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likecymbeline's review against another edition
3.0
I'm very interested in the Devil in Disguise/Devil Walks Among Us types of stories, and of course am a soft touch for the Gothic as well. I've read short stories by Oates, but this was my first novel. It is a strange one, and might be distancing for some in it's structure and style, but there was a lot to like in it. The period and the fashion, 1905, was simply Peak for me. Mix in all the social movements, the race and class tensions, the glamour and the hypocrisy of the elite. Wonderfully done. Lots of spooky images, lots of entertaining moments, and fascinating to have so many real figures making their way through the narrative (and even a flash of someone who is certainly not Sherlock Holmes...).
There were also times where it drifted into grotesque social satire that I understood the point of, but didn't have much interest in. Getting through Jack London's dinner was a slog. There's a focus on the body and physicality with everyone--so much eating and indigestion and attention to the details of tummy troubles and their manifestations--but the language here read as fatphobic, especially when the section seemed egregiously long and disconnected from the rest of the narrative. Oates wants her time to lampoon everybody with an ego and horrible takes, but I wish this had been left on the cutting room floor. She is also capable of illustrating historical hypocrisies with more subtlety, but again, not here.
The narrator is someone that people could go either way on. At times you might wonder why this is in his hands, why he keeps popping up. But it's also fascinating to think of him telling the story when he is in the story, and what that means. It was around halfway through, I think, that I realised he was one of the babies and it made me question everything. It hadn't been hidden but it hadn't been clear, till then.
There were also times where it drifted into grotesque social satire that I understood the point of, but didn't have much interest in. Getting through Jack London's dinner was a slog. There's a focus on the body and physicality with everyone--so much eating and indigestion and attention to the details of tummy troubles and their manifestations--but the language here read as fatphobic, especially when the section seemed egregiously long and disconnected from the rest of the narrative. Oates wants her time to lampoon everybody with an ego and horrible takes, but I wish this had been left on the cutting room floor. She is also capable of illustrating historical hypocrisies with more subtlety, but again, not here.
The narrator is someone that people could go either way on. At times you might wonder why this is in his hands, why he keeps popping up. But it's also fascinating to think of him telling the story when he is in the story, and what that means. It was around halfway through, I think, that I realised he was one of the babies and it made me question everything. It hadn't been hidden but it hadn't been clear, till then.
sandygx260's review against another edition
2.0
I never reviewed this book?
The problem I had with this book is that JCO submerged herself so brilliantly into her obsessive narrator that she alienated me as a reader. The narrator rambles more than a horny cat looking for sex.
Flashes of brilliance hid in the dense word thickets. But too many times I felt like I needed a weed whacker to get through the endless passages that read along the lines of:
"Todd looked dashing as he walked down Witherspoon Street. Bill Terhune, his great-grandfather, had come to America on a ship that was blown into the Saragasso Sea in the middle of a scorching June. While stranded, Terhune met Wanda, the third daughter of the Duchess of Marlborough, a scandalous woman who back in 1815 took on the Duke of Pooty as her lover and bore Adam, the illegitimate heir to Duke Pooty's vast fortune, which included six houses in Wiltshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Shropshire, Kent, and Cheshire, all grand and built by master builder Horace Nailstaff, a man whose father had worked for the Duke of Suffering when the grand gentleman had planned his pleasure palace on the coast. Nailstaff used a special nail, designed by Stephen Chester, a man who once saved the ninth Earl of Splat's second daughter from drowning in the mill pond designed by Will Wet, a..."
You get my point.
The problem I had with this book is that JCO submerged herself so brilliantly into her obsessive narrator that she alienated me as a reader. The narrator rambles more than a horny cat looking for sex.
