beyond me... maybe the story sounded interesting from the blurb on the back? The writing style she adopted for this novel was so long-winded--I'm talking parathetical thoughts that go on for three pages. The time frame of the novel was weird too--for some characters the novel took place over a couple of months, for others it was decades, and the landscape seemed to change like millenia had passed--which, once I finished reading this, was how much time I felt had passed as well.
Why I chose this tome is beyond me... maybe the story sounded interesting from the blurb on the back? The writing style she adopted for this novel was so long-winded--I'm talking parathetical thoughts that go on for three pages. The time frame of the novel was weird too--for some characters the novel took place over a couple of months, for others it was decades, and the landscape seemed to change like millenia had passed--which, once I finished reading this, was how much time I felt had passed as well.
September 4, 2012
So atmospheric! I vividly remember Leah throwing open the door in a rainstorm that wildly blows and soaks her peignoir and lush hair for a cat named Mahalaleel! I remember a huge drum on the stair landing made from a man's skin. I remember a spinster sister visited my creatures resembling vampires. I remember Mink Pond, debt, despair, the grinding away of love. I remember too many children, too many kittens on an overgrown stone patio. It was sort of like experiencing an opera.
April 4, 2020
Read this about 40 years ago and remember loving it even if the details are hazy.
November 18, 2020
Back when the libraries were still closed, I went browsing through my own stacks of unread books and pulled out three Joyce Carol Oates novels I have owned for decades. One of those was Angel of Light, but from the dust cover flap I learned that it was preceded by Bellefleur, the first of JCO's foray into the Gothic genre.
I located the book in my library's eBook catalogue and dived in. The novel takes place in a fictional rendition of the Adirondack Mountain region of upstate New York. The Bellefleurs are a large clan who first became wealthy landowners shortly after the Revolutionary War.
The main characters, descendants of the most successful Bellefleurs, live in an enormous Gothic mansion on the shores of Lake Noir. Three generations currently live there but earlier generations continually spill out of attics, armoires, graves and legends. The family is down on its luck when the novel opens. The birth of Germaine, daughter of Gideon and Leah, sets the family on a ruthless plan to recover both their wealth and prestige. Germaine remains a small child through the rest of the book with special powers that drive the plot.
In the course of numerous unsettling tales of passion, violence, feuds, and reckless adventure we learn the family's history. It takes being able to hold a plethora of characters in one's mind. Since they all, dead or alive, reappear regularly I was somewhat able to keep track. A family tree helped as well.
If you like long novels as much as I do, Bellefleur is wonderfully immersive. Every character looms larger than life and a history of American economic greed in the name of progress is presented in all its horror. From reading world history I know there are such families in every era of civilization. JCO created for us one of our very own American families and I found an allegory for what we have been exposed to politically and socially in the 21st century so far. She wrote the book in the late 1970s so once again played her role as prophetess.
I located the book in my library's eBook catalogue and dived in. The novel takes place in a fictional rendition of the Adirondack Mountain region of upstate New York. The Bellefleurs are a large clan who first became wealthy landowners shortly after the Revolutionary War.
The main characters, descendants of the most successful Bellefleurs, live in an enormous Gothic mansion on the shores of Lake Noir. Three generations currently live there but earlier generations continually spill out of attics, armoires, graves and legends. The family is down on its luck when the novel opens. The birth of Germaine, daughter of Gideon and Leah, sets the family on a ruthless plan to recover both their wealth and prestige. Germaine remains a small child through the rest of the book with special powers that drive the plot.
In the course of numerous unsettling tales of passion, violence, feuds, and reckless adventure we learn the family's history. It takes being able to hold a plethora of characters in one's mind. Since they all, dead or alive, reappear regularly I was somewhat able to keep track. A family tree helped as well.
If you like long novels as much as I do, Bellefleur is wonderfully immersive. Every character looms larger than life and a history of American economic greed in the name of progress is presented in all its horror. From reading world history I know there are such families in every era of civilization. JCO created for us one of our very own American families and I found an allegory for what we have been exposed to politically and socially in the 21st century so far. She wrote the book in the late 1970s so once again played her role as prophetess.
