I Lock My Door Upon Myself

by Joyce Carol Oates

Covers worn. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Novella, American, Female Authors, Literary Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1990

About the author

Joyce 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.

Reviews

[Infada Spain · Rating 5 out of 5]

unique Joyce Carol Oates, even when translated...

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short novella by Oates telling the story of an eccentric woman named Calla by her mother but whose given name is Edith. The story is told by Calla's granddaughter who gathered her grandmother's story in bits and pieces from those who knew her. Calla grew up in the early part of the twentieth century near the Chautauqua River in western New York State. She had flaming red hair and was an attractive woman but tended to keep to herself and was married at a young age to a local farmer named George Freilicht. Although she didn't really relate well to George, she had three children by him and then thought her life was over. But then she meets and falls for a black water diviner named Tyrell Thompson. And of course the talk of the area was the taboo "love affair" between Calla and Tyrell. The couple felt themselves doomed and decided to end it all by going over a local waterfall in a rowboat. But Calla survives and then shuts herself away from the world in her room at the Freilicht farm for her remaining 55 years. So is she able to finally find peace with herself and her family?

This was another of JCO's looks into family life and how families are affected by their members and social interaction (or lack thereof). I first heard about this novella from an interesting YouTube video which discusses the essential books of JCO and since I am a fan of her work, I decided to get this used copy from a book trading site. I thought overall it was a moving and honest story about a woman who lived outside the norms.

[Larnacouer de SH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Çünkü biri öldüğünde, bu dünyanın bir parçası da onunla birlikte ölür.

//

Yazarla ilk tanışmamız lakin kapı güzel açıldı, ironisiz dmdmmsmdms özr dlrm.

[TAP · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this is a dream it is not my dream for how should I know the language in which to dream it.

Passion and penance.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe it was Gore Vidal who once said that the three saddest words in American literature were "Joyce Carol Oates." Although he is always interesting, Vidal is not always right, and fortunately wasn't in this instance. Admittedly, Joyce Carol Oates has no hesitation in tackling somber subjects, making her upstate New York feel at times like Agamemnon's Mycenae.

I Lock My Door Upon Myself is the story of Calla Honeystone, a gaunt, wild redhead who marries an older farmer. She gives birth to three children by him, then distances herself from him. She is drawn instead to a tall black water-dowser named Tyrrell Thompson and becomes pregnant by him. Given the growing hopelessness of their situation in pre-World War I they decide to commit suicide by rowing a boat on the Chautauqua River over the Tintern Falls.

That, anyhow, was their intention; but things turn out differently. Calla, whose mantra was always "I do what I do, what I do is what I wanted to have done" finds the passage of long, lonely years to mull on her life.

[Dorina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a wonderful story. I felt my heart going out to Calla. I know the previous readers captured the feeling, the story. I can’t add anything more than what they shared. JCO Wows me yet again.

[Onur Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uzun zamandır bu kadar başarılı bir novella okumamıştım. Şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Because we are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.”

The life of “Calla” is eloquently told by her granddaughter as a quest for a sort of understanding and so much more. As Richard Ford wrote: “This is a stirring book.” It truly is.

Grateful for the experience.

[Théo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il était temps que je découvre la plume de Joyce Carol Oates (vu le nombre de romans que j'ai de celle-ci dans ma pal), mais avant de me lancer dans un de ces pavés de 700 pages, je voulais me frotter à son style et à son écriture dans une histoire assez courte. J'ai donc sorti "Un amour noir", court roman (novella ?) d'environ 130 pages.

L'auteure nous raconte ici la vie de Calla, à travers le récit qu'en donne sa petite-fille, récit qui se déroule au début des années 1900, dans la vallée de la Chautauqua, campagne profonde et très rurale du nord de l'état de New-York. Calla n'aura pas une vie simple : enfance difficile, mariage raté, le destin tragique de cette femme sera bouleversé lorsqu'elle rencontrera son amant noir, dans une Amérique empreinte de racisme et de ségrégation.

