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Cybele
A woman's lover becomes reckless with his life, which is taken from him abruptly and cruelly, and his disgraceful end is especially horrible for his children and former wife
- GenresFictionNovelsCollections
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
2 people are currently reading
177 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
853 books9,623 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 31, 2022
Review upon my recent re-read, finished it July 30, 2022
Joyce Carol Oates used to be one of my fave go-to-authors. I decided to go back and re-read a book I had read some 20 years ago. That was a mistake. I gave it a B- then and today.... well, you see what I gave it. 😕 🙁
The book was set in the 1980s. It did not age well. About a married man in his mid-40s who starts sexual/romantic relationships with other women...in most cases noting slight physical imperfections in the women he is having relationships with and so he dumps them and finds somebody else younger and more attractive. And I don’t know why the book was named ‘Cybele’ (American Heritage dictionary: the Phrygian goddess of nature of ancient Asia Minor).
But I won’t give up on Joyce Carol Oates....next time I do a re-read I will pick a book of hers that I loved 20 years ago such as ‘We Were the Mulvaneys” or “Foxfire” or “What I Lived For”. 🙃 😉
Review:
https://thebookloversboudoir.wordpres...
Review from 20 years ago
The protagonist in this book and his behavior disturbed me. It was a very good character study.
Joyce Carol Oates used to be one of my fave go-to-authors. I decided to go back and re-read a book I had read some 20 years ago. That was a mistake. I gave it a B- then and today.... well, you see what I gave it. 😕 🙁
The book was set in the 1980s. It did not age well. About a married man in his mid-40s who starts sexual/romantic relationships with other women...in most cases noting slight physical imperfections in the women he is having relationships with and so he dumps them and finds somebody else younger and more attractive. And I don’t know why the book was named ‘Cybele’ (American Heritage dictionary: the Phrygian goddess of nature of ancient Asia Minor).
But I won’t give up on Joyce Carol Oates....next time I do a re-read I will pick a book of hers that I loved 20 years ago such as ‘We Were the Mulvaneys” or “Foxfire” or “What I Lived For”. 🙃 😉
Review:
https://thebookloversboudoir.wordpres...
Review from 20 years ago
The protagonist in this book and his behavior disturbed me. It was a very good character study.
April 16, 2023
Oates restrains herself in this short but intense novel, her spare and drily ironic style proving to be an unsettling counter to the increasingly overripe, unpleasant scenarios in which the "hero" wallows. the goddess Cybele may be a symbol of fecundity, but in Oates' hands, her power over men is more malign. the vehicle: one man's mid-life crisis; the result: morbid preoccupation and surreal excess.
Joyce, you are a sick woman and i love you! however, i do wish your novel Cybele was just a wee bit more memorable. it is almost like you boiled down all of your favorite themes to a kind of Oates Template and then forgot to build a truly compelling narrative around it. i'm just mainly tasting the soup base... and it is too strong, too intensely flavored to enjoy. more nuance, less predestination is required to create a satisfying meal.
still, even your lesser works shame many an inferior author's best efforts. never change, cruel and perfect lady!
Joyce, you are a sick woman and i love you! however, i do wish your novel Cybele was just a wee bit more memorable. it is almost like you boiled down all of your favorite themes to a kind of Oates Template and then forgot to build a truly compelling narrative around it. i'm just mainly tasting the soup base... and it is too strong, too intensely flavored to enjoy. more nuance, less predestination is required to create a satisfying meal.
still, even your lesser works shame many an inferior author's best efforts. never change, cruel and perfect lady!
April 8, 2008
god this was fucked up. again, i wouldn't really expect anything else from jco...not the most disturbing thing of hers i've read, not the least.
February 11, 2008
...at least among those I've read, which is about half her output (that may be a quarter by the end of the week, at the rate she publishes.) I don't think it would be giving too much away to say Cybele deals with the human condition, more specifically its degradation. Most Oates novels do.
