A Novel That Demands the Most Literal
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BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA March 19, 2020 The Man Without a Shadow Joyce Carol Oates « A novel that demands the most literal interpretation of the definition “psychological thriller”, The Man Without a Shadow showcases Oates’s grasp of the complexities of the human psyche Contents: via an enticing combination Introduction 1 of the ambiguity of Memento Author biography 2-3 New York Times 4-5 and the poignant realism book review “People think I 6-8 of Awakenings. write quickly but I actually don’t” » Notes 9 [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/21/the-man-without-a- shadow-joyce-carol-oates-review] Page 2 Author biography wrote her first novel, though it Oates's first novel, With was rejected by publishers who Shuddering Fall (1964), shows her found its subject matter, which interest in evil and violence in the concerned the rehabilitation (the story of a romance between a restoring to a useful state) of a teenage girl and a thirty-year-old drug addict, too depressing for stock car driver that ends with teenage audiences. After high his death in an accident. Oates's school Oates won a scholarship best-known early novels form a to Syracuse University, where trilogy (three-volume work) she studied English. Before her exploring three different parts of senior year she was the co- American society. The first, A winner of a fiction contest Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), sponsored tells the story of the daughter of by Mademoiselle magazine. After a migrant worker who marries a graduating at the top of her class wealthy farmer in order to in 1960, Oates enrolled in provide for her illegitimate One of the United States's graduate school at the University (having unmarried parents) son. most prolific (producing a lot of Wisconsin, where she met The woman's existence is of work) and versatile Raymond Joseph Smith, an destroyed when the boy murders (producing a wide variety of English professor. They were his stepfather and kills himself. work) contemporary writers, married in 1961. In Expensive People (1967), Oates Joyce Carol Oates focuses exposes the world of people in upon the spiritual, sexual, and Teaching and writing the suburbs whose focus on intellectual decline of modern material comforts reveals the American society. In 1961, after Oates earned her emptiness of their lives. The final master's degree and began work volume, them (1969), which won Early years on her doctorate in English, she the National Book Award for found one of her own stories in Joyce Carol Oates was born on fiction, describes the violence and Margaret Foley's collection Best suffering endured by three June 16, 1938, in Lockport, New American Short Stories. Oates then York, the oldest of Frederic and generations of an urban (city- decided on a writing career, and dwelling) family in Detroit, Caroline Oates's three children. in 1963 she published her first The family lived on a farm owned Michigan. Oates's experiences as volume of short stories, By the a teacher in Detroit during the by Caroline's parents. Joyce's North Gate (1963). Oates also father was a tool designer, and early 1960s contributed to her taught at the University of knowledge of the city and its her mother was a housewife. Detroit between 1961 and 1967. social problems. Oates was a serious child who In 1967 she and her husband read a great deal. Even before she moved to Canada to teach at the Oates's novels of the 1970s could write, she told stories by University of Windsor, where explore characters involved with drawing pictures. She has said that together they founded the various American professional her childhood "was dull, ordinary, publication Ontario Review in and cultural institutions while nothing people would be 1974. After leaving the University adding tragic interested in," but she has of Windsor in 1977, Oates elements. Wonderland (1971) is admitted that "a great deal became writer-in-residence and about a brilliant doctor who is frightened me." later a professor at Princeton unable to build a satisfying home University in New Jersey. life. Do With Me What You In 1953, at age fifteen, Oates Will (1973) focuses on a young Page 3 attorney who is honored by his time, she submitted a mystery account of a tragic encounter peers for his devotion to social novel to a publisher under a between a powerful U.S. senator work. The Assassins: A Book of pseudonym (fake writing name) and a young woman he meets at Hours (1975) deals with the and had the thrill of having it a party, and Foxfire: Confessions of effects of the murder of a accepted. Oates published the a Girl Gang (1993), which politician on his wife and two novel Lives of the Twins (1987) describes the destructive brothers. Son of the under the name Rosamond