The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates

by Joyce Carol Oates

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  …Thinking & brooding & speculating upon the possible structure of Angel of Light. (And the title. Is that a title I can live with for the next year or so?) I like the idea of a strict chronological development…a sequence in which causality functions with great and obvious power. That is, the novel begins with the words, “The accident occurred on the ninth day of the trip…” and the entire novel evolves from that statement. Yet I want too, or seem to want, an ethereal sort of novel as well…the interlocking lives, souls, consciousness…touching upon one another year after year…. The “voice” may be “voices” out of necessity; I must see.

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  …Slowly. I must work slowly. Allowing the personalities of the people to evolve. Their physical beings as well. Not to push to “gestalt” too quickly—! As good a definition of genius as any…. One must go slowly, tentatively, gropingly.

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  July 29, 1979. […] Baby frogs, down by the pond and brook. Ray holding one in his hand: an exquisite little thing, emerald-green, great unblinking eyes, perfectly formed arms and legs. (Ray had captured it away from Miranda, who was playing with it. But it was unharmed—returned to the pond, it swam away.)…Last night two deer emerged from the woods. We sat with our guests on the terrace, before dinner. One deer, and then another. At dusk. Yet you could see their lovely russet coats, the rich summer coats. Exquisite, beautiful…impossible to describe their grace…the uncanniness of their movements, their being. One of those “perfect moments.”

  …“Is language the adequate expression of all realities?” asks Nietzsche.

  …Friday evening, Berlioz’s Requiem performed by the Robert Shaw Choir and musicians from Westminster Choir College. At the University Chapel. A “Dies Irae” of extraordinary power. Tears flooded my eyes, I felt almost alarmed, upset, it was rather like that experience in St. Paul’s, London, so many years ago, hearing the Verdi Requiem. One doesn’t really want to feel so strongly…. After that it was almost a relief that the music went on too long, that the “Agnus Dei” was fairly anemic (after a beautiful “Sanctus”), everything wound down, simply ended. But I was still somewhat disoriented by the power of the music; my head throbbed violently for an hour or more.

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  July 31, 1979.…Just returned from a drive to Upper Black Eddy; the telephone ringing; Ray hurries inside—and it’s for me: a call from Dutton informing me that Henry Robbins is dead.

  …Fifty-one years old. Heart attack, on the subway; died in the hospital; and we’ll never see him again.

  …The pointlessness of it, our activities: writing, the “literary” life; Henry so suddenly wiped out, erased, “he died in the subway on the way to work” and that’s it…. The last time we saw him, in his office at Dutton, July 17, exactly two weeks ago, he looked absolutely healthy…cheerful…we squeezed hands in parting…I asked him to telephone me sometime, just to say hello; and he said he certainly would…. Our luncheon here at the house, June 28. A lovely day. Lovely in every respect…. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again.

  …(But at the back of my mind it doesn’t seem improbable. As he told us about his several heart attacks, minimizing them, smiling, making a sort of anecdote out of them—his response had been irritation, rather than fear, at the thought that he would be wasting time in the hospital—I thought quite clearly, quite distinctly, that his life was precarious; that he had come close to losing it, and would again; and in that instant I suppose I loved him—or felt a queer suffocating panic for him—for what he wasn’t acknowledging. It was like seeing a small child too near a busy street, or on a ledge, near the railing—a shock of fear, pity, a sickening sense of imminent loss—but helplessness too. So that I wanted to say something utterly banal and hopeless, please take care of yourself, absurd words like that. Maybe I even did, I don’t remember…. Yes, it had crossed my mind more than once that this might happen. But at the same time I thought, and so did Ray, that we would be friends for many years, that this was the start of a long relationship…. )

  …It can’t be exaggerated, or said too often: he was simply a wonderful man: gentlemanly, intelligent, funny, soft-spoken, warm, sweet, with a lightly ironic sense of humor at times, “attractive” in every way (for whatever that is worth)…. The only blessing is, Henry Robbins was wonderfully successful: he certainly didn’t die a bitter failure: he appeared to enjoy life, and to enjoy, quietly, his success.

