The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates

by Joyce Carol Oates

  My identification w/and subsequent impatience w/both Duncan and Antoinette. Yet my reluctance to speed them on their way…to rid myself of them forever….

  May 26, 1977.…Gave an impromptu dinner party for John Gardner, who breezed into town unannounced. He was sweet, outrageous, charming, in a strange way subdued, possibly a little tired; drank mainly wine all evening and consequently wasn’t as difficult to deal with as the last time we met; seemed genuinely affectionate to Ray and me. His marriage is ended. He is living with a young woman, a girl really, twenty-one or twenty-two, in Cambridge, NY, in what he describes as a hunter’s cabin. He appears to be in need of money, which is ironic, since he has had several best-sellers and has sold paperback rights for large sums. […] It was good to see him. I like him very much: far better than I recall. (Our last meeting was some sort of disaster. He was stupefied with drink.) His hands were filthy, amazingly dirty!…as Betsey said, the only people she knows who have such dirty hands are print-makers. But garage mechanics are as bad, and John evidently has a motorcycle back home. (Joan has kept the Mercedes.) He spoke also of carrying a gun everywhere with him. Charming, brilliant man, a delight to know. I’m really pleased with the success he’s had in recent years. He deserves it.

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  Did the review-essay on Simone Weil for New Republic.* But it’s quite long: eleven pages…. Working on “Sentimental Education” still. And reading Mishima. Long, long walks. Up and down the river. Down to the rose gardens. Reading in the courtyard, working on the lawn. Lovely indescribable summer days. Idyllic. Ray doing copy for the next issue & quite pleased. We get along so well, it’s like a honeymoon, one almost wonders if such good fortune can last….

  Luncheon today (May 27) at The Summit, on the 72nd floor of the Renaissance Center. Liz, Kay, Pat Burnett. Sunny; elegant; leisurely; lovely view of the countryside beyond Windsor, and miles and miles of sprawling Detroit, rather improved by height. It’s an amazing life…I almost regret having to leave in another ten days for NYU & NYC….

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  June 13, 1977.…Writing in my room on the twelfth floor of Washington Square Village, building #3, apartment 12 H. A few minutes ago something resembling a bomb was set off down on La Guardia Place. There was absolute silence; then a dog barked. Ray came into the room to ask if I’d heard that noise—and what was it?—but I indicated that it can’t be anything important, traffic is continuing as usual, no one seems distressed.

  A lovely mild June night. Having walked for nearly six hours today we find ourselves in that odd exhausted state in which everything is halfway pleasant. Dinner at the Russian Tea Room. Food not terribly good, as usual; prices rather high, as usual. Went to a reception at La Maison Française in Washington Mews

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  …Pleasurably overwhelmed by New York. By the Village. So many fascinating people…so much marvelous life…. I suppose our lives in Windsor must appear by contrast diminished and even rather silly, but where else could I have accomplished so much in so relatively short a time…? Here there’s simply a universe of temptations. Galleries—movies—museums—people—shops—concerts—plays—walks—bookstores. We walked from La Guardia Place up to 60th Street, then back another ten blocks, finally took a Fifth Ave. bus home. One would think we’d never visited New York before, we’re so enchanted.

  June 14, 1977.…First day of classes at NYU. My class of twelve writing students met, I talked to them about various things from 10 A.M. until 12, we seemed to get along fairly well, they appear to be eager and interested, who can tell…? I felt quite exhausted afterward. Ray and I had lunch at an outdoor café (the Cookery) nearby, then went to the first meeting of our art class, Exploring New York City, though we didn’t go along with most of the class to the Brooklyn Museum, since we had to meet Bob Phillips for drinks at five.

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  In the apartment, now, it’s quiet, placid, utterly marvelous. Ray is reading our Egyptian assignment for Thursday. I have Mishima (the second novel of the series) and Marquez (Leaf Storm) and Dreiser (An American Tragedy) to read though I feel rather lazy. No thoughts on Bellefleur for days. The Adirondacks (the Nautauga Mts.) seem so distant, somehow irrelevant. Surely New York City is the center of the world…?