"Un amour noir" est je trouve une belle porte d'entrée dans l'univers de lautrice. Il me semble que les différents thèmes présents dans ce roman se retrouve partout dans ce autres œuvres : elle dénonce une Amérique marquée par la pauvreté des gens de la campagne, la place des femmes à l'époque et surtout, le racisme.
Ce roman tragique sent la terre, la boue et l'alcool. J'ai adoré cette ambiance : c'est un roman rural comme ont pu j'imagine en écrire John Steinbeck, ou encore Franck Bouysse (deux auteurs que je n'ai pas encore lu). On flirte également avec le roman gothique car l'ambiance pesante et triste se fait très lourde durant une grosse partie de la lecture.

J'ai également beaucoup aimé la plume de Joyce Carol Oates, qui s'est révélée précise, directe et efficace. Elle nous livre ici une histoire tragique, mais fait tout de même ressortir un sentiment qui nous concerne tous : l'amour. Cet amour sincère qui peut nous élever, ou nous détruire.
Je m'attendais à ce qu'il y ait quelques plot-twists à la fin du récit, mais l'autrice n'est pas partie dans cette direction, et est restée jusqu'au bout sur le même rythme (ce qui m'a un peu déçu, je l'avoue). Il ne faut pas s'attendre à être surpris par la fin (je n'en dirais pas plus au risque de SPOIL, et parce que le roman se lit en 2h max).

J'ai beaucoup aimé découvrir le style de Joyce Carol Oates à travers ce roman. Il ne me restera en mémoire que peu de temps je pense, mais il m'a permis d'entrer en douceur dans l'univers de l'auteure. Je vais pouvoir maintenant découvrir d'autres de ses livres, comme "Les Chutes" ou "Blonde".
Si vous êtes dans le même cas que moi, je vous le recommande. Après, si vous en avez déjà lu de cette auteure, pas sûr que ce soit une de ces œuvres à lire absolument (mais qui suis-je pour juger ?).

[Michael Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a haunting novella which, while most of the action takes place in the early 20th century, has a gothic feel appropriate to its setting in the Chautauqua region in western New York State. It's told by the grand daughter of a woman about whom the narrator would have very little direct information other than the fact of Calla's 55 year exile in her married family's home following the climactic event with which the story opens. She could have created many stories from the fragmentary information she has about her grandmother, and the one she creates is of an almost unnaturally willful woman who took her name, used only by herself and her lover, from her dying mother. Though she can be washed, dressed and engaged in basic communication, Calla is in all other respects socially feral. She is put to use - being a wife, bearing children - while entering into a doomed romance with a black man with dowsing ability. As told, it was on the water that the lovers experienced an ecstatic consummation. So the family lore is that the remaining 55 years was a sort of atonement, but as told, Calla lived out the remainder of her life at peace with herself having received all that she wanted from life.

[chana levanah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad and pretty little book about a masculine and eccentric woman in early twentieth century america (upstate new york) who in the midst of a marriage done for routine and not out of passion, falls in love with a black man who is a water dowser.

The prose is lyrical and engaging and the book reads very quickly. This is only the second thing I've read by Oates. She has been so prolific I never know what to read by her. I read this because I happened to find it at a thrift store, maybe that is how I should approach reading her work entirely, since she is pretty popular and her books are easy to find second hand.

[SmarterLilac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in my Summer of Miserable Victorian Women (the first being a reread of Valerie Martin's Mary Reilly). This one is terse, intriguing, and, like all JCO's novella length work, probably one of the best examples of her enormous talent. Shorter books, Dr. Oates, shorter. Go back to the prose poems, please. Seriously, please. This was one book I could actually finish.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the most haunting, and possibly deeply honest, novel (novella) about a woman that I have ever read.

Never will I hesitate again to read Joyce Carol Oates. Never.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very short, and not entirely successful Novella about a young woman who is not quite right in the head, or perhaps is “touched” by God or nature. Forced into a loveless marriage, she has an affair with the black man, who is a water dowser. The story is set in rural New York prior to World War I. So you can imagine the outcome.

[sanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

for some reason i started this book over 3 times in the past month before finishing it. the first time was in the bar at sie filmcenter, the second time was on the back patio at trident, and the third time was on a plane ride to italy. i liked it a lot the first two times i started but i could tell that i wasn’t like locking into it the way i wish i was. it’s also the first time i’ve read something by joyce carol oates that is not a short story.

this is the third book i’ve read this year about a young woman who has a very brief but incredibly emotionally intense experience and then years later reflects deeply on the passage of time and how much the world around her has changed (the others that i’ve read recently that are like this are breasts and eggs winter love).

i think in this case what i liked are the signs of the world
already beginning to change deeply and rapidly around calla even before and as she has this emotionally intense experience (the old broken down cider mill, the rundown farmhouses). but these exist sort of in the background and it takes calla’s story unfolding to bring them into focus as the remnants of a world that’s kind of disappearing. i guess there’s also something to the fact that these old places that have fallen into disuse and disrepair are the places where calla is able to be most alive and most herself, huh?

sometimes i wonder if there is a period of my life that feels emotionally intense in that way and that will make me feel like the rest of life is sort of passing me by in comparison. i wonder if it’s something that’s already happened or is yet to happen. kind of a bummer either way.

[rosi · Rating 3 out of 5]

joa

[Sara Vee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No hunger is ever satisfied if it is a true hunger." Talk about some food for thought.

[Tonja, · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreakingly good!

[Barbara Carder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The brilliance of J.C.O. . . . . almost spooky. This slim novel plots the course of 'woman oppressed' and why not only should society not demean/destroy women, but also not demean anyone including racial minorities. The results are tragic and affect generations. The precision of the writing in describing Calla Honeystone's demise is meant to shock and it does even these three decades after it was first published in 1990. The power assumed by males in marriage is so terrible and has so much destruction in it, how do we not see it? All this trauma and upset is set in the far western corner of New York State, the Chautauqua region in a lonesome rural farm. The narrator describes the hell her 'mother's mother' [never once says 'grandmother'] finds herself in and how other women in the household protect her once physical illness and depression set it. Apparently JCO could not find a way to tell a story here where the indentured wife can find any freedom with a partner. It all ends in violence. Calla's 'cry' for 'freedom' an intoxicating ride to near-death -- that ride down the river and over the falls is frightening to read.

[N's books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ωραίο, παράξενο, με την ικανότητα να αναστατώνει...
Διαβάστε το!

[Michael Beblowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This marks the summer of my re-evaluation of Joyce Carol Oates, an author I once selected during Junior year as the subject of an analytical final essay for high school Honors' English, but as an adult I dismissed her as "the academically accredited V. C. Andrews." Intimidatingly prolific and tinged with gothic horror genre and feminist politics, Joyce Carol Oates, perpetual summer semester author-in-residence at Skidmore College, has an upstate New York following. Gore Vidal once said that "the three saddest words in the English language are Joyce Carol Oates" and most of her literature is grim, I Lock My Door Upon Myself is a bleak and slender period piece set in the Chautauqua River valley. Enigmatic Calla Honeystone, the subject of rumor and local myth, is contemplated by her grand-daughter who reconstructs the scandalous narrative of an eccentric rural woman, who rejects maternity and conventional femininity to fall in love with an African-American dowser in 1912. Edith Margaret Freilicht endures a loveless marriage to a significantly older and thoroughly unattractive farmer, with a detached patience bears three children, and wanders through the repossessed ruins of her family farm and an abandoned cider mill believing that God has abandoned her. Until the day she encounters Tyrell Thompson. A slim 98 pages that recall Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome," specifically illicit lovers attempting to commit suicide using the rural landscape. Unfortunately, since the novel is a composite of local legend and town gossip, a ghost story about an unconventional love affair destroyed by bigotry, the characters lack an interior life and most of the novella is devoted to scenery.