  …Driving along the Delaware, thinking my heavy thoughts about a story, a novella, another story, another novella, having done proof for “Cybele” last night (and a depressing story that is) while Henry was dying in the hospital, or already dead. The pointlessness of it. The sheer—silliness. I had wanted to dedicate Bellefleur to Henry but was thinking that perhaps it would be too theatrical a gesture, too sudden, impetuous, why for God’s sake hadn’t I made that gesture while he was alive!—for whatever it was worth. (I can’t think it was worth much.)…Henry’s sweet smile, Henry’s characteristic expression: intelligence, reserve, a look of contemplation: and now it’s gone, erased. I can’t be angry, I can’t even be surprised. It seems inevitable. “The universe unfolds as it must.” “The inhuman universe unfolds as it inhumanly must.” Pointless even to observe the pointlessness. I only know that I want him back and this won’t happen and…. How crushed his children must be. His eighteen-year-old daughter who looks so much like him. And the people at Dutton. And, my God, poor Joan Didion! And John Irving, Stanley Elkin, Doris Grumbach, Fran Lebowitz…. “He had a heart attack on the subway, he died in the hospital….”

  August 1, 1979.…These were my meetings with Henry:

  Lunch at Lahiere’s, our first meeting, where we discussed Graywolf, then walked across campus to Prospect

  When I brought the carbon copy of Jigsaw to Dutton (on my way to the American Academy)

  At the Princeton Club […]

  The Fawcett party at the St. Regis, in December

  A luncheon, with Blanche and Ray, at that restaurant on 3rd & 23rd

  After the NBA awards, when we went together to the cocktail party, and met so many people (Doris Grumbach, Fran Lebowitz, Henry’s “friend” Vicky, Peter Davison, John Irving…)

  Luncheon here, a lovely day that went flawlessly…

  July 17, at Henry’s office, when I handed him the revised ms. of Bellefleur

  …Wrote a lengthy letter to Joan Didion.

  …It was October 1978 Joan wrote to me, giving me Henry’s name. Her promptness, her generosity, her total lack of “professional rivalry” are astounding….

  …How ugly I look. It’s a shock to glance by accident in the mirror. Circles beneath my eyes, reddened eyes, lines beginning to crease around my mouth, at the corners of my eyes….

  …Tomorrow, 1:30, my parents are due to arrive at the Trenton airport. But I should be fine by then.

  …In Henry, seeing Ray too. That hurts. The sudden irrevocable loss. “Henry died in the subway on his way to work”—and that’s it—those words over the phone—irrevocable—changing everything. The only, minimal, minimal, grotesquely microscopic grace in all this is the fact that his death came from within; it wasn’t a ridiculous accident. It wasn’t the consequence of someone’s aggression…. If that had happened the loss would be unendurable.

  …Fortunately I valued Henry immensely from the start, and remember in great detail our conversations. I remember his expression, his clothing, his words, his gentleness, his quick sympathy, his smile…. That he was a successful and “famous” and sought-after editor means nothing at all; the fact was, the heartbreaking fact, he was the nicest person I have met in years…. In another dimension I could certainly have fallen in love with him; if I were younger, not married; etc., etc. But really I wanted him as a friend. I wanted him so badly as a friend…at a near distance…someone I would perhaps not see often, but would think about often, and constantly, in connection with my writing. My intuitive sense of his intuition was so much greater, so much more certai
n, than it was with anyone at Vanguard…though I feel love for Evelyn too….

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  August 2, 1979.…No difficulty at all with the arrival [of my parents], the plane flight was pleasant, our afternoon idyllic: luncheon on the terrace looking down toward the pond, finishing a few minutes before the sky burst. Mom and Dad looking excellent; in high spirits too; no sign of my mother’s illness…. The visit is overshadowed by thoughts of Henry, and of death generally; but no one can tell. Anyway I am accustomed to this sort of doubleness. Saying one thing, thinking another. Feeling one thing (and feeling it authentically), and thinking quite another.