When Black Sparrow published Cybele in 1974, it was considered shocking, even in a time when tell-all fictional exposes were becoming increasingly common thanks to the successes of just-above-dime novels like Peyton Place in the decades before. And thus Black Sparrow, a press known for keeping books in print forever, let it lapse. Twenty-five years later, it still hasn't been reprinted, and that's a crime. Short (at least, shorter than most of Oates' novel output), engaging in the same way as a splatter film, unremittingly ugly in its honesty and forthrightness, as of now Oates has never again achieved the power she did in this novel. Do whatever you need to to seek a copy out, if you're a fan of Joyce Carol Oates.
When Black Sparrow published Cybele in 1974, it was considered shocking, even in a time when tell-all fictional exposes were becoming increasingly common thanks to the successes of just-above-dime novels like Peyton Place in the decades before. And thus Black Sparrow, a press known for keeping books in print forever, let it lapse. Twenty-five years later, it still hasn't been reprinted, and that's a crime. Short (at least, shorter than most of Oates' novel output), engaging in the same way as a splatter film, unremittingly ugly in its honesty and forthrightness, as of now Oates has never again achieved the power she did in this novel. Do whatever you need to to seek a copy out, if you're a fan of Joyce Carol Oates.
September 28, 2007
This novel about a man's slow dissipation can be uncomfortable to read. I had this feeling that I was rubbernecking as I passed a car wreck. We look on as he trades one lover for another, seemingly attracted to their mostly physical imperfections (which pile on into the realm beyond grotesque)until he finally explodes at rock bottom. Although I did like the novel, I have not been able to rinse some of its stark images out of my head.
April 16, 2023
To this point, I've only read Oates's novels and stories from the 1990s to the present. Cybele came out in 1979. The pacing is a little slower than the newer works I've read, but the themes and feel are very similar. This is very much in the genre of this era that explores male libido, lack of self-knowledge, A as it follows a middle age idiot male who is fueled by some inchoate conscious desires and some unconscious desires that the reader is left to posit. Oates's disturbed tinge is here and I got caught up in the plot, but there is little here that is remarkable.
October 18, 2020
3 stars.
To me this was the American Dream, distorted. Edwin has what every man wants: Vice President with a major company, a wife, children, a home with a slate roof, and finally a mistress. We follow his spiraling downward descent as he loves and discards women. His desires distorts reality until it is his undoing. Combining it with a little background knowledge of the Roman Goddess Cybele and her cult’s take on gender was, for me, the most fascinating part of this.
To me this was the American Dream, distorted. Edwin has what every man wants: Vice President with a major company, a wife, children, a home with a slate roof, and finally a mistress. We follow his spiraling downward descent as he loves and discards women. His desires distorts reality until it is his undoing. Combining it with a little background knowledge of the Roman Goddess Cybele and her cult’s take on gender was, for me, the most fascinating part of this.
December 4, 2012
Not for me. All over the place. Old or not in its creation, I found it horribly difficult to force myself to read the whole thing. Maybe I chose a bad book as a first read by this author, maybe I just suck at reading, or maybe this book just really is not that great.
The choice is yours.
The choice is yours.
April 26, 2018
Beware erotic love (or men are just stupid?)
June 9, 2019
I enjoyed the writing style of this novel. Switches happened in the middle of the story, which was fun to follow along with.
October 14, 2020
The one thing I can say about this book is that JCO was committed to her theme.
January 11, 2023
3.25/5 stars
While this was an interesting story that I had heard was considered shocking at the time it was published, I wasn’t as engrossed in the story and I felt that the story did end abruptly compared to Oates’s other novels. I also didn’t like the character of Edwin Locke as much as some of Oates’s previous protagonists.
Overall, I thought that the story was interesting but not enough to make me engrossed in the story or characters.
While this was an interesting story that I had heard was considered shocking at the time it was published, I wasn’t as engrossed in the story and I felt that the story did end abruptly compared to Oates’s other novels. I also didn’t like the character of Edwin Locke as much as some of Oates’s previous protagonists.
Overall, I thought that the story was interesting but not enough to make me engrossed in the story or characters.
June 8, 2023
Picked this up as a a stray a long time ago and decided to read as I plan to read Blonde this summer (and Oates is from Lockport, where I have roots). This book was totally fucked up—especially the end. I like Oates’s writing but I didn’t like Edwin and again, the end was fucked up (as expected from Oates though). Still looking forward to Blonde!
September 19, 2022
bla bla bla bla bla
April 17, 2012
Wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews