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The Gothic Saga #5
The Accursed
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Horror (2013)This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel The Jungle, has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community - elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated - until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. 'The Accursed' marks new territory for the masterful Joyce Carol Oates - narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling fantastical elements to stunning effect.
669 pages, Hardcover
First published March 5, 2013
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
836 books8,573 followersJoyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is also the recipient of the 2005 Prix Femina for The Falls. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Pseudonyms ... Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,212 reviews
July 6, 2015
I really wish I could have observed that moment when Joyce Carol Oates was like, "You know, maybe I'll write a Gothic with demon bridegrooms that brings together Woodrow Wilson and Upton Sinclair. Something spooky that also sheds light on turn-of-the-century issues of race and class. Oh, and I'll do it from the perspective of a male historian who's the son of one of the characters and thus implicated in the whole story. Just, you know, to stretch myself a little."
It speaks to the nearly freakish level of Oates' talent that she could pull this novel off, because it is a ridiculous feat of storytelling and craft. That said, this is not a novel for everyone. It's nearly 700 pages long, filled with period details and historical notes. If you haven't read JCO before, this is perhaps not the place to start.
No, this is the work of a master who's done the "conventional" novel, to great acclaim, many times over. This novel reminded me of when football legend Deion Sanders did the 40-yard dash backwards at the Combine (allegedly at 4:57) because he was simply that good. In other words, the most supernatural element here is not the 'curse' or any of the Gothic elements. It's Oates' talent, which is frightening to behold.
--Maya Lang is the author of The Sixteenth of June. She is currently at work on her second novel.
It speaks to the nearly freakish level of Oates' talent that she could pull this novel off, because it is a ridiculous feat of storytelling and craft. That said, this is not a novel for everyone. It's nearly 700 pages long, filled with period details and historical notes. If you haven't read JCO before, this is perhaps not the place to start.
No, this is the work of a master who's done the "conventional" novel, to great acclaim, many times over. This novel reminded me of when football legend Deion Sanders did the 40-yard dash backwards at the Combine (allegedly at 4:57) because he was simply that good. In other words, the most supernatural element here is not the 'curse' or any of the Gothic elements. It's Oates' talent, which is frightening to behold.
--Maya Lang is the author of The Sixteenth of June. She is currently at work on her second novel.
August 27, 2023
This book - a (pseudo) historical, supernatural, mystery horror story - is supposedly written by M.W. van Dyck, descendant of one of the most prominent families of Princeton, New Jersey.
Princeton circa 1905
Claiming to have access to newly decoded journals and other materials available only to himself van Dyck unspools the story of the "Crosswicks Curse" that took a horrific toll on some wealthy, influential Princeton families in 1905 and 1906.
The first conspicuous manifestation of the curse occurs when pretty, young Annabel Slade absconds from her elaborate wedding immediately after exchanging marriage vows with handsome Lieutenant Dabney Bayard.
The man she runs off with, Axson Mayte, is in town (purportedly) advising Woodrow Wilson - then President of Princeton University.
Annabel's brother Josiah Slade, a Princeton graduate who can't quite seem to find his role in life, relentlessly pursues the runaways.
Meanwhile, Annabel is trapped in a filthy, hidden castle called the 'Bog Kingdom' - where she's abused, starved, impregnated, and eventually reduced to the status of a slovenly cleaning woman alongside previous Mayte victims.
Mayte has no fixed appearance, looking tall and handsome to some and ugly and toadlike to others.
Thus the wily Mayte is able to appear in different guises - including François D’Apthorp and Count English von Gneist - a great favorite with the snobby ladies of Princeton. Mayte is apparently able to exert a hypnotic effect on people, manipulating their thoughts and behavior.
Mayte's most amusing incarnation occurs when he appears as Sherlock Holmes to Pearce van Dyck (the narrator's father) who's convinced that Sherlock Holmes' "cases" - which he believes are real - hold the key to the mystery of the Curse.
The elder van Dyck's compulsive analysis of the Curse using Holmes' work as a guide are the funniest parts of the book. 😊
Soon after Annabel Slade disappears her pre-teen cousins Todd and Oriana Slade are also afflicted by the Curse as are other important Princeton families. Several husbands become obsessed with the notion that their wives are committing adultery, with unfortunate consequences and a woman decides that her newborn's 'deliberate misbehavior' requires a drastic solution.
Reverend Winslow Slade, who was previously President of Princeton University and Governor of New Jersey is especially disturbed by the Curse because he's grandfather to Annabel, Josiah, Todd, and Oriana, as well as friend and counselor to other afflicted families. Moreover, the Reverend has a shameful secret that's haunted him for five decades.
The book is very long, incorporating a number of historic figures. These include grossly obese (former) President Grover Cleveland, who tries to jump out a window after seeing his daughter's ghost, but he's too fat to fit (ha ha ha);
President Grover Cleveland
Jack London, famous author of adventure stories - who flaunts his mistress at a speaking engagement, then has a pub party and gets wildly drunk;
Jack London and a lady friend
Upton Sinclair, the painfully self-conscious author of "The Jungle" (which exposes the horrific practices of the meat industry) - who neglects his family and dreams of establishing a socialist colony in New Jersey;
Upton Sinclair
President Teddy Roosevelt, who invites the vegetarian Sinclair to an uncomfortable meat-filled lunch;
President Teddy Roosevelt
And of course Woodrow Wilson - who has a plethora of health problems and an ongoing feud with Andrew Fleming West, Dean of Princeton's Graduate School.
Woodrow Wilson
Andrew Fleming West
During the story Wilson, happily married with several daughters, also becomes victim to the Curse when he's bewitched by a beautiful woman.
True to the time period, many of the characters exhibit (what would now be considered) atrocious behavior including rampant racism, sexism, opposition to women's suffrage, disdain for immigrants, disregard for the suffering of the 'lower classes', and way too high an opinion of themselves. 😝
By the end of the book the Curse has run it's course and the reader learns what it was all about in a satisfying conclusion. For me the book was overly long and spent too much time on ancillary characters like Jack London - whose speech to a socialist group and subsequent partying seemed to go on forever; and Upton Sinclair - whose personal life and socialist musings took up too many pages. Still, these are fairly minor quibbles about a book that's well-researched, well-written, and a rollicking good story.
I'd highly recommend the book to readers who enjoy Gothic literary fiction.
You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....
September 22, 2016
While I managed to get through it there were many parts that reminded me of the lonely person all retail/public service people have dealt with. The one that rambles on about things that have no relevance to the current situation, to you, or to anything important. There were many parts like this where I found myself saying get on with it, huffing and wanting to stop reading, but continuing on in the hopes it would get better. It did not.
The writing was beautiful but disconnected, wondering about, and all in all nothing to keep me wanting to turn the page. Usually with a book I have trouble stopping reading it to go do whatever I need to do but with this my problem was the opposite. I see what the author tried to do but it did not work. I do not need almost a full chapter going into random detail about diaries nor do I need long random bits about why the "historian" chose to interpret something a certain way or why the other historians did not do it correctly. If all that random and irrelevant stuff was taken out it might have been a good book. As it was the story kept being rudely interrupted by these snippets. I read on hoping eventually the story would develop into something and the snippets would cease but found myself at the last pages of the book still thinking, maybe this next page the story will really start.
I have no issue with non-fiction history books or academic books but I did not pick this up looking for that kind of read. Though it has some paranormal, some is even pushing it, it read more like what I'd expect from a very old academic journal or non-fiction novel. I wanted Gothic, supernatural, and/or horror. I got none of this, only a teasing glimpse at a story that never really got satisfyingly developed.
The writing was beautiful but disconnected, wondering about, and all in all nothing to keep me wanting to turn the page. Usually with a book I have trouble stopping reading it to go do whatever I need to do but with this my problem was the opposite. I see what the author tried to do but it did not work. I do not need almost a full chapter going into random detail about diaries nor do I need long random bits about why the "historian" chose to interpret something a certain way or why the other historians did not do it correctly. If all that random and irrelevant stuff was taken out it might have been a good book. As it was the story kept being rudely interrupted by these snippets. I read on hoping eventually the story would develop into something and the snippets would cease but found myself at the last pages of the book still thinking, maybe this next page the story will really start.
I have no issue with non-fiction history books or academic books but I did not pick this up looking for that kind of read. Though it has some paranormal, some is even pushing it, it read more like what I'd expect from a very old academic journal or non-fiction novel. I wanted Gothic, supernatural, and/or horror. I got none of this, only a teasing glimpse at a story that never really got satisfyingly developed.
January 12, 2013
I’m a big fan of Joyce Carol Oates, so when I discovered she had a new book out, I was excited. I was even happier when I found that it was another volume in the gothic family saga series she started many years ago with ‘Bellefleur’, which is one of my favorite books. The 660 page length didn’t bother me; she’s an author who, at her best, can fill that many pages with brilliance. I greeted the book like it was a big box of candy.
I’m afraid I was disappointed. There are a lot of good things in the book-an extended patrician family living in Princeton is cursed. Voices say bad things to people, ghosts are seen, a shape shifting demon walks among them and leads them into tragedies. At the same time, they have to deal with the demons of their everyday life: racism, misogyny, classism, the Machiavellian politics of Princeton University. I liked having a narrator who only knew the story through the diaries and papers he discovered long after the events took place. Half the population of the book are real people: Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton U, Grover Cleveland and his wife are part of the social circle, Upton Sinclair has a large part devoted to him, Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain all make appearances. But the lessons about society are a little heavy handed, and I’m really not sure that some of the historical characters added to the story. Upton Sinclair and Jack London didn’t seem to be connected to the family and the curse but took up a lot of pages. The only way I could see that they added to the story was by showing the reader what the attitudes of people of the time were, but I know enough history that I didn’t need that and I’m sure there are many other readers like me.
Oates has written a great story, but every story needs an editor. At least a hundred pages could have been cut without the story losing anything and the book would have been much sharper. I enjoyed the book, but got impatient with it frequently.
I’m afraid I was disappointed. There are a lot of good things in the book-an extended patrician family living in Princeton is cursed. Voices say bad things to people, ghosts are seen, a shape shifting demon walks among them and leads them into tragedies. At the same time, they have to deal with the demons of their everyday life: racism, misogyny, classism, the Machiavellian politics of Princeton University. I liked having a narrator who only knew the story through the diaries and papers he discovered long after the events took place. Half the population of the book are real people: Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton U, Grover Cleveland and his wife are part of the social circle, Upton Sinclair has a large part devoted to him, Jack London, Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain all make appearances. But the lessons about society are a little heavy handed, and I’m really not sure that some of the historical characters added to the story. Upton Sinclair and Jack London didn’t seem to be connected to the family and the curse but took up a lot of pages. The only way I could see that they added to the story was by showing the reader what the attitudes of people of the time were, but I know enough history that I didn’t need that and I’m sure there are many other readers like me.