  …Nietzsche: On the artist’s sense of the truth…. He (the artist) does not want to be deprived of the splendid and profound interpretations of life…. Apparently he fights for the higher dignity and significance of man; in truth, he does not want to give up the most effective presuppositions of his art: the fantastic, mythical, uncertain, extreme, the sense for the symbolic, the overestimation of the person, the faith in some miraculous element in the genius. Thus he considers the continued existence of his kind of creation more important than scientific devotion to the truth in every form, however plain.

  …The child’s thought: If I dial X’s number, and ask to speak to X, perhaps he is still alive. Treasuring Blanche’s most recent letter, which says: “Henry is pleased, I am sure, that you finished the revisions of Bellefleur so quickly.” For never again, never, will anyone speak of Henry in that tense.

  …“The highest reason…I see in the work of the artist,” says Nietzsche. (Whose nobility, stoicism, toughness of humor draw me to him.) And: “Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking; all the rest of the world is slow, gradual, and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift….”

  …“To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.”

  …My good fortune, that I did not first conceive of Bellefleur in terms of Henry Robbins. The fact that the entire novel, its texture and tone and wildness, was conceived some time ago, saves me from a maudlin self-destructive despair: to want not to publish it.

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  August 3, 1979.…Organ and choir, “evensong,” at the University chapel; Episcopal; we went because of my father’s interest in organ and choral music, and much of it was extremely interesting…if one discreetly overlooked the imbecile optimism of the chaplain […]. And of course certain embarrassingly simple-minded and self-righteous Christian notions…. How fascinating, though, to watch the choirs in procession! Boys of varying ages, from about eight to eighteen, the majority about twelve, thirteen, beautiful faces, austere and sober and intelligent (or so they appeared in their long slender robes). Entranced as I always am by people’s faces I felt a kinship, however oblique, with Oscar Wilde…. A lovely piece by William Walton. Powerful organ work by Franck (one of my father’s favorites). Beneath it all, pervading it all, thoughts of course of Henry; and “death”; mortality; fate. What does it mean, I sincerely wonder, when Christians sing in proud ringing voices.

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  …Sitting through the evensong prayers I had to accept the fact, forgotten for many years, that I am hopelessly skeptical, even rather cynical; that “believers” strike me as silly; that I cannot participate in any group activity whatsoever. The singing was nice, the choir superb, the organ quite good (or so I thought: my father had some reservations), but I sat there thinking of Henry, and of how little solace these simple-minded notions could give anyone who was genuinely suffering, or even thinking. Christ is risen, Christ is risen, tell it with cheerful voice, Christ is risen, repeat 100 times, say that God is good frequently enough and perhaps the old monster will be good…will be shamed into being good; but probably not. One winces at old-fashioned atheism but have you attended an evensong lately?…I may have been waiting, too, for lightning to strike. Such things do happen. Or so it’s said. But I merely became more and more detached from the people around me (who sang with great zeal), and could appreciate the choir and the organ only when the pieces they performed were good as music. Otherwise, no—nothing.

  August 6, 1979.…Wonderful visit with my parents (who have just flown home out of Trenton) which seemed to go rather quickly. I was plagued throughout by a queer sense of doubleness…or melancholy…a sense of mortality…my mother’s illness in May, Henry’s death, the facts of time, aging, disease, death…though at the same time I found myself remarkably cheerful, and even easygoing, once the initial strain subsided. (The first half-day’s visit is always a little awkward—so much smiling, so many exclamations!) “Intimations of mortality.”…Being a daughter again, being a member of a family, finding ease and even joy in the simplicity of such a role, and yet only intermittently believing in it, perhaps because my parents were set to stay for such a brief period of time.

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  …Having lived away from home for so many years now, “breaking away” at the age of eighteen, I have to nudge myself to remember, to recall, that I am a daughter as well as an individual. Easier to think of myself as “wife” than daughter, at this point. (Am I a sister to my brother as well? That seems so peripheral, so blurry.) […] I behave normally enough, and can even discover myself giddy and silly, but at the same time there is a certain margin…a certain vividly illuminated space…which no one can cross, not even myself. The remedy for this, perhaps, is more contact with my parents, more telephone calls especially. I need to demystify this relationship. Make it normal, ordinary, easy, even perfunctory, routine. My mythologizing tendencies must be curtailed by the unexceptional rituals of everyday life…. Still, I miss them! I do feel sad.

