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A new collection of critical and personal essays on writing, obsession, and inspiration from National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates. "Why do we write?" With this question, Joyce Carol Oates begins an imaginative exploration of the writing life, and all its attendant anxieties, joys, and futilities, in this collection of seminal essays and criticism. Leading her quest is a desire to understand the source of the writer's inspiration--do subjects haunt those that might bring them back to life until the writer submits? Or does something "happen" to us, a sudden ignition of a burning flame? Can the appearance of a muse-like Other bring about a writer's best work? In Soul at the White Heat, Oates deploys her keenest critical faculties, conjuring contemporary and past voices whose work she deftly and creatively dissects for clues to these elusive questions. Virginia Woolf, John Updike, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, J. M. Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Zadie Smith, and many others appear as predecessors and peers--material through which Oates sifts in acting as literary detective, philosopher, and student. The book is at its most thrilling when watching the writer herself at work, and Oates provides rare insight into her own process, in candid, self-aware dispatches from the author's own writing room. The New York Times Book Review has raved, "who better than Joyce Carol Oates . . . to explicate the craft of writing?" Longtime admirers of Joyce Carol Oates's novels as well as her prose will discover much to be inspired by and obsess upon themselves in this inventive collection from an American master.… (plus d'informations)
When I first began collecting Joyce Carol Oates back in the 70s, I had no idea how difficult a task it might be. She averages about 5 books a year, but some have slipped past me leaving a hole like a missing tooth. Her latest work is one that made move it to the top of my TBR pile. Soul at the White Heat: Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing Life encapsulates all the things I love about her work. The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem. Of the thirty-three essays in this amazing collection, fifteen are by Oates and the remaining represent many of the writers I most admire: for example, John Updike, Doris Lessing, J.M. Coetzee, Julian Barnes, Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, and Margaret Drabble to name a few.
The first four essays are by Oates and deal with “The Writing Life.” The first asks the question, “Is the Uninspired Life Worth Living?” This has haunted me for decades. When I finish a book, my first order of duty is searching for my next read. I have numerous piles from which to choose from, but sometimes, I feel as though I need to take a break from reading. That break rarely lasts longer than a few hours, while my mind wanders among the shelves searching for the next read. This obsession never dies, although the flames do flicker a bit. Joyce quotes numerous authors as far back as the ancient Greeks right up to Updike. Swimming through this essay alone, visiting authors like Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and many others too numerous to count, compensates ten-fold for the purchase of the book. In he next essay, she provides her “Five Motives for Writing.” It is as if she has hacked my brain and reminded me of why I love to write. “Commemoration,” “Bearing Witness,” “Self-Expression,” “Propaganda, or moralizing,” and “Aesthetic Object,” are all reasons I write, even though I never planned that out. They seem to me natural reasons for writing. What could possibly be a better validation for an aspiring writing from such a source. She finishes this section with “Anatomy of a Story,” and “The Writing Room.” Once again, she has described – with only a few minor alterations, my writing place.
Joyce writes, “There is surely some subtle connection between the vistas we face, and the writing we accomplish, as a dream takes its mood and imagery from our waking life” (46). She continues, “[My] writing room replicates to a degree, the old, lost vistas of my childhood. What it contains is less significant to me than what overlooks though obviously there are precious things here. […] Like all writers, I have made my writing room a sanctuary of the soul” (46). Joyce admits, “I love my study and am unhappy to leave it for long” (47). Need I say exactly the same thing about my library, my desk, my teetering piles of novels. This is what have drawn me to Oates since I first read her back in the 60s.
This review is only “Part One” of what I have to say about this marvelous, enchanting, thought provoking guide to the writing life. To me, Oates is the premier woman of letters alive today. In “Part Two,” I will talk about some of the other essays she has written, and “Part Three” will look at some of the reviews Oates has written. Stay tuned—if you have the patience to wait—or, if you are like me, rush out and add this to your library. Soul at the White Heat: Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing Life by Joyce Carol Oates is a book every writer should own. I cannot recommend more it more highly. Part One merits—5 Stars.