[Stephen Gallup · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems odd that, to me, the most interesting aspect of this odd story is the fact that it's an imagined construction by the narrator, who's a granddaughter of the main character. This reaction may be due to some very unusual characters being in my own family tree, about whom I have often wondered (and even considered writing).

But this unusual character -- Calla, someone who never fit in, either in her parents' household as a child growing up or in the home of the man to whom she was married -- is someone with whom I could not relate. Oh yes, I can well imagine the feeling of entrapment that must attend the perception that you have no connection to the family -- or the spouse -- to whom you belong. In this case, however, I don't see why Calla's life is so unacceptable to her, or why the escape she chooses is attractive. Perhaps that's because her story is being told by someone who scarcely knew her.

I also could not help wondering why the suffering she caused others is rendered in such muted, matter-of-fact terms. Their unhappiness doesn't count; all that's important is hers, the precious dear.

Another reviewer describes this story as "gothic," which sounds right. It's well told, as of course anything by JCO would be. But its purpose missed me.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting and evocative. Its dust jacket illustration is of the Belgian symbolist Fernand Khnopff's painting "I Lock My Door upon Myself" (image: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnar... )
which is in turn based on Christina Rossetti's poem "Who shall deliver me?"
(...
I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
...)

(It is curious to me, though, that the trajectory of the book is somewhat different from that of the poem.)

I want to quote the writer Richard Ford's comments about this book:
"...fiction on art, or an artfully composed shadowbox of narrative within narrative - it is first a singular and affecting story...Its beauty lies in its patience, its inquiring thoroughness, its emotional particularity and lyricism...giving language to those elemental forces in life which have no permanent language and therefore require literature to be known at all...."

[Mina · Rating 5 out of 5]

On ne peut que lire d'une traite ce court roman, sensuel et magnifique, d'une rousse libertaire et de son amant noir. J'ai été transportée dans une nature sauvage, je me suis promenée avec cette fille incendiaire plus proche du chat de gouttière que de la femme et j'ai ressenti cet amour magnifique et impossible. JCO a un talent incroyable, ou du moins mon esprit et mon cœur épousent sans peine son écriture vibrante.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

A feminist melodrama having much in common with Thomas Hardy. The long, rhythmic sentences are interesting, but the characters here are two dimensional--no skin on the bones, nothing distinctive, merely utilitarian.

[Charles Bechtel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book. I shall confess upfront that I have difficulties reading books by Joyce Carol Oates, beginning with “Them” back in the Seventies. Not sure why, but I rarely get past the midpoints. I finished this book, as I did “Them” and “Bellefleur,” but at least six others I passed on in frustration.

Regarding this book, I have four distinct bones worth picking. (some spoilers.)

1) Because it is the shortest to write about, my complaint lies in the whole of “Chapter” 28: It was 1911, in the Chautauqua River Valley. Aloud Calla said, as if tasting the word, “Ne-gro.” And black and rich and strange it tasted, like licorice.
No, it doesn’t. Never has, never will. I am certain she picked it over sensations like “coffee” and “unlit cellars” because people either hate licorice, or love it. No one is indifferent to it. By linking that to “Ne-gro”, she wants us to see that perhaps in 1911 people either loved or hated Blacks because they were strange, exotic, and to many unpalatable. However, it’s not a believable attitude of people in 1911, because it is filtered through a narrator quite vocal in 1990. Instead it is a stereotypical application of a 1990s woman on what she thinks must have been the attitude of people in 1911 because they were so primitive and culturally deprived.

2) The next has to do with that narrator: Why in Heaven’s name did she have to choose a voice for the narrator who has no ability to put forth the facts she has in evidence, but who instead has to apply her perspective on not what she knows, but on what she guesses. (To be fair to the narrator, this is always a weakness I find in Oates: her books have the perspective of doom, gloom and life has to be bad.)
Here are a list of adjectives lifted from page 35: dense, compacted, greyish, hot, no color, nameless, wide, low, murmerous, dank, dried and baked flat, dead, junglelike, immense, crouching, rich and fecund and sweetly intoxicating, rot, ruin, weatherworn, broken, crude, crumbling, restless, imbricated. (the narrator writes like a college freshman who entered college with a C high school average, but she knows ‘imbricated’?)
She goes on page after page with slopped on adjectives that could fill a thesaurus. She wore me out so often with unnecessary observational asides that it took me seven stop-and-go attempts to get through this book OF 98 PAGES!