Oates has written a great story, but every story needs an editor. At least a hundred pages could have been cut without the story losing anything and the book would have been much sharper. I enjoyed the book, but got impatient with it frequently.
May 1, 2020
I finished this book last night, came to Goodreads to write my thoughts on it, and had no idea where to begin, what it is I wanted to say. I scrolled through some reviews others had posted, which varied wildly and were interesting to read, but I was still unable to work out my own response, so I left it, hoping I would find it easier in the morning. It's simple for me to say, "I loved this book" but trying to expand beyond that is the challenging part!
I will admit to a slightly embarrassing oversight at the beginning of the book, when I was reading the Author's Note, which states, 'I am a graduate of Princeton University (Class of 1927)' -- I read that and thought, "Goodness me, Joyce Carol Oates must me much older than I had imagined!" As I had a moment -- a brief moment-- of trying to work out how old she must be and how impressive it is that she was still alive (!), I realised the Author's Note was penned by the fictitious writer of the book I was starting, M. W. van Dyck II. For the record, Joyce Carol Oates wasn't born until 16 June 1938 --- at the time of writing this, she is 81 years old.
Once I got past that confusion, I hit a new uncertainty when I realised I was not sure whether Woodrow Wilson and Upton Sinclair were real people or not. I now know they were! I feel less embarrassed by that one, since I have never studied American History. The novel takes place from 1905 - 1906, in Princeton, New Jersey. It's slow moving novel, and oftentimes I found myself caught up in this odd kind of lull as I read about disputes between Woodrow Wilson and Andrew West, of Upton Sinclair's lectures to his wife, things that were almost uninteresting, yet I still felt compelled to read them.
Initially the journal entries of Mrs. Adelaide McLean Burr irritated me - she was silly and annoying and referred to herself in the third person. But they had a strange intrigue to them too, especially as the book unfolded, and I found myself looking forward to the sections dedicated to her observations and obsessions.
However it's the Slade's that I found most interesting, especially Annabel and Josiah. Once Axson Mayte had entered the picture, I was hooked. But it's from this point that I get reluctant to say much more, as I don't want to give anything away. I found the chapter 'The Bog Kingdom' brilliant, as well as the chapters where Sherlock Holmes plays an unexpected part.
Clearly, not everyone enjoyed this as much as I did, but I loved the strangeness of it, the frequent mentions of unspeakable things - as Adelaide Burr writes, 'How unjust, to be denied this crucial information!-but if the crime against the lady be UNSPEAKABLE how then can it be spoken of, to a lady?'
I personally found this to be a great book, that I intend to re-read at some point.
Oh! And the sections with Jack London were both amusing and sad, an interesting look at feeling disillusioned by someone so admired. I want to read the biography on Jack London that Joyce Carol Oates lists in her acknowledgments: Jack London by Richard O'Connor.
I will admit to a slightly embarrassing oversight at the beginning of the book, when I was reading the Author's Note, which states, 'I am a graduate of Princeton University (Class of 1927)' -- I read that and thought, "Goodness me, Joyce Carol Oates must me much older than I had imagined!" As I had a moment -- a brief moment-- of trying to work out how old she must be and how impressive it is that she was still alive (!), I realised the Author's Note was penned by the fictitious writer of the book I was starting, M. W. van Dyck II. For the record, Joyce Carol Oates wasn't born until 16 June 1938 --- at the time of writing this, she is 81 years old.
Once I got past that confusion, I hit a new uncertainty when I realised I was not sure whether Woodrow Wilson and Upton Sinclair were real people or not. I now know they were! I feel less embarrassed by that one, since I have never studied American History. The novel takes place from 1905 - 1906, in Princeton, New Jersey. It's slow moving novel, and oftentimes I found myself caught up in this odd kind of lull as I read about disputes between Woodrow Wilson and Andrew West, of Upton Sinclair's lectures to his wife, things that were almost uninteresting, yet I still felt compelled to read them.
Initially the journal entries of Mrs. Adelaide McLean Burr irritated me - she was silly and annoying and referred to herself in the third person. But they had a strange intrigue to them too, especially as the book unfolded, and I found myself looking forward to the sections dedicated to her observations and obsessions.
However it's the Slade's that I found most interesting, especially Annabel and Josiah. Once Axson Mayte had entered the picture, I was hooked. But it's from this point that I get reluctant to say much more, as I don't want to give anything away. I found the chapter 'The Bog Kingdom' brilliant, as well as the chapters where Sherlock Holmes plays an unexpected part.
Clearly, not everyone enjoyed this as much as I did, but I loved the strangeness of it, the frequent mentions of unspeakable things - as Adelaide Burr writes, 'How unjust, to be denied this crucial information!-but if the crime against the lady be UNSPEAKABLE how then can it be spoken of, to a lady?'
I personally found this to be a great book, that I intend to re-read at some point.
Oh! And the sections with Jack London were both amusing and sad, an interesting look at feeling disillusioned by someone so admired. I want to read the biography on Jack London that Joyce Carol Oates lists in her acknowledgments: Jack London by Richard O'Connor.
November 12, 2013
‘The Accursed” is the latest addition to Joyce Carol Oates’s boundless body of work, and it’s spectacular — a coalescence of history, horror and social satire that whirls around for almost 700 mesmerizing pages. Oates started the novel in 1984 but set it aside to steep in its own febrile juices for three decades. Now “The Accursed” arises in full bloom, boasting as much craft as witchcraft.
The book comes to us framed as a work of amateur history, the pet project of M.W. van Dyck, a member of one of the august old families in Princeton, N.J. “I have been privy to many materials unavailable to other historians,” he tells us, dismissing earlier scholars who have tried to make sense of the tragedies that struck Princeton in 1905. “No one is possessed of as much information as I am concerning the private, as well as the public, nature of the Curse.”
What follows is a “massive chronicle” — a patchwork of narratives, letters, diaries, journals and sermons that together unveil the grotesque assault that once shed America’s bluest blood. “The subject matter is disconcerting,” van Dyck admits, “if not frankly repulsive,” but the truth will out.
At the center of this spectral tale, spiked with a “frisson of dread,” live the Slades, who can trace their lineage back to Plymouth Plantation. The living patriarch, the Rev. Winslow Slade, was once governor of New Jersey and now basks in the joys of retirement. As one of New England’s wealthiest and most esteemed Presbyterian ministers, he’s still sought out by men of influence. But nothing matters more to him than the happiness of his four grandchildren. How sad, then, that those beautiful children are torn from him, one by one, during a series of chilling events known collectively as the Curse.
The first grandchild struck is beautiful Annabel, betrothed to gallant Lt. Bayard. Honestly, can anything worse befall a young bride than getting married in a book by Joyce Carol Oates? It’s always something old, something new, something borrowed, something slew. This time the flowers don’t just wilt, they emit a poisonous aroma that drives men to murderous rage. Nine years ago, Oates published a powerful novel called “The Falls” about a marriage that ended on the first day of the honeymoon, but that was matrimonial bliss compared with the marriage in “The Accursed,” which lasts about 30 seconds. It’s such a masterly scene, elaborately foreshadowed, gorgeously festooned as only Oates can, and then run in delectable slow motion — with some dialogue in parseltongue — right up to the fantastic climax of Part I.
The delights of this macabre novel gather thick as ghouls at midnight in the cemetery. I’ve never been so aware of Oates’s weird comedy. Through it all, van Dyck maintains his skeptical, scholarly tone, even when a lonely undergraduate is ravished by a self-loathing gay vampire, or a minister chokes on a giant snake, or a gossipy invalid is murdered with an electric fan. The scent of demons grows pungent, and viscera pile up at the bottom of these pages, but our narrator shuffles along, assuring us he’s just clearing the cobwebs from a story too long encumbered by myths and rumors. “Where my objectivity as a historian is an issue,” he tells us, “I must err on the side of caution.” Did I mention the boy who turns to stone?
Among all the creatures Oates resurrects, she revives the spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne — who, with a similarly dry wit, liked to suggest the most outlandish speculations, then dismiss them immediately. And his work isn’t the only classic you can hear echoing in the dark forest of this story: The mysterious pattern of mayhem in Princeton recalls one of America’s first novels, a tale of deadly mental influence by Charles Brockden Brown called “Wieland.” In another “Accursed” storyline, a professor falls into madness by trying to apply the methods of Sherlock Holmes. Later, a handsome young man sails off toward the frozen terror of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Arthur Gordon Pym,” while his lovely sister rides away in a creepy dramatization of Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” flaps around every corner.
Those literary allusions are only a slice of this novel’s treasures. Although a creaky ghost story with all its attendant specters would seem a strange frame for a work of historical fiction about the beginning of the 20th century, “The Accursed” provides a compelling context to explore equally scary attitudes about blacks, gays and the poor. After all, to these nervous Brahmins, striking miners are just as frightening as vampires. In the twilight before World War I, the pious folk of Princeton are troubled by fiery debates about the nature of God, the rights of women, the power of capital, the future of socialism and particularly the role of blacks. Older residents can remember the good old days when Southern boys brought their own slaves to school. But now, that calcified structure of elitism is being challenged by forces earthly and occult, and the past will have its revenge. “There is a monstrousness in our midst,” one well-heeled snob scribbles in her diary.
Whereas the central, doomed family of “The Accursed” is Oates’s invention, familiar figures such as Mark Twain, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland rise from their graves fully reanimated in these pages. Central among them is Princeton’s most famous president, Woodrow Wilson, a brittle monomaniac shown here in all his paranoia and imperialism years before he ascended to the White House and made the world safe for democracy. Oates doesn’t just knock him off his pedestal; she crushes him beneath the weight of his own bizarre habits and terrors. She takes special delight in detailing Wilson’s penchant for demonizing anyone who disagrees with him, telling racist jokes and pumping his own stomach with a tube.