  …Telephone call from Jack Macrae (Jack Macrae III) of Dutton, re. Henry, Henry’s suggestions for Bellefleur (a June 1980 publication), our mutual loss. I do feel numb on the subject. I don’t know what I feel. Apart from the shock of the death, the pain of losing such a valuable person, is the frustration, the rage, the resentment, the terror: the knowledge that one’s emotions, even one’s love, are not enough to save another human being from death. (Is anything more profoundly disquieting?)

  August 9, 1979. […] Lovely placid days. August. The illusion of immobility. The clock runs as it must, but here there is an illusion of permanence: the same sunny heat day after day, cooling rapidly after dark; the same cicadas, crickets, bullfrogs (the bullfrogs in particular are very lusty and noisy); our schedule of work in the morning, stopping at 1 or 1:30 for Ray’s lunch and my breakfast and the diversion of the mail, and then a walk or a bicycle ride in the afternoon, or shopping, or chores, and back to work again until dinner…. Underlying this idyllic event-lessness is the thought (but I must assert that it is my thought, not nature’s) of death, mortality, the passing of…well, everything. Turned a few degrees to one side, the thought is hopeless and maudlin; turned in another direction it is stoic, noble, “tragic,” transcendent. Perhaps it is the only authentic “thought” available to serious literature.

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  August 24, 1979.…Vague inchoate notes for Nina Vogt’s story, which is variously called “Minor Characters,” “The Revenant,” “Falling in Love Again, Again.” (Each title points to a quite different story.)*

  …The Franklin Library edition of them arrived, smelling like a very new and expensive leather boot.

  …Perhaps it is the time of year. Or some malevolent fissure in my nature, now beginning to assert itself. Or the impact of that Franklin Library edition—an “instant” classic in appearance—heavy leather cover with gilt lettering, satin insides, Victorian-type illustrations. The list of my books there is overwhelming. So many books! So many! Obviously JCO has a full career behind her, if one chooses to look at it that way; many more titles and she might as well…what?…give up all hopes for a “reputation”? I know that I am absolutely serious; I know that I am both dogged and inspired, and occasionally ecstatic; I do brood over my writing, and revise a great deal; but I work hard, and long, and as the hours roll by I seem
to create more than I anticipate; more, certainly, than the literary world allows for a “serious” writer. Yet I have more stories to tell, and more novels…. (Angel of Light in the drawer here, very slowly acquiring depth. But slowly.) It isn’t a problem everyone has to face […].

  August 29, 1979.…My strategy: to contemplate Angel of Light for twenty days or more, as if from a distance, without beginning to write even the first sentence of the first paragraph; taking notes without any sense of pressure…the pressure to be practical, utilitarian; trying to envision the central scenes from the points of view of each character involved—a kind of hologram. The curious and tantalizing thing about this novel is, so far, its elusiveness: and if I am not careful I will find myself succumbing violently to a single point of view, a single consciousness (quite obviously Kristin’s—and then again Maurie’s, and Nick’s). In the end I must center myself somewhere…I suppose….

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  …Are you bitter, someone recently inquired, about “feminist” dismissal of your work (which I hadn’t actually known about, I must admit) when so much that is unambitious and shopworn-feminist is praised…? I thought that “bitter” was a rather strong, and a rather insulting word, especially when I don’t really know the circumstances, and wasn’t inclined to ask. It is ironic, though, that because I concern myself with subjects generally larger—and I suppose more ambitious—than feminist works (which seem to be mainly of two types—whining about men, or asserting female independence of men via lesbian alliances) I am not considered “feminist” at all. When men attempt large, ambitious novels it’s considered only natural—only masculine; a woman who attempts such novels risks being considered a rival by men, and a deserter of the cause by women. One would like to think that a woman novelist who chose to write about traditionally unwomanly subjects might be valued by someone…even by feminists…but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And then too the issue of female/male becomes so tiresome…. Personality, not gender; individuality; “voice”; stamina, audacity, the capacity to be humiliated…. The necessary egoism of the “great artist” tempered by the sense of proportion without which everything would be lost anyway—in life or in art.