March 10, 2025
JCO is the queen of gothic literature 😮💨
July 22, 2016
It took me the whole summer to read this book, but that was not necessarily because of the length. (Although 558 pages of very tiny print was a lot to get through, definitely.) Rather, I tried only to read this book when I was not distracted or rushed, which means I put it away for weeks at a time when my young stepson was visiting. The reason I gave this book such hallowed treatment is because Oates is writing in very heightened prose here, and it definitely keeps you on your toes. Some of her sentences stretch on forever, but they never feel stilted or forced, just languorous.
My disjointed reading of this book was aided by the fact that each chapter is on a totally different theme. Some recount a particular event, some quickly sketch the life story of a minor family member we haven't heard much about, while others enumerate one type of possession among all the family members through all the generations. (For instance, the chapters called "Horses" and "Automobiles.") The chapters hop around throughout time, so that we are learning the stories of all the Bellefleur generations simultaneously. (However, there is a "present" of the book where the main action occurs; this is during the time that Germaine Bellefleur is a young child, and she is what I would call the main character, if I had to name one.)
Speaking of time, Oates is definitely playing games with it in this book. I think it's not a coincidence that she omits almost all dates from the family tree at the beginning of the book, with only the first few generations having definite birth and death dates. At first I was convinced that the "present" of the book was in the late 1800's, but then about halfway through the book, the first car appeared, and by the end of the book, things were happening that could only have happened in the 1960's. Likewise, the ages of the characters seem amorphous. The book opens right before Germaine is conceived and ends on her fourth birthday, so the action would be expected to take about 5 years. However, the twins Bramwell and Christabel are said to be 5 years old in the beginning. By the midpoint of the book, Christabel has married, while Bramwell is said to be 11 1/2 years old. Clearly time does not proceed at the same rate for all family members.
Even more puzzling is the case of Jedediah Bellefleur, one of the earliest family members, who spent twenty years of his life, from 1806 to 1826, living as a hermit on the top of Mount Blanc. Although we have definite beginning and ending dates for his time on the mountain, he is never able to keep track of time while he's up there, and among his visitors are a modern Girl Scout troop clad in multi-colored parkas and one of Germaine's uncles who is surveying the mountain. The sense I got from this is that all times exist simultaneously on top of the mountain. No wonder Jedediah was so befuddled while he was up there!
I had never read a novel by Joyce Carol Oates before, but I had read many of her short stories, and this is definitely a different mode that she's writing in here. In tone the book reminded me most of Little, Big and One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you are a fan of either of those books, you might want to give this one a try.
My disjointed reading of this book was aided by the fact that each chapter is on a totally different theme. Some recount a particular event, some quickly sketch the life story of a minor family member we haven't heard much about, while others enumerate one type of possession among all the family members through all the generations. (For instance, the chapters called "Horses" and "Automobiles.") The chapters hop around throughout time, so that we are learning the stories of all the Bellefleur generations simultaneously. (However, there is a "present" of the book where the main action occurs; this is during the time that Germaine Bellefleur is a young child, and she is what I would call the main character, if I had to name one.)
Speaking of time, Oates is definitely playing games with it in this book. I think it's not a coincidence that she omits almost all dates from the family tree at the beginning of the book, with only the first few generations having definite birth and death dates. At first I was convinced that the "present" of the book was in the late 1800's, but then about halfway through the book, the first car appeared, and by the end of the book, things were happening that could only have happened in the 1960's. Likewise, the ages of the characters seem amorphous. The book opens right before Germaine is conceived and ends on her fourth birthday, so the action would be expected to take about 5 years. However, the twins Bramwell and Christabel are said to be 5 years old in the beginning. By the midpoint of the book, Christabel has married, while Bramwell is said to be 11 1/2 years old. Clearly time does not proceed at the same rate for all family members.
Even more puzzling is the case of Jedediah Bellefleur, one of the earliest family members, who spent twenty years of his life, from 1806 to 1826, living as a hermit on the top of Mount Blanc. Although we have definite beginning and ending dates for his time on the mountain, he is never able to keep track of time while he's up there, and among his visitors are a modern Girl Scout troop clad in multi-colored parkas and one of Germaine's uncles who is surveying the mountain. The sense I got from this is that all times exist simultaneously on top of the mountain. No wonder Jedediah was so befuddled while he was up there!