3) Between mid page 88 to mid-98, there are only seven punctuation periods. That’s less than one per page. And packed between them are meandering phrases, clauses, asides, strung-along adjectival supports, and very little meaningful information. “Screw the reader, I’m on a roll!”
Run-on sentences can give a sense of unstoppable propulsion, an immediacy and maybe a comprehensiveness of history (see Wm Faulkner, who does it maddeningly well), but Oates has indications of more directions to wander off to than that city-post sign in the M.A.S.H. opening sequence. I never knew where I was, or why I was there, unless I stopped, reread, plucked out the relevant and discarded the dross.

4) Spoiler alert here: Nothing, or very little, happens. A woman born strange and treated thus through her childhood, finds herself in a rabbit-hole of a future maybe of her choosing (not sure) that includes a husband she does not want but remains married to, three children she really didn’t want, a brief summer long romance with a fellow passing through (who happens to be black, and indeed had to be, because if her were any other race, there’d be no “tsk, tsk.) who for some unknown reason decides they must commit suicide by the damnedest method on record (paddling over a not very high waterfall) that causes her to lose the child (bi-racial, of course) and suffer two broken legs. That’s it. At best, stripped of the irrelevant asides and unnecessary descriptions, this is a short story. (Something, btw, at which Oates excel.)

I really dislike being unkind to writers, especially being one myself, but I think Oates has been unkind to readers. Why should we care about the narrator? She doesn’t care, because she forgets there is one until the final chapters. Why should we care that the possibly “crazy” lady (“Because I was mad, or because I was never mad?” Her words, not mine.) recuperates “beneath the wool-and-silk quilt of three hundred sixty-five squares [Oh, look, it has the same number of squares as a year has days, except, of course, leap year, which also means nothing, nothing at all] her mother-in-law sewed for her in her first illness when it was clear…”
I’m sorry, Ms Oates, that’s what you consider clear? BTW, this passage is about a third of the way through one of those sentences that starts on one page and ends two pages later.

Giving a book one star requires solid reasons. I hope mine provide that solidity.

[Demetra Stavridou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Από τις καλύτερες στιγμές της Όουτς.

Ακολουθεί απόσπασμα (και spoilers!!) από παλιότερη παρουσίαση του βιβλίου που είχα κάνει εδώ
https://www.kefalonitikanea.gr/2017/1...

[...]
Ο πρωτότυπος τίτλος του βιβλίου είναι “I lock the door upon myself”, ένας στίχος από το υπέροχο ποίημα της Κριστίνα Ροσέτι “Who Shall Deliver Me?” που πραγματεύεται τις ψευδείς αντιλήψεις του εαυτού μας, που έχουμε τόσο εμείς οι ίδιοι όσο και οι άλλοι για εμάς (και, αλήθεια: ποιος μπορεί να μας διασώσει απ’ τον εαυτό μας; αναρωτιέται ουσιαστικά η Ροσέτι). [...] Βασική ηρωίδα του βιβλίου είναι η Ίντιθ Μάργκαρετ Φράιλιχτ που «γεννήθηκε το 1890, και η μητέρα της, που πέθανε στη γέννα, την ονόμασε Κάλα». Κάλα από τους κρίνους, για την ομορφιά και τον εξωτισμό της.