activities of a group of teenage Morning (1978) documents the Smith. "I wanted a fresh reading; girls in the 1950s. The story is rise and fall of a preacher whose I wanted to escape from my pieced together from former faith is challenged and made own identity," Oates told Linda Foxfire gang member Maddy stronger by various events in his Wolfe in the New York Times Wirtz's memories and journal life. Unholy Loves (1979) revolves Book Review. Though she used and takes place in the industrial around the lives of several the name again for several other New York town of Hammond. teachers at a small New York books, she resumed using her Oates also had several plays college. name with the publication of My published and produced in the Heart Laid Bare, in which she 1990s. During the early 1980s Oates explores morality (the question published several novels based of right and wrong) during the In 1999 Oates's twenty-ninth on works by nineteenth-century 1920s. novel, Broke Heart Blues, was authors. A Bloodsmoor published. In March Romance (1982) is the story of Oates's works in other forms 2000 Blonde, based on the life of five maiden sisters living in also address darker sides of the actress Marilyn Monroe (1926– Pennsylvania in the late 1800s human condition. Most critics 1962), was released. The book and is influenced by the writings feel that Oates's short fiction, was a finalist for the National of Charlotte Brontë (1816– for which she has twice Book Award for fiction. In June 1855) and Emily Brontë (1818– received the O. Henry Special 2000 Getting to Know You, a film 1848). In Mysteries of Award for Continuing based on Oates's 1992 short Winterthurn (1984), Oates Achievement, best expresses story collection Heat, was borrowed heavily from the her main themes. Such released. Oates edited the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809– collections as By the North Gate; collection The Best American 1849). While some critics Where Are You Going, Where Essays of the Century, which was dismissed these works, others, Have You Been?: Stories of Young published in 2000. Middle Age: A citing Oates's accomplished America (1974); The Lamb of Romance, a novel, and Beasts, a description of evil, maintained Abyssalia (1980); and Raven's novella (a work whose length is that they are significant Wing (1986) contain pieces that greater than that of a short story achievements in literature. focus on violent and abusive but less than that of a novel), relationships between men and were published in 2001. Other works and names women. [https:// Throughout Oates's writing Later works www.notablebiographies.com/Ni career she has distributed her -Pe/Oates-Joyce-Carol.html] energies among several projects In Because It Is Bitter, and at once. Her book-length Because It Is My Heart (1990), essay On Boxing (1987) led to at Oates returns to the familiar least one appearance themes of race and violence. commenting on a televised Other works from this time boxing match. Around the same include Black Water (1992), an Page 4 New York Times book review Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel focuses on the relationship time. But she’s a practical young makes for uncomfortable reading. between Margot Sharpe (she is woman, and even in the midst of Even before the narrative begins, about to turn 24 when we meet being dazzled by this vision of a hint of disquiet creeps in with her in 1965, a graduate student preppy, tragic masculinity she the epigraph: “The annihilation is and brand-new research doesn’t fail to register the boon not the terror. The journey is the assistant in the memory lab) and he might be to her career, or to terror.” Forget the explicit Elihu Hoopes, or E.H., as he is intuit the impact he will have on reference to terror; a clammier called in the scientific literature. her life. In fact, E.H. becomes her sort of eeriness settles on the An infection left him, at 37, life — or, more accurately, what reader who pauses to research suffering from untreatable she chooses in lieu of a life. He the identity of the epigraph’s anterograde amnesia. That is, he serves as the unwitting tabula supposed source, Elihu Hoopes, remembers most of his life rasa on which she projects all who turns out to be the “man leading up to the illness but is her hopes and fantasies. If Elihu without a shadow” of the title. incapable of forming any new Hoopes is the helpless prisoner To enter these pages is to enter a memories. Once a successful of his affliction, Margot Sharpe world of smoke and mirrors, businessman, he now lives with will spend the better part of her rendered all the more insidious an elderly aunt and spends his years contorting herself into an by the realization that this days undergoing tests amalgam of jailer, savior and purports to be a world of (sometimes cruel, even sadistic) ultimately fellow •captive.