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  June 17, 1977. […] Notes on Bellefleur. I hope for a large gorgeous sprawling work, like nothing else I’ve ever done. A commercial failure, I suppose;* though Childwold didn’t do badly. Innumerable little “tales” spinning off from the central story, the acquisition of lost lands, the restoration of lost mythic stature, by the Bellefleurs, encompassed within the childhood-lifetime of Germaine. Fantasy, but set as firmly as possible in the Nautauga region (Adirondacks). Possibly the NYU library has some books on Adirondack folktales and culture. (Its periodical holdings are a disappointment: no browsing. Quite impossible to get to them.)

  …Vague unclear plans for a story about the Oakland County child-murderer.† I conceive of a man who wishes primarily to combat boredom, a running-down of spirit. Vampire-like he “sucks” life from his victims. But the killings are less and less satisfying as he continues; and each murder, while easier than the one preceding, has less meaning. Ah, perhaps the “fantasy” could pervade a number of suburban people. […] But it’s all unclear….

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  July 16, 1977.…Read Philip Roth’s The Professor of Desire; it’s similar in tone, subject matter, and execution to My Life As a Man, but quite engaging, moving. The analytic style, the relentless sifting & resifting of a few experiences: not my sort of thing, at least not at this point in my life, but Philip does it beautifully.

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  …Wondering as I read Philip’s new novel whether the emphasis on passion, sexual love, lust, etc., isn’t simply a sort of literary convention. He must write about something: something “interesting.” Just as my imagination seems to turn instinctively toward the central, centralizing act of violence that seems to symbolize something beyond itself. Like a lightning flash illuminating part of a culture or an era…. I notice too how Anne Tyler’s imagination turns (instinctively?) toward her central theme of staying-in-one-place/running-away. Taking on responsibilities/ridding oneself of all responsibility. It seems to be her central theme, and though it doesn’t much interest me, personally, I admire her treatment of it. Philip’s central theme is the bafflement of a man of intelligence and sensitivity (and “innate elegance” as one of his characters puts it […]) who finds himself drawn to “outlaw” or self-destructive characters and to corresponding impulses in himself. My own central theme…? But I don’t know what it is, or don’t care to think about it. Better to remain unself-conscious, uncurious. Unanalytical if analysis would cripple.

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  July 22, 1977.…Our last day in New York, our last day in this apartment. The weather has broken: it’s a civilized 76 degrees after a succession of days in the upper 90’s and 100’s. (The high was a paralyzing 104.) No commitments for today. Nothing we must do, no one we must see….

  The luncheon yesterday with Lynne Sharon Schwartz and George Bixby began awkwardly, the fault of the weather perhaps, but gradually improved so that at the end we were all talking away cheerfully enough. Lynne is an attractive, slight woman with graying hair, about my age I think; George, who is evidently older, nevertheless looks very youthful, with a red-blond beard and (I saw afterward when we were walking along Fifth Ave.) a pierced ear. We went to Feathers, less impressive than the first time we were there, but adequate.

  Earlier, spent 2½ hours w/students. They have been so real to me, and I suspect I to them, for the past six weeks, and now—I know from prior experience—they will fade from my memory. How eternally mystifying it is that time and its most vivid events simply pass away, fade, have no grip on us once we pass a certain age…. I’ve been very much caught up with these students, and with a few I’ve even felt a curious sort of identification […]; yet I know that in a few months their names won’t mean much to me. I think. Two or three of
them will probably go on to publish; or at any rate should.