To κορίτσι μεγαλώνει με τη φροντίδα των συγγενών της αλλά γρήγορα γίνεται εμφανές ότι διαφέρει αισθητά από το σύνολο: ψιλόλιγνη, με μπερδεμένα μακριά μαλλιά στο χρώμα της φωτιάς, δεν την ενδιαφέρει να κάνει φίλες και να φλερτάρει με τα αγόρια. Η Ίντιθ, όπως τη φωνάζουν όλοι, δεν ασχολείται με κανέναν γύρω της, προτιμά να τρέχει ολομόναχη στην αμερικανική ύπαιθρο και να ματώνει τα γόνατά της εξερευνώντας εγκαταλελειμμένα αγροτόσπιτα. Είναι η «περίεργη» του σογιού. Οι συγγενείς της την παντρεύουν άρον -άρον με έναν αγρότη που έχει τα διπλά της χρόνια ελπίζοντας ότι η δημιουργία οικογένειας θα την ωριμάσει και θα την αναγκάσει να βαδίσει στον ίσιο δρόμο. Η Ίντιθ όμως, συνεχίζει να είναι ο εαυτός της, δηλαδή απλά διαφορετική. Κάνει τρία παιδιά και τα χρόνια περνούν ενώ ο ασφυκτικός της περίγυρος αυτή τη φορά είναι οι συγγενείς του άντρα της που τη συνδράμουν στη φροντίδα των παιδιών, ειδικά αφού η αλλόκοτη Ίντιθ εξακολουθεί να εξαφανίζεται για ώρες στους μεγάλους περιπάτους της.

Σε μία από αυτές τις εξορμήσεις, η Ίντιθ γνωρίζει τον Τάιρελ Τόμσον. Είναι μαύρος, γιος σκλάβου, περιπλανώμενος και πάμφτωχος. Και είναι ο μόνος που τη φωνάζει Κάλα, ένα όνομα που ο άντρας της δεν γνωρίζει καν. Το παράνομο ζευγάρι ζει τον έρωτά του χωρίς σκοπό, χωρίς σχέδιο διαφυγής, χωρίς πολλά λόγια, γνωρίζοντας όμως το μάταιο των ονείρων τους. Μπαίνουν σε μια βάρκα, οι δυο τους, χωρίς ρούχα και αποσκευές, και κατεβαίνουν αγκαλιασμένοι το ποτάμι με κατεύθυνση προς το χείλος ενός καταρράκτη. Η βάρκα τσακίζεται όμως η Κάλα επιζεί. Ο Τάιρελ Τόμσον δεν βρίσκεται ποτέ. Η Κάλα μεταφέρεται στο σπίτι του συζύγου της, τσακισμένη ψυχικά και σωματικά, όπου για τα επόμενα πενήντα πέντε χρόνια αυτοφυλακίζεται στη σιωπή. Η άλλοτε ανυπότακτη, απείθαρχη γυναίκα επιλέγει για κελί της ένα δωμάτιο του συζυγικού σπιτιού, από το οποίο θα βγει ελάχιστες φορές μέχρι τον θάνατό της.

[...]

Όλη η δράση του βιβλίου εκτυλίσσεται μέσα σε μία αλλόκοτη, ονειρική ατμόσφαιρα έντασης, αισθησιασμού και τραγωδίας. Η «Αυτοφυλακισμένη» είναι βεβαίως ένα σκληρό σχόλιο για τη διαφορετικότητα, τον ρατσισμό και την καταπίεση των γυναικών, αυτό όμως που κυρίως πραγματεύεται είναι η έκφραση της ατομικότητας και το κόστος της ελευθερίας που καλείται να πληρώσει το άτομο που επιλέγει να ζήσει εκτός συμβατικών κανόνων και κοινωνικών μοντέλων. Η Κάλα άφησε να την παντρέψουν και έκανε τρία παιδιά γιατί αυτό ζητούσε η κοινωνία από εκείνη: να είναι σύζυγος και μητέρα, σωστή, υπεύθυνη, «μαζεμένη». Η Κάλα δεν αντιστάθηκε στην ισοπέδωση του εαυτού της την πρώτη φορά αλλά ούτε και κατάφερε να ανταποκριθεί στο νέο της ρόλο: ψυχρή σύζυγος και αδιάφορη μητέρα, πλήρωσε το λάθος της με το κοινωνικό και οικογενειακό στίγμα της αλλόκοτης, περίεργης φιγούρας του σπιτιού. Όταν γνώρισε τον Τάιρελ Τόμσον επιχείρησε μαζί του τη μεγάλη απελευθέρωση του να είσαι επιτέλους ο εαυτός σου αλλά η τραγωδία τής ανέκοψε το δρόμο. Ηττημένη, η Κάλα μετατράπηκε σε μία σκοτεινή μορφή, κλειδώθηκε στους τέσσερις τοίχους της βουβαμάρας και πέρασε τα δύο τρίτα της ζωής της σε οικειοθελή και πλήρη απομόνωση.