Flashes of brilliance hid in the dense word thickets. But too many times I felt like I needed a weed whacker to get through the endless passages that read along the lines of:
"Todd looked dashing as he walked down Witherspoon Street. Bill Terhune, his great-grandfather, had come to America on a ship that was blown into the Saragasso Sea in the middle of a scorching June. While stranded, Terhune met Wanda, the third daughter of the Duchess of Marlborough, a scandalous woman who back in 1815 took on the Duke of Pooty as her lover and bore Adam, the illegitimate heir to Duke Pooty's vast fortune, which included six houses in Wiltshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Shropshire, Kent, and Cheshire, all grand and built by master builder Horace Nailstaff, a man whose father had worked for the Duke of Suffering when the grand gentleman had planned his pleasure palace on the coast. Nailstaff used a special nail, designed by Stephen Chester, a man who once saved the ninth Earl of Splat's second daughter from drowning in the mill pond designed by Will Wet, a..."
You get my point.
erboe501's review against another edition
5.0
This was exactly the palate cleanser I needed to kick my reading back into gear! This is a juicy, yet buttoned-up HF set in turn of the century Princeton. The main characters are chiefly a very wealthy aristocratic family, the Slades. Some very famous real people feature too: Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson (neither presidential portrayal was flattering) and Upton Sinclair. The premise is that a descendent of these aristocratic families in the 1980s is now writing a history of the "Curse" that occurred in 1906. This means that there are lots of asides by the historian, some spoiling of plot, and moral judgments on the characters. I liked this additional layer, but I was sure (SPOILER) that the historian would feature into the finale more prominently in some surprise way. Oates was able to write about both opulence and privilege and the underbelly of how those fortunes were made, which means race and class run through this book as well.
There were a number of threads that felt cast aside, and many of the secondary characters wrought so vividly in the first section were nearly forgotten by the end. I'm not sure the ending satisfied in tragedy or a tidy ending, and I'm left with many questions. But the ride was fun and juicy and gothic and dramatic!
There were a number of threads that felt cast aside, and many of the secondary characters wrought so vividly in the first section were nearly forgotten by the end. I'm not sure the ending satisfied in tragedy or a tidy ending, and I'm left with many questions. But the ride was fun and juicy and gothic and dramatic!
alisonjfields's review against another edition
5.0
I come and go on Joyce Carol Oates. That's fair. She's far too prolific to hit a homerun every time. And I've long since accepted that for every one of her books I like a lot , there will be ten more that I'm (at best) indifferent to. She's ambitious and sometimes this absolutely works in her favor (I thought "Blonde" was pretty great, even if it did occasionally read like Oates had been reading Delillo). I like it when people try something weird. Even if they fail, it's usually more interesting than most of the crap out there.
That said, I have absolutely no effing idea what to make of this book. It's a post-modern Gothic Romance with a nod to the kind of "serious" name-droppy historical fiction your pretentious uncle reads on those rare occasions he deigns to read fiction at all. It's also a insanely silly sustained riff on the topic of WASP evil narrated by a racist twit obsessed with Victorian underwear and snobbery. It's terrible at moments, but I think it's quite deliberately, even ingeniously terrible. If you've ever thought: "Man, I really want to read a book about Woodrow Wilson and vampires(?) and demonic snakes and something called a 'cannibal sandwich.' I hope it also deals with ghosts and socialists and Calvinists and eminent Victorians meeting gruesome ends. I don't really care much for plot and suspense is highly overrated. But I'd love to to have a ninny old historian narrator repeatedly use the word 'monobosom." This is definitely the book for you.
That said, I have absolutely no effing idea what to make of this book. It's a post-modern Gothic Romance with a nod to the kind of "serious" name-droppy historical fiction your pretentious uncle reads on those rare occasions he deigns to read fiction at all. It's also a insanely silly sustained riff on the topic of WASP evil narrated by a racist twit obsessed with Victorian underwear and snobbery. It's terrible at moments, but I think it's quite deliberately, even ingeniously terrible. If you've ever thought: "Man, I really want to read a book about Woodrow Wilson and vampires(?) and demonic snakes and something called a 'cannibal sandwich.' I hope it also deals with ghosts and socialists and Calvinists and eminent Victorians meeting gruesome ends. I don't really care much for plot and suspense is highly overrated. But I'd love to to have a ninny old historian narrator repeatedly use the word 'monobosom." This is definitely the book for you.