  …Quite drained from the conferences & the luncheon yesterday. Lay about the apartment reading, taking desultory notes for the Graywolf novella, uncertain, idle, simply rather tired. The exhaustion of the spirit. Did not get up this morning until 9:30, a sort of record this summer…. Life is enchanting, certainly; people are enchanting. Yet when one thinks back over a period of time what is essentially real…? I find that my mind moves on to the work I’ve done, the writing I’ve done, and that everything else is peripheral. The phenomenal world and its great temptations, its beauties, its privileges, the endless drama of human relationships […] appear to fade, or at any rate to lose their authority, set beside art. Art of a substantial nature, at least. This isn’t the summer I have known certain people, walked hundreds of miles, visited innumerable galleries and museums, it’s the summer I wrote three or four stories—and felt a dim tug of guilt that I hadn’t done more.[…]

  Graywolf & the others, possible versions of himself. Fluctuations. Chimeras. The city necessitates a fragmentary sort of structure…one cannot see horizons, everything is chopped up, brought up close. Do I truly feel that life—my life—is a series of losses, of abductions? No. Not truly. What is lost is compensated by something new. & all can be transformed into art. As much as one would wish of Eternity…. Still, my marriage has made my life stable. Ray is a center; perhaps the center without which…. But it’s useless to speculate. Kindly, loving, sweet, at times critically intelligent, sensitive, funny, unambitious, w/a love for idleness that matches my own, Ray is an extraordinary person whose depths are not immediately obvious…. The thought of losing him doesn’t fill me with apprehension or terror, it’s too immense: an unthinkable thought, in fact. Like the end of the universe, the obliteration of time. Unthinkable. If I survived his loss it wouldn’t be Joyce who survived but another lesser, broken person…also unthinkable.

  July 28, 1977.…From New York City to Bennington, Vt.; the Robinsons’ handsome old enormous house on Monument Circle, and the Malamuds’ large, airy, beautifully-decorated home on Catamount Lane (Bernard Malamud surprisingly formal, articulate, when I had expected a looser, more garrulous person, more of a drinker also; Ann Malamud delightful, attentive & alert & friendly & hospitable)…from Bennington to Dartmouth/Hanover, New Hampshire; from Hanover to Middlebury, Vt.; from Middlebury to Silver Bay/Lake George, NY; from there to Ithaca (Cornell’s large, intimidating, finally rather odd campus: a kind of gigantic jumble in which good things might be too easily lost); from Ithaca to Lockport/Millersport (a good visit with my parents once again); and then home.[…]

  …Bernard Malamud is a complex, intelligent (highly intelligent!), soft-spoken and well-spoken man; a gentleman; called me “my dear” several times. Fairly slender, very attractive, w/a small moustache, handsome horn-rimmed glasses, somewhat arthritic (his back: he must sleep on a board, and had a board-arrangement of some kind at the dinner table). Seemed quite pleased to see us though Ray and I were strangers […]. Spoke of his writing (The Fixer was intended to be a sort of folktale, not a “historical” novel) and his writing habits (he works from nine until one most days; teaches at Bennington only one quarter of the year, and then only one course—or so I gathered) and reviews/reviewers (a subject on which he elaborated at dinner…like all writers I’ve met he seems to dislike reviewers in general and certain reviewers—Roger Sale—in particular; he was quite passionate on the subject) and various items of gossip […]. Bernard telephoned John [Gardner], who came over after dinner w/his girl Elizabeth (attractive, dark, quiet; or perhaps simply intimidated by John’s strong personality, and Bernard’s presence). A memorable evening for a number of reasons. (The Malamuds live in such a striking location: in Bennington from March until Nov. Enviable life.)

  July 30, 1977.…Long ago when such things were new, and rare, and alarming, we used to celebrate Events of Good Fortune. The acceptance of my first book at Vanguard, in the God-awful days of Beaumont, Texas, 1961…the signing of a movie contract option (which brought amounts of money astonishing to us at that time: $30,000, $50,000)…random sales, or prizes (the O. Henry), or grants (Guggenheim), or awards (National Book). Then gradually, or was it suddenly?—the Events of Good Fortune became almost ordinary events and there was no need to celebrate them. Hardly any need to speak of them in detail. Or at all. Until finally it came about that I could receive a check for $85,000 in the mail and not think to tell my husband about it until later in the day, or the next day. Or I could glance through a copy of Time in a drugstore (not wishing to buy it, of course) and come upon a fairly good review of, say, The Assassins, and skim through it as though it were a review of anyone’s book, of any book at all, not my own, not related to me.