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
For Eric Karl Anderson A lover of literature
Premiers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
This is not a traditional lecture so much as the quest for a lecture in the singular - a quest constructed around a sequence of questions - Why do we write? What is the motive for metaphor? "Where do get your ideas?"
Citations
Derniers mots
Notice de désambigüisation
Directeur de publication
Courtes éloges de critiques
Langue d'origine
DDC/MDS canonique
LCC canonique
▾Références
Références à cette œuvre sur des ressources externes.
Wikipédia en anglais
Aucun
▾Descriptions de livres
A new collection of critical and personal essays on writing, obsession, and inspiration from National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates. "Why do we write?" With this question, Joyce Carol Oates begins an imaginative exploration of the writing life, and all its attendant anxieties, joys, and futilities, in this collection of seminal essays and criticism. Leading her quest is a desire to understand the source of the writer's inspiration--do subjects haunt those that might bring them back to life until the writer submits? Or does something "happen" to us, a sudden ignition of a burning flame? Can the appearance of a muse-like Other bring about a writer's best work? In Soul at the White Heat, Oates deploys her keenest critical faculties, conjuring contemporary and past voices whose work she deftly and creatively dissects for clues to these elusive questions. Virginia Woolf, John Updike, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, J. M. Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Zadie Smith, and many others appear as predecessors and peers--material through which Oates sifts in acting as literary detective, philosopher, and student. The book is at its most thrilling when watching the writer herself at work, and Oates provides rare insight into her own process, in candid, self-aware dispatches from the author's own writing room. The New York Times Book Review has raved, "who better than Joyce Carol Oates . . . to explicate the craft of writing?" Longtime admirers of Joyce Carol Oates's novels as well as her prose will discover much to be inspired by and obsess upon themselves in this inventive collection from an American master.
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1
The first four essays are by Oates and deal with “The Writing Life.” The first asks the question, “Is the Uninspired Life Worth Living?” This has haunted me for decades. When I finish a book, my first order of duty is searching for my next read. I have numerous piles from which to choose from, but sometimes, I feel as though I need to take a break from reading. That break rarely lasts longer than a few hours, while my mind wanders among the shelves searching for the next read. This obsession never dies, although the flames do flicker a bit. Joyce quotes numerous authors as far back as the ancient Greeks right up to Updike. Swimming through this essay alone, visiting authors like Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and many others too numerous to count, compensates ten-fold for the purchase of the book. In he next essay, she provides her “Five Motives for Writing.” It is as if she has hacked my brain and reminded me of why I love to write. “Commemoration,” “Bearing Witness,” “Self-Expression,” “Propaganda, or moralizing,” and “Aesthetic Object,” are all reasons I write, even though I never planned that out. They seem to me natural reasons for writing. What could possibly be a better validation for an aspiring writing from such a source. She finishes this section with “Anatomy of a Story,” and “The Writing Room.” Once again, she has described – with only a few minor alterations, my writing place.
Joyce writes, “There is surely some subtle connection between the vistas we face, and the writing we accomplish, as a dream takes its mood and imagery from our waking life” (46). She continues, “[My] writing room replicates to a degree, the old, lost vistas of my childhood. What it contains is less significant to me than what overlooks though obviously there are precious things here. […] Like all writers, I have made my writing room a sanctuary of the soul” (46). Joyce admits, “I love my study and am unhappy to leave it for long” (47). Need I say exactly the same thing about my library, my desk, my teetering piles of novels. This is what have drawn me to Oates since I first read her back in the 60s.
This review is only “Part One” of what I have to say about this marvelous, enchanting, thought provoking guide to the writing life. To me, Oates is the premier woman of letters alive today. In “Part Two,” I will talk about some of the other essays she has written, and “Part Three” will look at some of the reviews Oates has written. Stay tuned—if you have the patience to wait—or, if you are like me, rush out and add this to your library. Soul at the White Heat: Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing Life by Joyce Carol Oates is a book every writer should own. I cannot recommend more it more highly. Part One merits—5 Stars.
--Jim, 4/2/17 (