I had never read a novel by Joyce Carol Oates before, but I had read many of her short stories, and this is definitely a different mode that she's writing in here. In tone the book reminded me most of Little, Big and One Hundred Years of Solitude. If you are a fan of either of those books, you might want to give this one a try.
February 24, 2020
It's rare for me to discover books that I truly love. This long, extraordinarily well-crafted book is one of those, reading it was sleepwalking through a beautiful, charmed dream.
Bellefleur moves through time - 200 years of the lives of the Bellefleurs, 6 generations, from the time of the American Revolution to the dawn of aviation. It's written as a series of scenes, some as short as 2 pages, some as long as 20, portraying various events, some troubling, some mystical, many exceptionally beautiful, in the lives of the Bellefleurs. A helpful family tree needs to be referred to quite frequently, as there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but I wouldn't even call it an annoyance.
Bellefleur has been described as gothic - and there are some gothic elements - but it's hardly the focus, it's kind of like a history of character studies. Some of the characters and scenes have a mystical quality to them, but there are scenes of love and violence which have none of these mystical elements. The book is its own thing, and this approach is rather unique. While readers of fantasy or gothic fiction might especially appreciate it this novel, characterizing it as such would be bit misleading - I would strongly recommend it to anyone.
Mostly the book is about love, impermanence, and the passage of time. The elements unique to its setting in the Adirondacks are not particularly important, and they provide some color, but I wouldn't say the book is "about" upstate New York. One might say it's about America, but no single work has ever captured the enormity of that experience. I was far more stirred by the stories and the characters and the beauty of the writing than the setting.
On another note, for me, right now, the book was very theraputic. I haven't been posting many reviews as I've been able to read only 10 pages a day sometimes (instead of my usual 200). However I seem to be a lot better now, as I was able to read the last 100 pages in a single day!
February 27, 2013
This book is a long one, but is classic Joyce Carol Oates style. The story jumps from place to place, from one point in time to another, from character to character, none of it in any particular order. She describes some things in great detail and while only hinting at others. She doesn't always prescribe to conventional uses of punctuation and will continue a thought for line after line after line, but there is a strong flow to her stories that I find addictive.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It is a really long story, and everything is interrelated but you don't always see it. I love the flow of the stories (it is kind of like a bunch of different short stories together) and the way JCO writes. Overall, it's a great book.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It is a really long story, and everything is interrelated but you don't always see it. I love the flow of the stories (it is kind of like a bunch of different short stories together) and the way JCO writes. Overall, it's a great book.
February 21, 2024
Troublant. Tortueux. Gothique. Absolument unique. Un must-read quand on aime l'étrange !
August 13, 2022
This is probably one of my top books of all times. You could call it a saga or an epic, and it is lush, sweeping and fantastic, often blurring the lines between sanity and lunacy, the real and the supernatural. Oates never quite makes the distinction between what is perceived and what is truly there, leaving the reader to decipher the reality of the Bellefleurs through their eyes. This book is long. This book is wordy. Bellefleur is intriguing, labyrinthine writing that's a journey into itself.
March 15, 2016
I give up.
I have tried and tried to read this book, and I just can't. The writing is lovely. But mother of god, where is the plot? Just pages and pages of description of very unlikeable people, and not a story line in sight.
Life is too short.
I have tried and tried to read this book, and I just can't. The writing is lovely. But mother of god, where is the plot? Just pages and pages of description of very unlikeable people, and not a story line in sight.
Life is too short.
July 8, 2020
At 100 pages, I gave up.
With all the wonderful reviews, I fear there is something wrong with me, but I have no idea what in the world is going on! This story meanders between people of mulitple generations both alive and dead and sometimes you think she is talking about a person and it's an animal, but a paragraph later it seems definitely like a person.
Don't even get me started on the family tree. A Hundred Years of Solitude was so much easier to follow, and in that book, everyone had the same name! I would reference the family tree in the beginning and would still be shaking my head.
