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A review by meetmeinmalkovich
Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates
5.0
This is the very first novel from Joyce Carol Oates that I have read. I have read almost all of her short stories, but today the library gave me this, as if the pagelings knew I needed something quick yet real, bold, and (this is key) NOT fantastical. I have been stuck in that genre as of late...
Anyhow,
I admire JCO's style of writing. It flows really nicely from page to page and before you know it, the book is over, and you are left satisfied yet overwhelmed. She has a way of illustrating lewd scenes so that you are doing more by way of imagining the implications of what you are reading than actually having those things written down. Much like her short stories, only a bit longer, "Beasts" digs into humanity's more carnal nature, exploiting a darker side of sexual deviance in a small college town in Massachusetts -- an all-woman's college and a suave male professor (of course) and the women of an elite poetry workshop are targeted, for the most part by their own will, until things become more than casual meetings. This novella is dark, deep, and interesting, with a very classic Oates flair.
Anyhow,
I admire JCO's style of writing. It flows really nicely from page to page and before you know it, the book is over, and you are left satisfied yet overwhelmed. She has a way of illustrating lewd scenes so that you are doing more by way of imagining the implications of what you are reading than actually having those things written down. Much like her short stories, only a bit longer, "Beasts" digs into humanity's more carnal nature, exploiting a darker side of sexual deviance in a small college town in Massachusetts -- an all-woman's college and a suave male professor (of course) and the women of an elite poetry workshop are targeted, for the most part by their own will, until things become more than casual meetings. This novella is dark, deep, and interesting, with a very classic Oates flair.