A professor at Princeton for decades, Oates also luxuriates in exposing the school’s ivy-strangled traditions in “a claustrophobic little world of privilege and anxiety in which one was made to care too much about too little.” Internecine battles threaten to tear the school apart, and the students are devoted to socializing, not scholarship. And there’s a wickedly funny section about Princeton’s obsession with homosexuality that foreshadows our current approach to prosecuting terrorism in a cloud of paranoia and secrecy.
Charmingly, Oates subjects herself to the same wry appraisal. Van Dyck’s narrative is spiked with self-deprecating jokes that allude to her own critical reception, her inexhaustible verbiage, even her tendency toward melodrama. When the novel’s final pages veer into Shakespearean comedy and then rush into a puritanical sermon of Old Testament fury, it’s clear that this is an author fully aware of her literary extravagances.
Yes, it’s exhaustive and exhausting as it sprawls across all this disparate material. It’s no wonder the word “faint” seems to lie on every other page. And there are a few dead patches — Wilson’s trip to Bermuda never really comes to life, and the Jack London section drags — but those ragged edges only make the book seem more like something van Dyck has curated over his lifetime. With its vast scope, its mingling of comic and tragic tones, its omnivorous gorging on American literature, and especially its complex reflection on the major themes of our history, “The Accursed” is the kind of outrageous masterpiece only Joyce Carol Oates could create.
The book comes to us framed as a work of amateur history, the pet project of M.W. van Dyck, a member of one of the august old families in Princeton, N.J. “I have been privy to many materials unavailable to other historians,” he tells us, dismissing earlier scholars who have tried to make sense of the tragedies that struck Princeton in 1905. “No one is possessed of as much information as I am concerning the private, as well as the public, nature of the Curse.”
What follows is a “massive chronicle” — a patchwork of narratives, letters, diaries, journals and sermons that together unveil the grotesque assault that once shed America’s bluest blood. “The subject matter is disconcerting,” van Dyck admits, “if not frankly repulsive,” but the truth will out.
At the center of this spectral tale, spiked with a “frisson of dread,” live the Slades, who can trace their lineage back to Plymouth Plantation. The living patriarch, the Rev. Winslow Slade, was once governor of New Jersey and now basks in the joys of retirement. As one of New England’s wealthiest and most esteemed Presbyterian ministers, he’s still sought out by men of influence. But nothing matters more to him than the happiness of his four grandchildren. How sad, then, that those beautiful children are torn from him, one by one, during a series of chilling events known collectively as the Curse.
The first grandchild struck is beautiful Annabel, betrothed to gallant Lt. Bayard. Honestly, can anything worse befall a young bride than getting married in a book by Joyce Carol Oates? It’s always something old, something new, something borrowed, something slew. This time the flowers don’t just wilt, they emit a poisonous aroma that drives men to murderous rage. Nine years ago, Oates published a powerful novel called “The Falls” about a marriage that ended on the first day of the honeymoon, but that was matrimonial bliss compared with the marriage in “The Accursed,” which lasts about 30 seconds. It’s such a masterly scene, elaborately foreshadowed, gorgeously festooned as only Oates can, and then run in delectable slow motion — with some dialogue in parseltongue — right up to the fantastic climax of Part I.
The delights of this macabre novel gather thick as ghouls at midnight in the cemetery. I’ve never been so aware of Oates’s weird comedy. Through it all, van Dyck maintains his skeptical, scholarly tone, even when a lonely undergraduate is ravished by a self-loathing gay vampire, or a minister chokes on a giant snake, or a gossipy invalid is murdered with an electric fan. The scent of demons grows pungent, and viscera pile up at the bottom of these pages, but our narrator shuffles along, assuring us he’s just clearing the cobwebs from a story too long encumbered by myths and rumors. “Where my objectivity as a historian is an issue,” he tells us, “I must err on the side of caution.” Did I mention the boy who turns to stone?
Among all the creatures Oates resurrects, she revives the spirit of Nathaniel Hawthorne — who, with a similarly dry wit, liked to suggest the most outlandish speculations, then dismiss them immediately. And his work isn’t the only classic you can hear echoing in the dark forest of this story: The mysterious pattern of mayhem in Princeton recalls one of America’s first novels, a tale of deadly mental influence by Charles Brockden Brown called “Wieland.” In another “Accursed” storyline, a professor falls into madness by trying to apply the methods of Sherlock Holmes. Later, a handsome young man sails off toward the frozen terror of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Arthur Gordon Pym,” while his lovely sister rides away in a creepy dramatization of Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” flaps around every corner.
Those literary allusions are only a slice of this novel’s treasures. Although a creaky ghost story with all its attendant specters would seem a strange frame for a work of historical fiction about the beginning of the 20th century, “The Accursed” provides a compelling context to explore equally scary attitudes about blacks, gays and the poor. After all, to these nervous Brahmins, striking miners are just as frightening as vampires. In the twilight before World War I, the pious folk of Princeton are troubled by fiery debates about the nature of God, the rights of women, the power of capital, the future of socialism and particularly the role of blacks. Older residents can remember the good old days when Southern boys brought their own slaves to school. But now, that calcified structure of elitism is being challenged by forces earthly and occult, and the past will have its revenge. “There is a monstrousness in our midst,” one well-heeled snob scribbles in her diary.
Whereas the central, doomed family of “The Accursed” is Oates’s invention, familiar figures such as Mark Twain, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland rise from their graves fully reanimated in these pages. Central among them is Princeton’s most famous president, Woodrow Wilson, a brittle monomaniac shown here in all his paranoia and imperialism years before he ascended to the White House and made the world safe for democracy. Oates doesn’t just knock him off his pedestal; she crushes him beneath the weight of his own bizarre habits and terrors. She takes special delight in detailing Wilson’s penchant for demonizing anyone who disagrees with him, telling racist jokes and pumping his own stomach with a tube.
A professor at Princeton for decades, Oates also luxuriates in exposing the school’s ivy-strangled traditions in “a claustrophobic little world of privilege and anxiety in which one was made to care too much about too little.” Internecine battles threaten to tear the school apart, and the students are devoted to socializing, not scholarship. And there’s a wickedly funny section about Princeton’s obsession with homosexuality that foreshadows our current approach to prosecuting terrorism in a cloud of paranoia and secrecy.
Charmingly, Oates subjects herself to the same wry appraisal. Van Dyck’s narrative is spiked with self-deprecating jokes that allude to her own critical reception, her inexhaustible verbiage, even her tendency toward melodrama. When the novel’s final pages veer into Shakespearean comedy and then rush into a puritanical sermon of Old Testament fury, it’s clear that this is an author fully aware of her literary extravagances.
Yes, it’s exhaustive and exhausting as it sprawls across all this disparate material. It’s no wonder the word “faint” seems to lie on every other page. And there are a few dead patches — Wilson’s trip to Bermuda never really comes to life, and the Jack London section drags — but those ragged edges only make the book seem more like something van Dyck has curated over his lifetime. With its vast scope, its mingling of comic and tragic tones, its omnivorous gorging on American literature, and especially its complex reflection on the major themes of our history, “The Accursed” is the kind of outrageous masterpiece only Joyce Carol Oates could create.
April 8, 2013
The Accursed is trippy, in the best, most all-consuming sense of the word. I read it like an obsessed maniac--it's that much of a page-turner. That is to say, once you get into the unreliable narrator's pedantic/perverse voice. It took me about 60 pages to orient myself in his world and after that I hated to leave the world of the book for real life. The setting--Princeton, NJ, when Woodrow Wilson was president of the college, not the country--is very evocative and I totally bought into all the lurid, Gothic splendor/decay of it all. It actually made we want to go research the lives of some of the real people who pop up in the book--Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, Mrs. Grover Cleveland (who sounds like a real force of nature, sort of the Joan Holloway of 19th century New Jersey). But laziness and motherhood prevailed, so I'll probably just keep wondering whether these people interacted at all IRL. I wish I had to take a course in this book as I'm sure there was so much I missed in my galloping reading of it.
April 14, 2013
Phew. What a slog this was. And how it pains me to give it only two stars, 'it was [barely] okay', as I am a huge fan of the supremely talented Joyce Carol Oates.
Never afraid to experiment, The Accursed has been touted as her take on the horror genre, with Stephen King hailing it as "the first postmodern Gothic novel". Huh?
Horror novel it ain't. All it is, basically, is a novel focusing on Princeton in the dim and distant past, and how it was a microcosm of the racism and general prejudice, especially towards women and children, that was endemic to the fledgling United States at the time.
Oh, and with some supernatural elements thrown into the mix. Following a lynching of wrongly-accused underclass representatives (of course, these are black), Princeton's leading families are suddenly subject to weird happenings ... and urges. These quickly escalate into violence, perversion and death (and not necessarily in that order).
Oates has much fun presenting real historical characters in a less than salubrious light, such as Woodrow Wilson and Jack London.
Actually, it is best to think of this as more of a social satire than a horror novel. The pacing is all wrong for horror, and the writing too old-fashioned and in love with its own intricacy and eccentricity (such as the peculiar and playful way Oates has with punctuation, especially her use of Italics). Not that the latter is a bad thing, of course.
And Oates is not really interested in the mechanics and tropes of the genre either. One suspects that her publisher latched onto the convenient handle of 'selling' this to the Twilight crowd by appealing to their sense of the macabre. (Boy, are they in for a surprise. Stephanie Meyer cannot hold a candle to Joyce Carol Oates when its comes to perversion and bawdiness.)
There are moments of ingenious horror, though, such as the bravura setpieces in the Bog Kingdom. But these are not enough to redeem what is an overlong, muddled pastiche of a novel that takes too long to get nowhere, in the end.
And an entire chapter at the end, a religious sermon, no less, explaining THE PROVENANCE OF THE CURSE entirely in capitalised text? Maybe this is a horror novel after all ...
Never afraid to experiment, The Accursed has been touted as her take on the horror genre, with Stephen King hailing it as "the first postmodern Gothic novel". Huh?
Horror novel it ain't. All it is, basically, is a novel focusing on Princeton in the dim and distant past, and how it was a microcosm of the racism and general prejudice, especially towards women and children, that was endemic to the fledgling United States at the time.
Oh, and with some supernatural elements thrown into the mix. Following a lynching of wrongly-accused underclass representatives (of course, these are black), Princeton's leading families are suddenly subject to weird happenings ... and urges. These quickly escalate into violence, perversion and death (and not necessarily in that order).
Oates has much fun presenting real historical characters in a less than salubrious light, such as Woodrow Wilson and Jack London.
