Mudwoman

Joyce Carol Oates
Mudwoman

Ecco, 2012

Before us lays the story of woman of mud, Mudwoman, whose mother threw her as a 4-year old to die in the marsh area in a puddle of mud, so the girl got her nickname from that fact. No one, however, does call her that, except herself.

The novel is set in two time layers, one of which tells of Mudwoman’s childhood, the other - of her present, in the 2000s.

Abandoned by the crazy mother, Mudwoman, Jewell then, has been found by not entirely sane local man. Girl didn’t speak at all, that’s why the guardianship concluded the girl is slightly retarded. Police had tried to find Jewell’s mother and her younger sister, but the woman was gone. The girl ends up in a shelter that the Skedd family keeps. They raise orphans from all around the area, some of them after being adopted. In the house the girl learns how to think like everyone else, how to speak, remembers her name. Skedds is a married pair, who likes children, but if the children do something wrong, they use corporal punishment.

After spending some time in a shelter, a couple adopts the girl, whose daughter had recently died. New Jewell’s parents are Konrad are Agatha Neukirchen.

Like other novels by Joyce Carol Oates, this is good, but not enough for a happiness cry. A solid prose, a good plot on not the most original material, the depth study of the main character, an interesting structure, but something is missing.

The story of an abandoned girl, now grown and succeded, and is by no means new, but Oates refreshes bored premise. If many of the book characters are not written properly, then M.R., Mudwoman herself is a very deep character. The author shows in detail how the past intrudes into the present and destroys it. All that was forgotten for years, suddenly goes out. Genes have an effect, Mudgirl becomes Mudwoman. Alternating time layers adds intrigue to the book, gradually revealing the nature of M.R.

The style of the book is directly connected with the plot. When M.R. starts to recall her past, her thoughts now and then are stumbling, jumping, making prose more confused (in a good sense of the word), M,P. now and then repeats her own words.

The book has two flaws. Oates is trying to weave modern politics in the novel by placing a layer of the novel in 2002-2003 - the beginning of the war in Iraq. But in addition to non-developed speculations on the topic of democracy the novel does not offer anything new. Awkwardness of the book can be considered as a murder (or rather, an accident) of one of the characters. Oates certainly wanted to shove an unexpected death into the book, but death itself doesn’t lie into the canvas, and reliability suffers. As a result, the murder is forgotten soon enough, becoming merely a pretext for the heroine’s nervous breakdown.

This book is better than many others, but it is not ideal.

Little Bird of Heaven

Joyce Carol Oates
Little Bird of Heaven

Fourth Estate, 2010

In the first part of this novel (and the most interesting part of it) we are introduced to the protagonist, Krista Diehl, 11 years old girl. Time in the narrative changes, moving forward and backward. In 1983, in the small town Sparta, Zoe Kruller who once worked at a local diner, but never leaving hopes on show business was brutally murdered in her home. Zoe had a bluegrass band with which she gave some gigs. Police suspicion falls on two men: Zoe's husband, with whom she has not lived for some time, and her lover, Eddy Diehl - the father of Krista. None, however, was not arrested, but Eddy's affairs became known to his wife. Eddy is forbidden to approach the Diehl’s house, not allowed to meet with his children, Krista and Ben. However, Eddy is constantly drinking, lives in another town nearby, and occasionally visits his daughter. And Krista is glad about that. She feels that her father would not lie when he says that he is innocent of murder. Krista loves his father more than mother, and in any disputes she protects him.

The strength of this novel is not in the plot, which in general is nothing special, but in the tone of the narrative, which Oates so successfully invented and used. A little girl who madly loves her father and, despite the obvious things, for all his sins, forgives his father, preferring him to her mother. Oates told the story of how two families are breaking down at once, from the inside, successfully selecting the lens: see through the innocent eyes of a child for what happens in adult life: murder, betrayal, suffering, injustice, shame.

The first part of the novel is simply brilliant. Transposing the action and the memories of Krista in the years ahead, then a week ago, the author collects before the reader not even pieces of the puzzle, but pieces of the life of Krista, her family, living a small town. Oates has created not only a convincing Krista’s portrait, but also portrait of her father.

The problem of the novel is in its second part. Oates tried to look at the story from another angle, in order to not only complete the picture, but also create another one complex character of Aaron, the son of Zoe. But nothing good comes out of such attempts. In the third person narrative there is not so much appeal, than in the first-person narrative. Aaron is less interesting to the reader character; the author couldn't create a unique identity, as happened with Krista in the first part. Aaron is more formulaic. In addition, we learned all story from Krista, and re-read what we have read, but in the worst performance, is not something desirable.

In the final, Oates raised another important theme of the book - the theme of memory. Staying in her hometown - it means to Krista to bury herself, to bury under the remains of a past that is not its best to remind myself of daily. And little bird of heaven flies away from her past.