I tried. I usually like to get 50% through before throwing in the towel, but I just couldn't. Could someone please explain to me what I'm missing?
With all the wonderful reviews, I fear there is something wrong with me, but I have no idea what in the world is going on! This story meanders between people of mulitple generations both alive and dead and sometimes you think she is talking about a person and it's an animal, but a paragraph later it seems definitely like a person.
Don't even get me started on the family tree. A Hundred Years of Solitude was so much easier to follow, and in that book, everyone had the same name! I would reference the family tree in the beginning and would still be shaking my head.
I tried. I usually like to get 50% through before throwing in the towel, but I just couldn't. Could someone please explain to me what I'm missing?
March 20, 2011
Seems to me that you either do or do not like Joyce Carol Oates and your reasons are as varied as the temperaments of her abundant books. (Perhaps no reason is more fitting than poet Michael Chapman's, who liked her because she was always holding a ball-point pen in her cover shots.) This was my first Oates adventure and it was a consuming experience. If you delight in vacationing in exotic books, have a taste for the gothic and other-wordly, then this is a must-read.
March 15, 2020
Une grande fresque familiale qui raconte, dans le désordre, les malheurs de six générations de Bellefleur. Les malheurs car, bien entendu, cette richissime famille américaine est frappée d'une terrible malédiction. La nature de cette malédiction, cependant, demeure incertaine : une terrible malchance, une folie héréditaire, le poids écrasant du passé ou la souveraineté du devoir filial sur les destins individuels... Ou peut-être une force surnaturelle est-elle réellement à l'oeuvre! Chose certaine, on ne meurt pas paisiblement dans son sommeil chez les Bellefleur!
Ce n'est pas une lecture facile, mais ce roman a décidément quelque chose d'envoûtant, de fascinant; quelque chose de très... gothique!
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Ce n'est pas une lecture facile, mais ce roman a décidément quelque chose d'envoûtant, de fascinant; quelque chose de très... gothique!
Visitez mon blog : https://chroniquesbookaddict.wixsite....
Suivez-moi sur Facebook :
https://www.facebook.com/Les-chroniqu...
January 20, 2014
If you like meandering gothic tales this is for you. While I do enjoy gothic tales sometimes Oates is a hard writer to follow, and then I feel rather dumb because I feel like I am missing an important point. I did not feel like I engaged with any of the characters, as there were a lot of them, spread over a vast amount of time, sometimes with the same first name. The narrative jumped around chronologically from chapter to chapter, which also adds to the cognitive confusion. The writing is rich and this is a great example of the gothic but I do like my reading to have a little more structure.
January 27, 2025
Got high and read this, one of the craziest experiences of my life.
February 13, 2023
A bit meandering and shapeless full of that kind of lazily ornate prose we’ve all come to love or loathe from Joyce but goddamn if she doesn’t get some shots off here.
May 23, 2023
The main character, named Gideon, like myself, makes love frequently and passionately throughout the novel.
December 20, 2024
Pfiou quelle aventure.
June 12, 2016
Ode to joyce. This is literature as it's meant to be.
"Bellefleur Manor was a horrific place - it was so inhumanly large - he hadn't remembered how large it was: ah, what a horror to contemplate! What sort of mind, driven by an unspeakable lust, had imagined all this into being? The castle ... the castle's grounds ... the lightless choppy immensity of Lake Noir ... the thousands upon thousands of acres of wilderness land ... the mountains in the distance: a terror to contemplate: and beyond them, sprawling out on all sides, a greater horror, that entity glibly referred to as the world. What maddened mind, deranged by an unspeakable lust, had imagined all this into being ...?"
"Bellefleur Manor was a horrific place - it was so inhumanly large - he hadn't remembered how large it was: ah, what a horror to contemplate! What sort of mind, driven by an unspeakable lust, had imagined all this into being? The castle ... the castle's grounds ... the lightless choppy immensity of Lake Noir ... the thousands upon thousands of acres of wilderness land ... the mountains in the distance: a terror to contemplate: and beyond them, sprawling out on all sides, a greater horror, that entity glibly referred to as the world. What maddened mind, deranged by an unspeakable lust, had imagined all this into being ...?"
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