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A review by lolaleviathan
Them by Joyce Carol Oates
3.0
them is like nothing I've ever read, really. Sometimes I feel like Oates is describing another planet. Maybe it's just another century.
As a reading experience, though, I'm tempted to compare it to The Corrections. Both are sprawling, absorbing realistic novels with a similar project: to explore the lives of ordinary people so deeply and precisely that the reader realizes there are no ordinary people. These characters are as alive as you and me, and as remarkable, tragic, surprising, brutal and fascinating as all people are underneath. They are sympathetic even when they are far from likable, and the third-person narration flashes between consciousnesses at hummingbird speed.
Of course, Oates's tone is wildly different from Franzen's, which I'd wager is as much a function of era as personality. Franzen is never far from satire, but Oates's gritty, Gothic seriousness, with its sudden flashes of intensity, reminds me of other socially conscious '60s novels: since James Baldwin is my area of expertise, I flashed on him, but I think there are a lot of novels from that era that have a similar tone. It has a slightly dated feel. In fact, it also reminds me of something much older: Look Homeward, Angel, and I'm also getting a possible D.H. Lawrence influence.
As a reading experience, though, I'm tempted to compare it to The Corrections. Both are sprawling, absorbing realistic novels with a similar project: to explore the lives of ordinary people so deeply and precisely that the reader realizes there are no ordinary people. These characters are as alive as you and me, and as remarkable, tragic, surprising, brutal and fascinating as all people are underneath. They are sympathetic even when they are far from likable, and the third-person narration flashes between consciousnesses at hummingbird speed.
Of course, Oates's tone is wildly different from Franzen's, which I'd wager is as much a function of era as personality. Franzen is never far from satire, but Oates's gritty, Gothic seriousness, with its sudden flashes of intensity, reminds me of other socially conscious '60s novels: since James Baldwin is my area of expertise, I flashed on him, but I think there are a lot of novels from that era that have a similar tone. It has a slightly dated feel. In fact, it also reminds me of something much older: Look Homeward, Angel, and I'm also getting a possible D.H. Lawrence influence.