Actually, it is best to think of this as more of a social satire than a horror novel. The pacing is all wrong for horror, and the writing too old-fashioned and in love with its own intricacy and eccentricity (such as the peculiar and playful way Oates has with punctuation, especially her use of Italics). Not that the latter is a bad thing, of course.
And Oates is not really interested in the mechanics and tropes of the genre either. One suspects that her publisher latched onto the convenient handle of 'selling' this to the Twilight crowd by appealing to their sense of the macabre. (Boy, are they in for a surprise. Stephanie Meyer cannot hold a candle to Joyce Carol Oates when its comes to perversion and bawdiness.)
There are moments of ingenious horror, though, such as the bravura setpieces in the Bog Kingdom. But these are not enough to redeem what is an overlong, muddled pastiche of a novel that takes too long to get nowhere, in the end.
And an entire chapter at the end, a religious sermon, no less, explaining THE PROVENANCE OF THE CURSE entirely in capitalised text? Maybe this is a horror novel after all ...
July 15, 2015
What did I just read?
I think it's safe to say that this is NOT my cup of tea. I did not get on well with this book at all.
I'll be honest and say that this could very well be your cup of tea. I just didn't like the writing style.
I couldn't grow any relationship with any of the characters - and without any relationship between me (the reader) and the characters, I found the book rather dull. When you don't (can't?) care for a character (or any at all) I find it very hard to engage with a book.
Combine this with the disjointed narrative and I was sat frowning at the end, thinking "what have I just read?" The story didn't seem to flow right. I couldn't get in to the rhythm of the writing and was easily distracted from it. Which made for a pretty un-enjoyable read for me.
I suppose there is a slight element of mystery to this (as well as the fantasy), but it wasn't strong enough to grab me.
It could just be me - and I think it is a personal preference thing with the writing style. But sometimes the style is the most important part of the book and it just didn't work for me.
I received a copy of this for free via NetGalley for review purposes.
I think it's safe to say that this is NOT my cup of tea. I did not get on well with this book at all.
I'll be honest and say that this could very well be your cup of tea. I just didn't like the writing style.
I couldn't grow any relationship with any of the characters - and without any relationship between me (the reader) and the characters, I found the book rather dull. When you don't (can't?) care for a character (or any at all) I find it very hard to engage with a book.
Combine this with the disjointed narrative and I was sat frowning at the end, thinking "what have I just read?" The story didn't seem to flow right. I couldn't get in to the rhythm of the writing and was easily distracted from it. Which made for a pretty un-enjoyable read for me.
I suppose there is a slight element of mystery to this (as well as the fantasy), but it wasn't strong enough to grab me.
It could just be me - and I think it is a personal preference thing with the writing style. But sometimes the style is the most important part of the book and it just didn't work for me.
I received a copy of this for free via NetGalley for review purposes.
December 4, 2013
No matter how great a book is, I am antsy. That's one of the reasons I have a hard time with longer books, in particular this one, because it takes many pages for very little to happen. Joyce Carol Oates is somewhat intimidating to me because she has such a large body of work that I don't know where to start. I started with The Accursed not intentionally, but by default--I love spooky stories. It's obvious that Oates is a fantastic writer. She created the world of Princeton, NJ in the early 20th century with such vividness, and weaved her gothic story into real history with such ease that I became newly curious about historical figures like Upton Sinclair, Woodrow Wilson, and Grover Cleveland. Still, the plot gets frequently bogged down by historical asides that go on for pages and pages. Even once I settled in for the long ride, I felt like there were too many interruptions to the momentum, and that a good editor could have shaved off quite a few pages of them.
I will definitely read another Joyce Carol Oates book, despite my disappointment in this novel.
I will definitely read another Joyce Carol Oates book, despite my disappointment in this novel.
June 18, 2013
This book is what is wrong with publishing.
Forget the argument about traditional versus indie, because this was a traditionally published book that could not have seen an editor for more than fourteen seconds. I understand what Oates was trying to do, but it turned into one long, rambling mess. I slogged on, thinking it would HAVE to get better, because this is Joyce Carol Oates, after all. The book was on the cover of the NY Times book review, lauded by Stephen King.
Aaaaaaaaand, it only got worse. By the end, I did not think anything could be more preposterous, but dang, if she did not top herself. Save your money. And your time. And your poor eyeballs the strain.
Forget the argument about traditional versus indie, because this was a traditionally published book that could not have seen an editor for more than fourteen seconds. I understand what Oates was trying to do, but it turned into one long, rambling mess. I slogged on, thinking it would HAVE to get better, because this is Joyce Carol Oates, after all. The book was on the cover of the NY Times book review, lauded by Stephen King.
Aaaaaaaaand, it only got worse. By the end, I did not think anything could be more preposterous, but dang, if she did not top herself. Save your money. And your time. And your poor eyeballs the strain.
July 4, 2013
This is not a modern 21st century novel. To read this book, you must put yourself mentally into the style of the book. If you read it this way, you will enjoy it. All the bad reviews are from people who couldn't do that.
The book is the story of the mysterious supernatural events that took place in Princeton, New Jersey in 1905 and 1906, told from the point of view of one of the descendants of one of the families. He writes as if he were discovering all of this information through accounts, notes, diaries, etc. He digresses a lot, and has many asides and whole chapters of background, which bothered some reviewers, but it's all part of the premise.
The best fun of the book is to see historical figures like Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London, interacting with fictional characters. Oates has done her homework on these people, finding interesting quirks. I now have to read a biography of Wilson to see if he was as nutty as Oates portrays him to be.
The major plot line is the supernatural happenings focused on a fictional family - the Slades. There is a lot in the book about mysticism and religion the supernatural, which were popular at the time. There is a strong sub-theme about racism. And lots of other strands and sub-plots and mysteries.
I enjoyed the book on several levels - historical insights, interesting plot and suspense. Oates is being ironic and poking fun at current (21st century) beliefs and prejudices. And the ending was excellent - a big surprise, only not really, because the author prepares the reader for the ending.
The book is the story of the mysterious supernatural events that took place in Princeton, New Jersey in 1905 and 1906, told from the point of view of one of the descendants of one of the families. He writes as if he were discovering all of this information through accounts, notes, diaries, etc. He digresses a lot, and has many asides and whole chapters of background, which bothered some reviewers, but it's all part of the premise.
The best fun of the book is to see historical figures like Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London, interacting with fictional characters. Oates has done her homework on these people, finding interesting quirks. I now have to read a biography of Wilson to see if he was as nutty as Oates portrays him to be.
The major plot line is the supernatural happenings focused on a fictional family - the Slades. There is a lot in the book about mysticism and religion the supernatural, which were popular at the time. There is a strong sub-theme about racism. And lots of other strands and sub-plots and mysteries.
I enjoyed the book on several levels - historical insights, interesting plot and suspense. Oates is being ironic and poking fun at current (21st century) beliefs and prejudices. And the ending was excellent - a big surprise, only not really, because the author prepares the reader for the ending.
May 29, 2015
Quite disappointed in this one.
I've read a fair amount of Oates' short fiction, so when this was suggested as a book club selection, I was enthusiastically in favor. However, I enjoyed this book less than anything else of Oates' I've read thus far.
Don't get me wrong - the book is crafted with consummate skill. If someone told me they absolutely loved it, I couldn't argue that their feelings were wrong, or that the work is undeserving. A convincing case could easily be made that this is an excellent novel. It's just not one for me.
Although billed as a 'gothic' novel, it felt a bit more like a 'family saga' where the 'family' is all of Princeton, NJ, in the early 20th century. The story is supposedly being told by an amateur historian in the 1970's, who is investigating the rumors of a 'curse' which affected the characters at that time. The 'voice' of the historian is intentionally intrusive, and while the way it's done is certainly clever, and might be found hilarious by some - I just found it annoying.
However, the most disappointing thing about this work, for me, was not this faux-authorial voice, but the actual authorial voice. Joyce Carol Oates treats every single character in this book with disdain, painting each one in the worst light possible. Whether she's talking about the (pre-Presidential) university administrator Woodrow Wilson, or the Socialist Upton Sinclair, or a prominent socialite, or the author Jack London - all the characters we meet are bigoted, hypocritical, stupid, venal, insane, or a combination of those and other repulsive qualities. However, rather than feeling like, as readers, we're getting inside the heads of these flawed characters, we feel like we're simply being presented with flat caricatures of people.
This caricature-like quality to the book made me feel distanced, and a bit bored, even when extremely dramatic and supernatural events were at hand. Which is not all the time, either. A great deal of the book deals in carefully crafted ambiguities - is there actually a curse at all, or is it all figments of the imagination of paranoid, hostile and high-strung individuals living in a time of racial oppression and sexual repression?
It all wraps up with an ALL-CAPS epilogue which could easily have gotten its point across equally (or more) effectively with one-tenth the verbiage.
I've read a fair amount of Oates' short fiction, so when this was suggested as a book club selection, I was enthusiastically in favor. However, I enjoyed this book less than anything else of Oates' I've read thus far.
Don't get me wrong - the book is crafted with consummate skill. If someone told me they absolutely loved it, I couldn't argue that their feelings were wrong, or that the work is undeserving. A convincing case could easily be made that this is an excellent novel. It's just not one for me.
Although billed as a 'gothic' novel, it felt a bit more like a 'family saga' where the 'family' is all of Princeton, NJ, in the early 20th century. The story is supposedly being told by an amateur historian in the 1970's, who is investigating the rumors of a 'curse' which affected the characters at that time. The 'voice' of the historian is intentionally intrusive, and while the way it's done is certainly clever, and might be found hilarious by some - I just found it annoying.
However, the most disappointing thing about this work, for me, was not this faux-authorial voice, but the actual authorial voice. Joyce Carol Oates treats every single character in this book with disdain, painting each one in the worst light possible. Whether she's talking about the (pre-Presidential) university administrator Woodrow Wilson, or the Socialist Upton Sinclair, or a prominent socialite, or the author Jack London - all the characters we meet are bigoted, hypocritical, stupid, venal, insane, or a combination of those and other repulsive qualities. However, rather than feeling like, as readers, we're getting inside the heads of these flawed characters, we feel like we're simply being presented with flat caricatures of people.
This caricature-like quality to the book made me feel distanced, and a bit bored, even when extremely dramatic and supernatural events were at hand. Which is not all the time, either. A great deal of the book deals in carefully crafted ambiguities - is there actually a curse at all, or is it all figments of the imagination of paranoid, hostile and high-strung individuals living in a time of racial oppression and sexual repression?