cseibs's review against another edition
1.0
Nope, just didn't like it. Found the book to be rambling, but without the satisfaction if a good expansive novel. I found no added value to having the characters be historical figures. Nor did I get the point of our imaginative historian-narrator. A lot of loose ends were left (Dabney? Wilhemenia?) and far too many coincidences. Yes, I get the point that evil lurks in the hearts of good men, Winslow Slade in particular, but what of all the completely innocent people unrelated to Slade who suddenly are cursed? Why the van Dycks? Why the FitzRandolphs? I know a good spook story should have some outlandish elements, but the utter lack of consistency was baffling.
andrejt's review against another edition
4.0
A magic realism novel about a downfall of several interconnected rich families living in Princeton at the beginning of the 20th century. It is written in a beautiful prose that more-or-less faithfully mimics the literary language of the era. This essentially balladic story borrows heavily from ancient fairy tales and modern psychoanalysis. However, it is also a powerful social critique of racism, sexism, and classism that characterized the American Gilded Age. You'll see there some very unflattering depictions of Woodrow Wilson, Jack London, and other historical personalities. The critique itself mischievously springs from the unavoidable dissonance between what the characters believe and the contemporary reader's values. Warning: the book is quite lengthy and the extreme naivete of its main characters becomes soon tiresome. Still worth 4 stars, I think!
zach_collins's review against another edition
3.0
Monsters are absolutely necessary to storytelling, and Oates' new novel The Accursed finds the perfect monster, not in the strange and fantastic Count von Gneist (or is it Axson Mayte?), but in the Gilded Age itself, the unfeeling, unquenchable American beast that Samuel Clemens so aptly named. However macabre the Bog Kingdom could become, however eerie the various ghosts and demons could appear, the true horror was found in the groomed and pampered "Christian" inhabitants of Princeton. While nearly all the violence and hatred were kept in the background, the insidious nature of average, well-intending people was seen in their every word and action.
As wonderful as the setting and premise proved to be, Oates' decision to frame the whole work as the research of an amateur historian took away from the experience. The narrator would often write paradoxical sections, including a chapter listing, in detail, all the items he couldn't include in the chapter. Is this supposed to be parody? A sly joke at the narrator's inexperience?
Ultimately, the problem with Oates is her inability to censor herself. She simply can't not write. Whatever she thinks ends up on paper, and while her industriousness is admirable, more often than not that trite adage of "less is more" holds true. The Accursed is often held down with dead weight, and though Oates is a master of style and setting, I found myself with more than I wanted and far more than I actually needed.
Between the sometimes ambiguous tone and the overwhelming amount of detail, The Accursed was often difficult to navigate. Exasperating, but never disappointing.
As wonderful as the setting and premise proved to be, Oates' decision to frame the whole work as the research of an amateur historian took away from the experience. The narrator would often write paradoxical sections, including a chapter listing, in detail, all the items he couldn't include in the chapter. Is this supposed to be parody? A sly joke at the narrator's inexperience?
Ultimately, the problem with Oates is her inability to censor herself. She simply can't not write. Whatever she thinks ends up on paper, and while her industriousness is admirable, more often than not that trite adage of "less is more" holds true. The Accursed is often held down with dead weight, and though Oates is a master of style and setting, I found myself with more than I wanted and far more than I actually needed.
Between the sometimes ambiguous tone and the overwhelming amount of detail, The Accursed was often difficult to navigate. Exasperating, but never disappointing.
dayseraph's review against another edition
4.0
I’ve never read anything else by Joyce Carol Oates, but this was pretty wild... It’s a long, demanding read weaving together social commentary, historical figures, and gothic horror. Many times I wondered where the story was going, but it was worth powering through! A very strange book!
terrypaulpearce's review against another edition
2.0
I felt odd not finishing this. I loved Blonde *so* much. And I could tell this was the same author. Some of the techniques are very similar. But the language was so arcane and stuffy, and I couldn't get into any of the characters. I couldn't care, basically. Possibly me. Did I mention Blonde was amazing?
ellengreenebush's review against another edition
3.0
Liked the plot and the theme. The characterization of famous characters was great. I think it was much too long and would have benefited from a thorough editing.