Βέβαια, η Κάλα γεννήθηκε το 1890 και σίγουρα επεδίωξε να ζήσει πολύ πιο ελεύθερα από άλλες γυναίκες της εποχής της, αδιαφορώντας για τα σχόλια των γύρω της, που ήταν, είναι και θα είναι πάντα εξπέρ στο άθλημα των χαρακτηρισμών, όσο μπροστά και να πηγαίνουν οι δυτικές κοινωνίες. Πέρα από την αναγνωστική απόλαυση που μπορεί να χαρεί ο σημερινός αναγνώστης από αυτή τη μυστηριακή, σχεδόν διονυσιακή σε εκφραστικά μέσα, νουβέλα της Όουτς, η ιστορία της Κάλα καταφέρνει να προβληματίσει και τον σύγχρονο αναγνώστη του 21ου αιώνα: σήμερα που όλες οι επιλογές φαντάζουν ανοιχτές, εφικτές και αποδεκτές, πόσο εύκολο είναι για το άτομο να διαρρήξει τον οικογενειακό και κοινωνικό ιστό που τον περιβάλλει υπερασπιζόμενο το δικαίωμα στις προσωπικές του επιλογές; Σίγουρα είναι πολύ πιο εύκολο από ότι στις αρχές του προηγούμενου αιώνα αλλά ο αγώνας για την υπεράσπιση της ατομικότητας και διαφορετικότητας παραμένει εξίσου σκληρός (είδαμε τον γενικό εθνικό αλαλαγμό σχετικά με το πρόσφατο νομοσχέδιο αναγνώρισης δικαιωμάτων στα διεμφυλικά άτομα) τόσο σε κοινωνικό όσο και σε προσωπικό επίπεδο. Εντούτοις, σήμερα οι άνθρωποι της διπλανής πόρτας που δεν παντρεύονται, δεν κάνουν παιδιά ή επιλέγουν τον έρωτα που τους εκφράζει είναι σε καλύτερη μοίρα από την Κάλα και δεν χρειάζεται να ζήσουν εκτός κοινωνίας, ηττημένοι και κλειδωμένοι στη σιωπή. Παρ’ όλα αυτά, διαβάζοντας την ιστορία μιας γυναίκας που προτίμησε να αυτοαποκλειστεί από το να μετατραπεί σε θλιμμένο μηχανιστικό στρατιωτάκι έχει κάποια αξία, ακόμα και στη σύγχρονη, πιο ελεύθερη εποχή μας.
[...]

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I mentioned earlier this summer, I recently moved into a community co-op here in Chicago, and one of the things I'm doing while here is helping one of my housemates edit and publish their latest book of poetry. In it is several pieces inspired by two Joyce Carol Oates books; and so since I've never read Oates myself but have always been curious about her, I thought this would be the perfect excuse to read the two in particular he name-checks in his manuscript, then move my way forward from there if I liked what I sampled.

