A review by mangofandango
Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates
4.0
"Wonderland" is a strange, intense experience. I can really only liken it to an extended, feverish stress dream, where everything is loaded and nothing is permanent, background shift and change, identity is complicated and kind of liquid, memory and reality are all a little bit questionable. It wasn't pleasant, really ever at all, and yet it was very compelling to me. I read through much of it in quick, exhausting gulps, because the constant underlying tension propelled me - and that is fascinating in way, because it isn't like a lot of really exciting things happen or that there is something to wait for in the story. There isn't. But the tension is very thick, the threat somehow always imminent even though the threat is nothing in particular. It's existential. The threat is something about the unraveling of personality, a personality woven out of trauma pretty much never dealt with at all, so that trauma felt to me like it was always there, laying in wait.
It should be noted that the second phase of the book is about a family with some pretty major abuse, disorder and identity Stuff, and part of their Stuff is food and weight...and the author either writes convincingly as someone who really really hates fat people or she just really really hates fat people. So that's something to be aware of.
Also: I thought the author's afterword cast The Point of the book in a way that didn't track for me. It's her book, so you know, I suppose she's right about what she wrote. But honestly, I didn't see Jesse the way she seems to be saying she saw him. And I kind of wonder what to make of that.
Honestly, I went into this not really wanting to read it. I can't say it was enjoyable, but it is something I will probably think about for a long time, and I appreciate that.
It should be noted that the second phase of the book is about a family with some pretty major abuse, disorder and identity Stuff, and part of their Stuff is food and weight...and the author either writes convincingly as someone who really really hates fat people or she just really really hates fat people. So that's something to be aware of.
Also: I thought the author's afterword cast The Point of the book in a way that didn't track for me. It's her book, so you know, I suppose she's right about what she wrote. But honestly, I didn't see Jesse the way she seems to be saying she saw him. And I kind of wonder what to make of that.
Honestly, I went into this not really wanting to read it. I can't say it was enjoyable, but it is something I will probably think about for a long time, and I appreciate that.