It all wraps up with an ALL-CAPS epilogue which could easily have gotten its point across equally (or more) effectively with one-tenth the verbiage.
May 5, 2013
Let me begin by saying I am a fan of Joyce Carol Oates. She is one of the great American authors. But this particular book was badly in need of an editor. Or perhaps the editor it had needed to have enough guts to tell one of America's great authors that she didn't have a plot, and needed to cut 350 pages.
It rambles, it has too many characters that aren't well fleshed out and also aren't kept track of for the reader.
Things happen, but there is no plot. It's difficult to even pin down what the book is about. Why is the snuff box so significant in the bewildering first chapter, yet never appears again? What exactly is the curse? Why is this town cursed? Why does it affect people so differently?
There are no satisfying answers to any of these and the many other questions the reader has.
The prose is lovely, as usual. But that's simply not enough to pull a reader through 600+ pages.
It rambles, it has too many characters that aren't well fleshed out and also aren't kept track of for the reader.
Things happen, but there is no plot. It's difficult to even pin down what the book is about. Why is the snuff box so significant in the bewildering first chapter, yet never appears again? What exactly is the curse? Why is this town cursed? Why does it affect people so differently?
There are no satisfying answers to any of these and the many other questions the reader has.
The prose is lovely, as usual. But that's simply not enough to pull a reader through 600+ pages.
July 27, 2015
The tale of a mysterious and deadly "Curse" that ravages the upper crust of Princeton society in 1905 and 1906, Joyce Carol Oates' newest novel plays with Gothic conventions masterfully. An attempt to patch together the story of those dark years, The Accursed is the manuscript of amateur historian (and descendant of a "Cursed" family) M.W. van Dyck II. He presents a series of excerpts from journals, letters, newspapers, even a coded diary, written during the time of the "Curse," in an attempt to piece together the strange and horrible events that appear to have begun with the abduction of the innocent and beautiful Annabel Slade from the church on her wedding day.
Between the covers you will find demon lovers, murderous jealousy, miscegenation, beckoning apparitions, even a fairy kingdom. Also, an absolutely enormous cast of characters, some entirely fictional, like the sorely afflicted Slade family; others "real," like Woodrow Wilson (at the time President of Princeton University); ex-U.S. President Grover Cleveland; and Socialist writer Upton Sinclair. What I did not expect to find was a darkly satirical commentary on Christian piety, ivory tower backstabbing, gaping class division, the rise of Socialism, and, of course, the "Gothic novel" itself.
Read my full review here: http://battyward.blogspot.com/2013/05...
Between the covers you will find demon lovers, murderous jealousy, miscegenation, beckoning apparitions, even a fairy kingdom. Also, an absolutely enormous cast of characters, some entirely fictional, like the sorely afflicted Slade family; others "real," like Woodrow Wilson (at the time President of Princeton University); ex-U.S. President Grover Cleveland; and Socialist writer Upton Sinclair. What I did not expect to find was a darkly satirical commentary on Christian piety, ivory tower backstabbing, gaping class division, the rise of Socialism, and, of course, the "Gothic novel" itself.
Read my full review here: http://battyward.blogspot.com/2013/05...
March 30, 2013
Joyce Carol Oates!!! She is a force to be reckoned with. I haven't read her for several years but I grew up in Princeton, NJ. When I learned that her new novel was historical fiction set on and around the campus of the Ivy League University where she has been a professor of creative writing for over 30 years, I knew it was time to revisit both the author and the town.
I first read JCO in the late 1980s. Languishing in Los Angeles, where I was involved in an attempt to "go straight" after years of rebellion and excess, by taking a course in management training, I haunted a used bookstore on Franklin Avenue and picked up Marya: A Life (1986). Plunged into a world of impoverished grit and abuse that shocked my soul, I began to suffer from delusions of being followed by creepy people. I even managed to get mugged one evening. The novel reawakened all my deepest childhood fears.
Over the next decade I made my way through her first eight novels. I became aware of her mixed critical reception, including complaints about her overheated prolixity and the inevitable mockery that results from such relentless productivity. I moved on to other authors but never forgot her ability to take me to those dark places inherent in any human soul.
I am here to tell you that she has not lost her touch. The Accursed chronicles a curse or horror that fell upon the upper crust of Princeton society in 1905-1906. Just beyond the Gilded Age, during which the rise of railroads and steel and coal mining created the most wealth our young country had ever known, the early years of the 20th century saw the stirrings of socialism, muckraking, workers unions and strikes. This novel captures it all.
An array of well-known characters appear: Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton University; ex-President of the United States Grover Cleveland; current President Teddy Roosevelt; Upton Sinclair, living just outside of town where he completed The Jungle; Jack London; Mark Twain; and even an individual claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. The main character though is none other than the Devil himself.
The issue addressed is passion in its variegated forms and the manifestations that suppression of passion creates in society: illness, abduction, oppression, abuse, injustice, and madness. All of these roil beneath a veneer of wealth, privilege, religion, and intellectual pursuit amongst the wealthy businessmen and professors and clergy of Princeton, disturbing their families to the point that most are convinced a curse is abroad in the town.
Oates speaks through the measured narrative voice of an historian, son of one accursed professor; also through the hysterical journal of a rich matron reduced to invalidism due to an "unspeakable" accident suffered during her honeymoon; and even through Woodrow Wilson's letters to his wife as well as to a love interest. When she is portraying the scenes of violence and degradation stemming from the curse, the voice is unmistakably hers.
Not one character escapes the underlying satire wafting through this tale. While the novel masquerades as historical fiction it brings the reader face to face with our hypocrisies, our Puritan heritage, and our cruelties. As I said, Joyce Carol Oates has not lost her touch.
I finished The Accursed feeling as ill as some of the characters, as insane as others, and as despairing. There are villains, there are heroes, there is evil and God, but who is who and which is which had confounded me for almost 700 pages. The world we "see" is not the world that is. As one of Oates' titles exhorts us, "You Must Remember This."
I first read JCO in the late 1980s. Languishing in Los Angeles, where I was involved in an attempt to "go straight" after years of rebellion and excess, by taking a course in management training, I haunted a used bookstore on Franklin Avenue and picked up Marya: A Life (1986). Plunged into a world of impoverished grit and abuse that shocked my soul, I began to suffer from delusions of being followed by creepy people. I even managed to get mugged one evening. The novel reawakened all my deepest childhood fears.
Over the next decade I made my way through her first eight novels. I became aware of her mixed critical reception, including complaints about her overheated prolixity and the inevitable mockery that results from such relentless productivity. I moved on to other authors but never forgot her ability to take me to those dark places inherent in any human soul.
I am here to tell you that she has not lost her touch. The Accursed chronicles a curse or horror that fell upon the upper crust of Princeton society in 1905-1906. Just beyond the Gilded Age, during which the rise of railroads and steel and coal mining created the most wealth our young country had ever known, the early years of the 20th century saw the stirrings of socialism, muckraking, workers unions and strikes. This novel captures it all.
An array of well-known characters appear: Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton University; ex-President of the United States Grover Cleveland; current President Teddy Roosevelt; Upton Sinclair, living just outside of town where he completed The Jungle; Jack London; Mark Twain; and even an individual claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. The main character though is none other than the Devil himself.
The issue addressed is passion in its variegated forms and the manifestations that suppression of passion creates in society: illness, abduction, oppression, abuse, injustice, and madness. All of these roil beneath a veneer of wealth, privilege, religion, and intellectual pursuit amongst the wealthy businessmen and professors and clergy of Princeton, disturbing their families to the point that most are convinced a curse is abroad in the town.
Oates speaks through the measured narrative voice of an historian, son of one accursed professor; also through the hysterical journal of a rich matron reduced to invalidism due to an "unspeakable" accident suffered during her honeymoon; and even through Woodrow Wilson's letters to his wife as well as to a love interest. When she is portraying the scenes of violence and degradation stemming from the curse, the voice is unmistakably hers.
Not one character escapes the underlying satire wafting through this tale. While the novel masquerades as historical fiction it brings the reader face to face with our hypocrisies, our Puritan heritage, and our cruelties. As I said, Joyce Carol Oates has not lost her touch.
I finished The Accursed feeling as ill as some of the characters, as insane as others, and as despairing. There are villains, there are heroes, there is evil and God, but who is who and which is which had confounded me for almost 700 pages. The world we "see" is not the world that is. As one of Oates' titles exhorts us, "You Must Remember This."
April 17, 2013
As much as I adore Joyce Carol Oates, I'm finding this one hard going. This has happened to me before on a few of hers (My Heart Laid Bare, for instance - which turned out to be one of my all-time favorite novels in the end), so I'll keep going. The narrator's constant side-tracking into minutia is extremely distracting, and I really hope to get to the meat of this story soon, and stay there.
UPDATE: Contains SPOILERS! Sadly, there was no real meat, and I feel like I deserve a medal for persistence in the face of incredible odds. A rambling discourse on Princetonian life and the politics of the early twentieth century, with some paranormal elements that seemed more like tacked on forays that led nowhere. Was it the devil? Was it vampires? Are demons really angels, sent to do bad things at God's behest? By the time I got to the end, I'd ceased to care. The actual ending was, in all frankness, ridiculous and hurried after a very, very long slog of a read, and is best summed up as: "And then they all came back to life, even though they were already dead and buried, and THEN they lived happily ever after in their socialist commune."
Ms. Oates, I admire you greatly, but not your best work.
UPDATE: Contains SPOILERS! Sadly, there was no real meat, and I feel like I deserve a medal for persistence in the face of incredible odds. A rambling discourse on Princetonian life and the politics of the early twentieth century, with some paranormal elements that seemed more like tacked on forays that led nowhere. Was it the devil? Was it vampires? Are demons really angels, sent to do bad things at God's behest? By the time I got to the end, I'd ceased to care. The actual ending was, in all frankness, ridiculous and hurried after a very, very long slog of a read, and is best summed up as: "And then they all came back to life, even though they were already dead and buried, and THEN they lived happily ever after in their socialist commune."
Ms. Oates, I admire you greatly, but not your best work.
Read
September 28, 2018Why do I continue to torture myself this way? I’m now on disk 13, that’s over 13 hours of my life lain to waste, and still I continue to wait for something interesting to occur, for a main character to make him or herself known, for, for . . . someone to love, dammit. Hell, I’ll even settle for someone that I slightly like at this point. Everyone just seems so stuffy and vaguely unpleasant and/or tediously long-winded.