Unfortunately I didn't care at all for the first one I tried, 1996's 500-page Oprah Book Club darling We Were the Mulvaneys (my review); but I liked the second one a whole lot more, 1990's 98-page novella I Lock My Door Upon Myself, which I found really enjoyable ironically for the exact same reason I disliked the former title. In a nutshell, that's because of Oates' prose, which very famously conveys barely any plot at all, to instead concentrate almost exclusively on style, character, and setting a mood. This got her a lot of notice at the very beginning of her career from the revered Mid-Century Modernist publisher The Vanguard Press, and an unprecedented four National Book Award nominations for her first four novels, shooting her into the rarefied air where she's been floating ever since. As I discovered, although this is a slog in longer books, this prose style works rather amazingly when she limits herself to short manuscripts, here turning in a fascinating character study of a unpleasant, temperamental farmer's daughter in the early 20th century, forced into a marriage, motherhood and rural life that she never wanted and hates being in, and whose only solace comes from her forbidden sexual relationship with an ebony-Black drifter who does mystical water-dowsing on remote farms for a living.

I mean, yes, Oates is quite clearly guilty here of perpetuating the "Magical Negro" trope that Spike Lee hates so much and Chuck Palahniuk makes vicious fun of in Adjustment Day (my review), in which well-meaning white liberals try to bring more dignity to Black characters by infering that they're so noble they literally have magical powers, which in recent years has completely backfired and made these white liberals look blatantly racist themselves. But given that this book is 30 years old at this point, I think we can forgive her for not knowing better at the time; and in the meanwhile, she turns in here a compelling portrait of an unusual and challenging protagonist, a story that will innately appeal to people who enjoy tales about strong female characters but are sick of the selfless activism and eternally sweet nature such strong female characters are usually saddled with. So a lesson learned here, and an important one -- if I'm to read any more Oates, stick with the smaller books, which will be easy since she's freaking published over 50 of them at this point (and currently at the spry age of 82, still freaking counting). It comes with a limited but strong recommendation today, specifically to those who enjoy slow-moving character studies, of which I guarantee this will eventually be one of your favorites.

[Cece · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Lock The Door Upon Myself, by Joyce Carol Oates follows a young woman called “Calla” in a small town in Eden County, New York in 1910. At seventeen, she is married off to a much older farmer and is forced into an unhappy life. When she falls in love with Tyrell Thompson, a black man, the story turns towards the response of the town, and the two’s attempts at escaping the animosity of the town and Calla’s husband. The story is recounted by Calla’s granddaughter, who herself has had little interactions with Calla.

I found this short novel to be extremely compelling. At only 98 pages, the story is quite focused and the pacing is fast. Joyce Carol Oates’ prose was gorgeous to me, with so many profound moments. However, I don’t think her prose in this story will be everyone’s cup of tea. By the last ten pages, the sentences begin to run on and on, with sometimes whole pages going by without a period. At times, I did have to go back to clarify sentences. I thought this was fitting to the story itself, but I can’t lie that at times it did confuse me.

This is the type of story that demands a reread and I don’t think I can fully comprehend my thoughts on this story until after I read it once again. I believe that there were things going on in this narrative that totally escaped me as a reader. I’m still not completely sure about the italicized portions throughout the narrative. I thought that they were internal thoughts of Calla, but since it’s told as a recount of information by the granddaughter, I’m not sure how that could be. At times, it felt less like a recount and more like an omniscient narrator. I had to remind myself that parts of this was the Granddaughter implementing her own thoughts at times. Also, at times the italicized parts read like scripture, which was fitting because of the role of religion in this text, although I’m still not completely sure what that role entirely is.

Overall, I thought this had some gorgeous moments and I would love to read it again. I will definitely be picking up more of Joyce Carol Oates works in the next few months!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really have much to say about this novella. I am unsure how I feel about Joyce Carol Oates writing. It's very stylistic, but I don't think it's quite my vibe.

I did think the story was going to be more focused on Calla's isolation, but that isn't really introduced until the end. Instead we are told Calla's story from the point-of-view of her granddaughter whom has had very few interactions with her. Because of this it's unclear whether the granddaughter is just weaving a tale from local rumors, or speaking truthfully.

This story is one of those that burns brightly, but for a short period of time. There are some thoughtful quotes in here, and while the novella is quite tragic, it was a little difficult to stay interested.