  It isn’t that one expects such things. Or feels, in a way, comfortable with them. Or even wants them very badly. It’s instead a peculiar thing…an ineffable thing…. Perhaps that they happen, they happen, without any personal intervention. Or meaning. Or…what?…connection. Relevance. Intimacy.

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  August 4, 1977. […] Anne Sexton’s letters improve as she grows older.* It’s curious, how she becomes suddenly sober, leaves behind her manner (or mask) of hyperbolic enthusiasm, when confronted with truly disturbed people writing to her. It’s as if she recognized the sickness in them and for the time being became well, herself, in order to deal with their sickness. The letters to Philip Legler, and even to James Dickey, show this. But then again on the next page she’s gushing, and rambling, and typing away late into the night though obviously unhinged by alcohol and her eight nightly pills…. What is disappointing about the letters is their general lack of enlightenment. One can’t learn much from them. There is no intellectual stimulation, no sense of an ongoing inquisitive critical exploring mind. She’s all emotion: heart and womb, tears and blood, a voice that sometimes rises to hysteria, sometimes sinks to a melancholy whine, but isn’t often enough detached, self-critical (in a genuine sense: she is of course self-pitying and self-contemptuous, self-despising). What one misses, undeniably, is a first-rate intelligence…. Which leads us back to the poems. And they are, for the most part, good. All My Pretty Ones, Live or Die, certain sections of Love Poems: very good, very powerful indeed. Transformations I don’t care for, but perhaps that is simply my taste. The Awful Rowing Toward God (which I reviewed for the NY Times) is intermittently good, sometimes striking and sometimes flat. Her problem was that subject matter and technique seem to have been inextricably wedded. She turns round and round and round on the same subjects, in the same rhythms. Trapped. Helpless. There’s terror in it—one feels the terror. But the reader can simply back away or turn to another poet (Maxine Kumin, for instance, Anne’s friend, who is a finer poet than Anne, partly because she is more “intelligent” but partly because she has a better feel for language) while poor Anne Sexton was imprisoned in that dreary stale shrinking world.

  …Bernard Malamud at dinner, discussing D. H. Lawrence. And Updike: whose novels, he thinks, lack an inner “moral” focus or core. (Is he right? I said to the Malamuds, “Updike has a painterly, a visual, imagination…he wants to get things accurate on the sensory level first of all…” or words to that effect. But this doesn’t preclude a “moral” position. Why should it?) Malamud felt somewhat the same way about Roth. More than most writers, Malamud said, Roth does write about his own life—a book-by-book account of his woman-by-woman career. Which is dreadfully limiting…. Thinking back on Malamud I suppose he was being rather cautious with Ray and me, rather guarded. He didn’t know us at all…. Generous of him, certainly, to have invited us to his home.

  August 6, 1977.…Finished the Anne Sexton letters; did the review; as time passed the effort did not seem quite so depressing as it did initially. After all, Anne Sexton did accomplish what she wanted. Or nearly. It seems likely that her poetry postponed her suicide for years…the activity of poetry, the rigorous demands of its discipline: these are only, and always, good. Wh
ich is something non-poets can’t understand, perhaps.

  Went back to a story written some time ago, “Honeymoon,” to review a few pages. Written in June 1975. Something very warm, likable about it…hopeful….

  Odd that I should so enjoy revision, when I once detested it. Considered it a waste of time. Energy. Imagination. But now, well, now it all seems different to me: revision is imagination. And it’s also immensely satisfying in ways that the initial writing can’t be.

  The pleasure of detachment: serenity: rigorous structuring, calculating.

  …Anne Sexton’s death-premonitions. Hence her feverish activity at the end. One might think it strange (I don’t: I think it perfectly explicable) that she should fear a premature death, yet bring it about herself.

  But why die, why take one’s self so seriously…. There are always new films, new recordings, chance letters from old friends, telephone calls, books propelled through the mail, magazines….

  Gene [McNamara] once said: “Why not just take a nap, and when you wake up you’ll feel differently.”