The book plods on with footnotes and side plots and ramblings. Hundreds of thousands of pages are wasted. The story goes in circles and many of these side trips lead absolutely freaking nowhere. I went in expecting a gothicky tale something along the lines of Oates novella "Beasts" but with some real "beasts". The blurb makes promises of demon grooms, ghosts, vampires and family curses. Do Not Be Fooled. It says nothing of dull old men with gout rambling on for what seems like a million pages. I'd have even settled for a fictional memoir/mix like "Blonde" but instead I felt as if I were back in history class with the most boring teacher on the planet. I think it’s time to admit defeat and throw this bloated book in the DNF pile and move on with my life.
The book plods on with footnotes and side plots and ramblings. Hundreds of thousands of pages are wasted. The story goes in circles and many of these side trips lead absolutely freaking nowhere. I went in expecting a gothicky tale something along the lines of Oates novella "Beasts" but with some real "beasts". The blurb makes promises of demon grooms, ghosts, vampires and family curses. Do Not Be Fooled. It says nothing of dull old men with gout rambling on for what seems like a million pages. I'd have even settled for a fictional memoir/mix like "Blonde" but instead I felt as if I were back in history class with the most boring teacher on the planet. I think it’s time to admit defeat and throw this bloated book in the DNF pile and move on with my life.
November 6, 2017
This is a long, sprawling Gothic novel, with a mix of both fictional and historical characters, set in turn of the century, Princeton, United States. It's a mass of ideas, details, genres and political commentary, and, honestly, I found myself utterly overwhelmed at points. Part of me thinks that this novel needed a damn good edit, another thinks that perhaps if I was bit more well-versed in American political history then I would have done a little bit better at decoding the puzzles and mysteries. For a a novel of 600+ pages, the ending seemed a little rushed, despite other parts dragging. I'm pretty sure this was a bit of an odd choice for my first Oates' novel, but what I did like left me certain that I want to give more of her work a try.
October 1, 2017
Woodrow wanted to protest: he was a friend to the Negro race, surely! He was a Democrat. In every public utterance, he spoke of equality. Though he did not believe in women's suffrage - certainly... So long as Negroes - darkies, as they were fondly called, in Woodrow's childhood - knew their place, and were not derelict as servants and workers, Dr Wilson had very little prejudice against them, in most respects.
No-one, but no-one, other than JCO could have pulled off this baroque spectacular that mixes Gothic camp with a vision of America cursed by a history of slavery, racism, misogyny, capitalist exploitation, and WASP-y hypocrisy.
Mingling furious social commentary with the blackest of black satire, JCO's references zoom between the real-life horror of lynching in 1905 to intertexts with literary Gothic (Dracula, Frankenstein's ice floes, The Yellow Wallpaper) as well as popular horror (Rosemary's Baby, gestures towards Stephen King). She even, outrageously, has Sherlock Holmes make an appearance, and sprinkles her text with Romanticism's demonic lovers, and a visit to the Bog Kingdom recalling various parallels (Milton's Comus, Rossetti's Goblin Market, European fairytales). That Annabel's enforced slavery in the dungeons of the Bog Palace prefigures Josiah's exposure to the squalid working conditions in Chicago's strikebound slaughterhouses and meat-packing industry when he reads Upton Sinclair's The Jungle goes to the heart of the book. Josiah finds that the capitalist owners of the business 'are our friends. They are my grandparents' and my parents' friends... Now reading of these incidents... he was ashamed of himself for being so ill-informed.'
What this book isn't, however, is straightforward metaphor or allegory: it's more subtle than The Crucible, for instance, which transposes McCarthyism to the Salem witch-hunts. JCO has tremendous fun with her use of Gothic tropes from the arrival of the charming but sinister Count English von Gneist, the creepy snake fantasia, the fantastically gory murder of Adelaide Burr () to the fate of Todd .
Vast, erudite and yet accessible, in one sense this book takes Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher with its idea of the family curse, and plays this out on a far wider canvas that expands from the sins of the Slade family, to those of the elite, conservative, privileged, self-satisfied WASP-y bastion of turn-of-the-century Princeton, to America itself, still haunted by its own past: 'this accursed United States of America'. Ultimately the book offers up a vision of redemption, but one which enacts its own price.
Overall, then, this could only be the production of the inimitable JCO - not the writer of We Were The Mulvaneys, though, this is the fevered, frequently outrageous work of the author of those dark short stories in collections like The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror. Yes, it's long, it's crammed with ideas and incident and characters, it's bonkers in places and it requires readers to tie up connections that are merely suggested by the text - but I raced through its pages entertained and awed by the extraordinary fertility of JCO's imagination.
ps. There seems to be some kind of pagination issue with the Kindle edition I read: it gives the number of pages as 1033 but it didn't take that long to read and other editions come in at a count of about 700 pages which feels right.
June 1, 2015
A local historian narrates this eerie tale of events in Princeton, New Jersey in 1905. The sleepy university hamlet is peopled by great figures--Woodrow Wilson (university president), Grover Cleveland (ex US president), Upton Sinclair (young Socialist writer)--as well as by the brahmins of New Jersey (the Slades, the FitzRandolphs). They are all intertwined in this ghost story starting with the abduction of a young Slade daughter from the altar at her wedding. People sight ghosts of loved ones gone over, there is a lynching, sleighs glide over (not on) the snow, a shape-shifting Fiend incites good people to murder, children die. Oh, its all so fun as the protagonists are drawn ever closer into a whirlpool of life and death.
The Slade family seems to bear the brunt of the Fiend's malice: the four grandchildren of Winston Slade, (former New Jersey governor and Princeton president, and current much-loved Reverend) die in unusual circumstances. Others among the Brahmins suffer in strange ways. Some, but not all, is revealed in the Epilogue--miss that and you miss the point. There is a strong moral message here: Evil exists for the benefit of God and the faith of Man, and it is rampant because it is a win-win situation (God loves evil because its good for business; Man loves it because its fun).
The characters are realized in fine detail, feeling true to the time and the scene. The prose is very fin de siecle American, the story is compelling--it all comes together to make a truly interesting read during which one gets a close view of the social tyranny, small mindedness, and provinciality of a small town inhabited by the best and the brightest.
The Slade family seems to bear the brunt of the Fiend's malice: the four grandchildren of Winston Slade, (former New Jersey governor and Princeton president, and current much-loved Reverend) die in unusual circumstances. Others among the Brahmins suffer in strange ways. Some, but not all, is revealed in the Epilogue--miss that and you miss the point. There is a strong moral message here: Evil exists for the benefit of God and the faith of Man, and it is rampant because it is a win-win situation (God loves evil because its good for business; Man loves it because its fun).
The characters are realized in fine detail, feeling true to the time and the scene. The prose is very fin de siecle American, the story is compelling--it all comes together to make a truly interesting read during which one gets a close view of the social tyranny, small mindedness, and provinciality of a small town inhabited by the best and the brightest.
December 12, 2015
Princeton, New Jersey, 1905: Während Woodrow Wilson, der Rektor der Elite-Uni, sich mit seinem Stellvertreter bekriegt, geschehen in dem Ort eigenartige Dinge. Es gibt einen Lynchmord, dann wird ein Kind ermordet und ein seltsamer Südstaatler dringt in die gesellschaftliche Elite des Ortes ein. Mit der Hochzeit von Annabel Slade, der Enkeltochter des betagten und angesehenen ehemaligen Universitätsrektors Winslow Slade, mit einem Sprössling einer weiteren angesehenen Familie, steht außerdem ein gesellschaftliches Großereignis an. Und spätestens am Tag dieser Hochzeit steht fest: Princeton wird von einem Fluch heimgesucht.
Was soll ich zu diesem Buch sagen. Zunächst einmal ist das Buch etwas ganz anderes, als die Inhaltsbeschreibung erwarten lässt. Ich hatte es ursprünglich als Gruselbuch für Halloween besorgt, aber gruselig ist das Buch kaum. Ja, es ist eine Gothic Novel, aber die übersinnlichen Elemente sind eher grotesk als gruselig, sie haben etwas Expressionistisches. Außerdem stehen sie in dem Roman eher an untergeordneter Stelle, sie dienen vielmehr als Rahmen für die Diskussion mehrerer gesellschaftlicher Themen, und zwar Rassismus, Feminismus und Sozialismus. Mehrere herausragende Persönlichkeiten der damaligen Zeit treten in dem Buch auf – Woodrow Wilson, Upton Sinclair, Grover Cleveland, Jack London, Mark Twain – und keiner von ihnen kommt dabei gut weg, am ehesten noch der aufrichtige Sozialist Upton Sinclair. Ich weiß nicht, mit welchen Quellen Joyce Carol Oates gearbeitet hat, aber zumindest die äußerst negative Darstellung von Jack London scheint mir nach etwas Internetrecherche überzogen. Aber um hierzu mehr sagen zu können, bedürfte es weiterer Recherche.
Vor allem die Scheinheiligkeit der gesellschaftlichen Elite gegenüber Themen wie Rassismus und Frauenrechten stellt Joyce Carol Oates heraus. Ein Beispiel hierfür sind die Gedankengänge Woodrow Wilsons in dem Buch: “So long as Negroes – darkies, as they were more fondly called, in Woodrow’s childhood – knew their place, and were not derelict as servants and workers, Dr. Wilson had very little prejudice against them, in most respects.” (Seite 18/19).
Sicherlich ist dies es ein interessanter Ansatz, Gesellschaftskritik mit einer Gothic Novel zu verknüpfen, doch was Joyce Carol Oates daraus macht, ist leider weniger spannend als nervtötend. Denn es gibt keine gute Kohäsion zwischen den Kapiteln des Buchs, Oates erzählt mal hier, mal da, und verliert sich dabei in ellenlangen Abschweifungen, die von der grundlegenden Geschichte unabhängig sind und den Leser in zunehmendem Maße irritieren. Geschuldet ist dies teilweise natürlich auch der gewählten Erzählperspektive, denn Oates’ Erzähler ist ein Historiker, der die Geschichte des “Fluchs” von Princeton anhand seiner verschiedenen Quellen schildert und dabei häufig Kapitel als Zwischenbemerkungen einfügt. Diese “Abschweifungen” mögen der Charakterisierung der jeweiligen Person dienen, beeinträchtigen jedoch den Lesefluss und stellen die Geduld des Lesers auf die Probe.
Sprachlich habe ich an dem Buch nichts auszusetzen, dass Joyce Carol Oates schreiben kann, ist offensichtlich.
Der Schluss des Buchs ist erneut expressionistischer, grotesker Natur und die sich ergebende Schlussfolgerung eine eindeutige Religionskritik.
Ich muss abschließend feststellen, dass ich die Motivation hinter dem Buch anerkenne, jedoch möchte ich ein Buch nicht nur lesen, um es hinterher analysieren zu können oder zu müssen. Ein Buch muss mir schon auch einen gewissen Genuss bieten, und der ist mir aufgrund er oben geschilderten Aspekte mit zunehmendem Lesefortschritt gänzlich abhanden gekommen.
Das Buch ist vieles, ein Lesevergnügen war es für mich nicht.
Was soll ich zu diesem Buch sagen. Zunächst einmal ist das Buch etwas ganz anderes, als die Inhaltsbeschreibung erwarten lässt. Ich hatte es ursprünglich als Gruselbuch für Halloween besorgt, aber gruselig ist das Buch kaum. Ja, es ist eine Gothic Novel, aber die übersinnlichen Elemente sind eher grotesk als gruselig, sie haben etwas Expressionistisches. Außerdem stehen sie in dem Roman eher an untergeordneter Stelle, sie dienen vielmehr als Rahmen für die Diskussion mehrerer gesellschaftlicher Themen, und zwar Rassismus, Feminismus und Sozialismus. Mehrere herausragende Persönlichkeiten der damaligen Zeit treten in dem Buch auf – Woodrow Wilson, Upton Sinclair, Grover Cleveland, Jack London, Mark Twain – und keiner von ihnen kommt dabei gut weg, am ehesten noch der aufrichtige Sozialist Upton Sinclair. Ich weiß nicht, mit welchen Quellen Joyce Carol Oates gearbeitet hat, aber zumindest die äußerst negative Darstellung von Jack London scheint mir nach etwas Internetrecherche überzogen. Aber um hierzu mehr sagen zu können, bedürfte es weiterer Recherche.
Vor allem die Scheinheiligkeit der gesellschaftlichen Elite gegenüber Themen wie Rassismus und Frauenrechten stellt Joyce Carol Oates heraus. Ein Beispiel hierfür sind die Gedankengänge Woodrow Wilsons in dem Buch: “So long as Negroes – darkies, as they were more fondly called, in Woodrow’s childhood – knew their place, and were not derelict as servants and workers, Dr. Wilson had very little prejudice against them, in most respects.” (Seite 18/19).
Sicherlich ist dies es ein interessanter Ansatz, Gesellschaftskritik mit einer Gothic Novel zu verknüpfen, doch was Joyce Carol Oates daraus macht, ist leider weniger spannend als nervtötend. Denn es gibt keine gute Kohäsion zwischen den Kapiteln des Buchs, Oates erzählt mal hier, mal da, und verliert sich dabei in ellenlangen Abschweifungen, die von der grundlegenden Geschichte unabhängig sind und den Leser in zunehmendem Maße irritieren. Geschuldet ist dies teilweise natürlich auch der gewählten Erzählperspektive, denn Oates’ Erzähler ist ein Historiker, der die Geschichte des “Fluchs” von Princeton anhand seiner verschiedenen Quellen schildert und dabei häufig Kapitel als Zwischenbemerkungen einfügt. Diese “Abschweifungen” mögen der Charakterisierung der jeweiligen Person dienen, beeinträchtigen jedoch den Lesefluss und stellen die Geduld des Lesers auf die Probe.
Sprachlich habe ich an dem Buch nichts auszusetzen, dass Joyce Carol Oates schreiben kann, ist offensichtlich.
Der Schluss des Buchs ist erneut expressionistischer, grotesker Natur und die sich ergebende Schlussfolgerung eine eindeutige Religionskritik.
Ich muss abschließend feststellen, dass ich die Motivation hinter dem Buch anerkenne, jedoch möchte ich ein Buch nicht nur lesen, um es hinterher analysieren zu können oder zu müssen. Ein Buch muss mir schon auch einen gewissen Genuss bieten, und der ist mir aufgrund er oben geschilderten Aspekte mit zunehmendem Lesefortschritt gänzlich abhanden gekommen.
Das Buch ist vieles, ein Lesevergnügen war es für mich nicht.
July 2, 2015
To be frank, I find the use of historical figures as fictional characters to be something of a cheat. I also think it tampers unduly with the suspension of disbelief and makes it harder to immerse into a story. I think it strains a boundary that really shouldn't be taxed for anything less than a clear and compelling artistic reason. And there is so rarely a reason. I didn't find one in Beautiful Ruins, I didn't find one in Loving Frank, and I don't find one here. Perhaps someday, fifty years from now, someone will write a novel about the demonic possession of Joyce Carol Oates and I'll find one there. That said...
The Accursed purports to be a history written by M.W. van Dyck II - a native of Princeton, New Jersey and the direct descendant of one of the families afflicted by the strange and frightening events occurring in that town at the turn of the twentieth century. (Mr. van Dyck II might even be the spawn of the dark force in residence at that time - but that's not going to be anywhere near as exciting as it sounds.) This history, scribed in 1984 by the now-elderly, fussy and fairly pretentious van Dyck, revolves around the introduction of that dark force into Princeton proper and its impact on several well-heeled families, personages and famous authors with whom it came into contact. Woodrow Wilson has a central role, as does Upton Sinclair. Samuel Clemens, Jack London, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt and the real Sherlock Holmes also make appearances - but the main focus falls to the esteemed family of Presbyterian minister Winslow Slade, his friends, neighbors and acquaintances, all of whom fall victim to eerie internal voices, evil choices and deadly consequences.
Billed as a gothic tale of horror, Oates hits the mark with the miasmic tone. There are underpinnings of thick, nauseating suspense and outbreaks of sudden, relatively unexpected violence that satisfy the basic requirements of the genre. And if you are, as I am, attracted to the slow unfolding of genealogical drama, the book will hook you with its myriad minor, hereditary fascinations. I'm not sure the story needed its odd jaunts into discourse on racism, socialism, feminism, veganism and academic politics, but a case could be made that these served as elements of atmosphere. I wouldn't dispute it, although at 667 pages less would probably have been more.
Would I recommend The Accursed? Only to those with a surfeit of time and a brisk wind at their backs. They're going to need it.
The Accursed purports to be a history written by M.W. van Dyck II - a native of Princeton, New Jersey and the direct descendant of one of the families afflicted by the strange and frightening events occurring in that town at the turn of the twentieth century. (Mr. van Dyck II might even be the spawn of the dark force in residence at that time - but that's not going to be anywhere near as exciting as it sounds.) This history, scribed in 1984 by the now-elderly, fussy and fairly pretentious van Dyck, revolves around the introduction of that dark force into Princeton proper and its impact on several well-heeled families, personages and famous authors with whom it came into contact. Woodrow Wilson has a central role, as does Upton Sinclair. Samuel Clemens, Jack London, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt and the real Sherlock Holmes also make appearances - but the main focus falls to the esteemed family of Presbyterian minister Winslow Slade, his friends, neighbors and acquaintances, all of whom fall victim to eerie internal voices, evil choices and deadly consequences.
Billed as a gothic tale of horror, Oates hits the mark with the miasmic tone. There are underpinnings of thick, nauseating suspense and outbreaks of sudden, relatively unexpected violence that satisfy the basic requirements of the genre. And if you are, as I am, attracted to the slow unfolding of genealogical drama, the book will hook you with its myriad minor, hereditary fascinations. I'm not sure the story needed its odd jaunts into discourse on racism, socialism, feminism, veganism and academic politics, but a case could be made that these served as elements of atmosphere. I wouldn't dispute it, although at 667 pages less would probably have been more.
Would I recommend The Accursed? Only to those with a surfeit of time and a brisk wind at their backs. They're going to need it.
April 20, 2013
I'm giving this 5 stars for the same reason I gave The Autumn of the Patriarch 5 stars. Some books are just works unto themselves, and I think that is worth acknowledging. However, if you've never read Joyce Carol Oates before, I wouldn't recommend The Accursed as an introduction to her fierce, intellectual style of writing. I would however strongly recommend that you pick up one of her books, she's definitely worth reading if you consider yourself a reader.
The Accursed is a paranormal, sort of. If you're on the fence about paranormal, but you're passionate about historical fiction, you might really enjoy this. If you went to Princeton or have any personal connection to that institution, you might really enjoy this. If you have an obsession with the 22nd, 24th, 26th, and 28th President of the United States, this might be right up your alley.
For the rest of us, it might be considered a rite of passage, although I'm not exactly sure what we'd be passing into. I do highly recommend that if you start it, you finish it. It really doesn't ALL COME TOGETHER until the very last pages.
The thing is: there is such subtlety. It's like you put down the book and you're like…I can't believe I finished it…and yet, something lingers…
http://heidigwrites.blogspot.com/2013...
http://heidigwrites.blogspot.com/2013...
The Accursed is a paranormal, sort of. If you're on the fence about paranormal, but you're passionate about historical fiction, you might really enjoy this. If you went to Princeton or have any personal connection to that institution, you might really enjoy this. If you have an obsession with the 22nd, 24th, 26th, and 28th President of the United States, this might be right up your alley.
For the rest of us, it might be considered a rite of passage, although I'm not exactly sure what we'd be passing into. I do highly recommend that if you start it, you finish it. It really doesn't ALL COME TOGETHER until the very last pages.
The thing is: there is such subtlety. It's like you put down the book and you're like…I can't believe I finished it…and yet, something lingers…
http://heidigwrites.blogspot.com/2013...
http://heidigwrites.blogspot.com/2013...
June 7, 2013
What an incredible waste of time. This book is written with great detail, and in the style of the period in which it is set. I thought I saw the ending coming a mile away, but it was far more ridiculous and far-fetched than I could have imagined, and not at all satisfying.
Goodness knows why I forced myself to continue reading this tedious story, but I had hoped there would be some redeeming qualities. I get that the story is a metaphor, but was the intended meaning that all of the beliefs of the people of the time were insane, ridiculous and ludicrous? Is it merely making fun of the religious beliefs and the suspicious nature of the people of the time with the horrible epilogue?
I don't know, but I'm certainly glad I didn't waste my money on this book, and would like several hours of my life back please.
Honestly if you want to know more about people from this time period (Woodrow Wilson, Upton Sinclair, etc.) read a history book - it will be more straightforward and probably less boring.
Goodness knows why I forced myself to continue reading this tedious story, but I had hoped there would be some redeeming qualities. I get that the story is a metaphor, but was the intended meaning that all of the beliefs of the people of the time were insane, ridiculous and ludicrous? Is it merely making fun of the religious beliefs and the suspicious nature of the people of the time with the horrible epilogue?
I don't know, but I'm certainly glad I didn't waste my money on this book, and would like several hours of my life back please.
Honestly if you want to know more about people from this time period (Woodrow Wilson, Upton Sinclair, etc.) read a history book - it will be more straightforward and probably less boring.
May 10, 2013
Since no one will probably read this I can say what I really want to say about this book.it is probably the most sterile story about New England being invaded by Vampires ever written.
if you like the Jane Austin style of nothing ever happening for 400 pages at a time, then this should be your kind of heaven...as it was my kind of hell!
its like being forced to read a post mortem on a person you don't know or even care about because your degree depends on you being able to remember one small detail that will only be revealed during your final exam at the end of the year.
All the time I was reading this I felt like I was dying of thirst in more ways than one. Even though the story was supposedly gathered from several different "sources" such as letters, journals,eye witness new accounts,etc. They all have the same lack luster dry, paper thin value to them. Nothing had any real flesh and blood to it at all, and isn't blood what Vampires are all about?
if you like the Jane Austin style of nothing ever happening for 400 pages at a time, then this should be your kind of heaven...as it was my kind of hell!
its like being forced to read a post mortem on a person you don't know or even care about because your degree depends on you being able to remember one small detail that will only be revealed during your final exam at the end of the year.
All the time I was reading this I felt like I was dying of thirst in more ways than one. Even though the story was supposedly gathered from several different "sources" such as letters, journals,eye witness new accounts,etc. They all have the same lack luster dry, paper thin value to them. Nothing had any real flesh and blood to it at all, and isn't blood what Vampires are all about?
April 10, 2013
OK, this work deserved a much higher rating for the evident craft with which it was constructed. Or at least it seemed this way to me, after I endured 100 plus pages of truly excruciatingly painful reading. But enough was enough, the pain was too much, the evidence of the craft insufficient reward for the pain. A truly horrible narration by a historian with totally unexplainable insight into the details of the innermost thoughts and intimate actions of desperately unredeemable, but sadly believable characters.
Kind of like marveling at the craft of a root canal, done with great expertise but no anesthetic, on a healthy tooth. Why would anyone put themselves through this?
I show this as 'read' after only 100 plus pages, because I am finished.
Kind of like marveling at the craft of a root canal, done with great expertise but no anesthetic, on a healthy tooth. Why would anyone put themselves through this?
I show this as 'read' after only 100 plus pages, because I am finished.
October 28, 2017
There is no easy way to review this book just like there is no easy way to read it.
The reader has a lot of work to do - it is up to you to decide exactly what happened here.
Set in 1905-1906 in Princeton, New Jersey it follows the misfortunes of the Slade family with significant input from other families that surround them and including Woodrow Wilson who is president of Princeton University at the time and Upton Sinclair who had just achieved success with his book 'The Jungle'.
The prose is meandering and seemingly random...some of it doesn't make any sense at all...but I do promise that if you stick with it right to the end there is a coherent story here hidden amongst the historical facts and supernatural inferences.
I will admit to speed-reading some of the boring bits as the author encourages you to do so (there are lots of interjections from the author although you could ignore these bits if you wanted and not lose track of the story) because it is such a long book with so much information that you can choose whether you find it relevant or not.
Kudos to Joyce Carol Oates for bringing all of this together with real historical content in addition to fiction and supernatural suggestions. This book is so full of information for you to make your decision on what you believe.
This is as much a social commentary of the time as it is a Gothic historical fiction with supernatural undertones.
Example of the questions raised in this book that give alternative explanations to the narrative - warning! - contains minor spoilers :-
I think Todd Slade is one of my favourite characters as we suspect he suffers from autism which he and his family struggle with and is not identified but yet he is dragged into the supernatural too - which parts of his story are part of his disorder and which parts are beyond our world? If any?
Love this kind of question and there are many more here in the same vein, this is just an example.
The reader has a lot of work to do - it is up to you to decide exactly what happened here.
Set in 1905-1906 in Princeton, New Jersey it follows the misfortunes of the Slade family with significant input from other families that surround them and including Woodrow Wilson who is president of Princeton University at the time and Upton Sinclair who had just achieved success with his book 'The Jungle'.
The prose is meandering and seemingly random...some of it doesn't make any sense at all...but I do promise that if you stick with it right to the end there is a coherent story here hidden amongst the historical facts and supernatural inferences.
I will admit to speed-reading some of the boring bits as the author encourages you to do so (there are lots of interjections from the author although you could ignore these bits if you wanted and not lose track of the story) because it is such a long book with so much information that you can choose whether you find it relevant or not.
Kudos to Joyce Carol Oates for bringing all of this together with real historical content in addition to fiction and supernatural suggestions. This book is so full of information for you to make your decision on what you believe.
This is as much a social commentary of the time as it is a Gothic historical fiction with supernatural undertones.
Example of the questions raised in this book that give alternative explanations to the narrative - warning! - contains minor spoilers :-
I think Todd Slade is one of my favourite characters as we suspect he suffers from autism which he and his family struggle with and is not identified but yet he is dragged into the supernatural too - which parts of his story are part of his disorder and which parts are beyond our world? If any?
Love this kind of question and there are many more here in the same vein, this is just an example.
April 11, 2013
Centring on a supernatural curse affecting the immediate vicinity of Princeton University ‘The Accursed’ is the latest instalment of Oates Gothic saga that began with ‘Bellefleur’ published in 1980. The story runs through the period of 1900-1910 this impressive tome deals with the issue of the moral hysteria that begins to wreak havoc within this claustrophobic community.
As is usual with the wonderful Joyce Carol Oates this reading experience is akin more to a marathon than to a jog, and is all the more satisfying for it. Running at over 600 pages prepare to be immersed in a sprawling literary journey that is both breathtaking and masterful in its scope skilfully intergrating real life figures from American history, and unashamedly drawing the reader in to the less savoury sides of their characters. Many major themes of racism, sexism and mysoginism loom large throughout the book and Oates tackles these with aplomb and adopts a deliberately controversial viewpoint at times with the authorial voice resonating strongly. Oates is never one to shy away from the more controversial aspects of the characters she portrays and dares to challenge our preconceptions. Figures such as Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Mark Twain, Jack London and Upton Sinclair himself move in and out of the plot, with Oates bluntly turning her pen, so to speak, on the less likeable characteristics particularly in relation to the political figures and within the greater context of the social issues of this period.
The plot is far too expansive to even begin to attempt to dissect in a review, but suffice to say that if you relish writing that reflets the Gothic tradition of the finest exponents of American fiction there is more than enough to sate your appetite. Opening with the elopement of a young bride with a man who may or may not be of supernatural stock the scene is set for further revelations of the demonic kind in this quintessential tale of terror and Gothic delights. Personally speaking, I found this highly reminiscent of Henry James- one of my favourites from the American canon- and I rather enjoy the experience of wading through literary treacle as it were, in the elongated descriptive passages, the incredibly slow burning plot and the minutiae of character detail that pays such close attention to historical fact. A challenging read it must be said but for this reader personally, a more than satisfying one.
As is usual with the wonderful Joyce Carol Oates this reading experience is akin more to a marathon than to a jog, and is all the more satisfying for it. Running at over 600 pages prepare to be immersed in a sprawling literary journey that is both breathtaking and masterful in its scope skilfully intergrating real life figures from American history, and unashamedly drawing the reader in to the less savoury sides of their characters. Many major themes of racism, sexism and mysoginism loom large throughout the book and Oates tackles these with aplomb and adopts a deliberately controversial viewpoint at times with the authorial voice resonating strongly. Oates is never one to shy away from the more controversial aspects of the characters she portrays and dares to challenge our preconceptions. Figures such as Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Mark Twain, Jack London and Upton Sinclair himself move in and out of the plot, with Oates bluntly turning her pen, so to speak, on the less likeable characteristics particularly in relation to the political figures and within the greater context of the social issues of this period.
The plot is far too expansive to even begin to attempt to dissect in a review, but suffice to say that if you relish writing that reflets the Gothic tradition of the finest exponents of American fiction there is more than enough to sate your appetite. Opening with the elopement of a young bride with a man who may or may not be of supernatural stock the scene is set for further revelations of the demonic kind in this quintessential tale of terror and Gothic delights. Personally speaking, I found this highly reminiscent of Henry James- one of my favourites from the American canon- and I rather enjoy the experience of wading through literary treacle as it were, in the elongated descriptive passages, the incredibly slow burning plot and the minutiae of character detail that pays such close attention to historical fact. A challenging read it must be said but for this reader personally, a more than satisfying one.
May 26, 2015
Immaginiamo per un attimo che la "bocca dell' inferno" non sia a Sunnydale ma a Princeton.
Se il nome Sunnydale non vi dice nulla, non preoccupatevi, evidentemente non eravate "fissati" come lo ero io con Buffy l' ammazzavampiri.
Tanto che una me in miniatura che andava ancora alle elementari entrava in visibilio alla vista di pioli di legno acuminati immaginando una futura carriera come cacciatrice del male.
Il maledetto e Buffy non hanno granché in comune poi oltre alle maledizioni, ai vampiri e a manifestazioni palesi del male.
"Mica poco!" direte voi.
Se avete intenzione di leggere il maledetto armatevi di una notevole dose di pazienza, le prime duecento/trecento pagine sono di una prolissità mortalmente noiosa.
Ma poi la storia decolla alla grande.
Se il nome Sunnydale non vi dice nulla, non preoccupatevi, evidentemente non eravate "fissati" come lo ero io con Buffy l' ammazzavampiri.
Tanto che una me in miniatura che andava ancora alle elementari entrava in visibilio alla vista di pioli di legno acuminati immaginando una futura carriera come cacciatrice del male.
Il maledetto e Buffy non hanno granché in comune poi oltre alle maledizioni, ai vampiri e a manifestazioni palesi del male.
"Mica poco!" direte voi.
Se avete intenzione di leggere il maledetto armatevi di una notevole dose di pazienza, le prime duecento/trecento pagine sono di una prolissità mortalmente noiosa.
Ma poi la storia decolla alla grande.
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