Where do I find the literature fandoms where people make fan art of characters from obscure short stories.
Okay this is not an obscure story at all but see what I mean. (by A-La-Moe)
Tag: joyce carol oates
Smooth Talk dir. Joyce Chopra (1985), Laura Dern’s first lead role and recently restored in 2020.
Based on the classic (and more spooky) “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates (1966)
‘The High School Sweetheart’ was inspired by my uneasy sense that those of us who write, and perhaps even those of us who read, crime fiction are in some ambiguous way moral accomplices to evil. To celebrate the master crime writer is to celebrate the artful appropriation of violence that, in ‘reality,’ would appall and terrify us. Yet, such actions are redeemed through ‘art.’ (Or are they?)
Joyce Carol Oates, commenting on her short story in The Best American Mystery Stories 2002.
This awkward quote brings up something I think about often. The violence we read about and see in fiction has to come from someone’s mind. Someone has to take the real-life potential for horrible violence and recreate or exaggerate it for the sake of fiction. Imagine how many unpublished and violent works are out in the world that receive no attention in addition to the work that is published and produced.
I remember some NPR joint about Patricia Highsmith and one commentator’s belief that if she hadn’t become an author of crime fiction (a notion she apparently abhorred), she’d have become Actual Murderer Patricia Highsmith. She hated people so much that she wrote stories to get it out of her system. But then there’s JCO herself, a somewhat reasonable (?) person whose career as an author is largely focused on violence by and unto ourselves.
And I reckon that’s all. I think about it.
‘The High School Sweetheart’ was inspired by my uneasy sense that those of us who write, and perhaps even those of us who read, crime fiction are in some ambiguous way moral accomplices to evil. To celebrate the master crime writer is to celebrate the artful appropriation of violence that, in ‘reality,’ would appall and terrify us. Yet, such actions are redeemed through ‘art.’ (Or are they?)
Joyce Carol Oates, commenting on her short story in The Best American Mystery Stories 2002.
This awkward quote brings up something I think about often. The violence we read about and see in fiction has to come from someone’s mind. Someone has to take the real-life potential for horrible violence and recreate or exaggerate it for the sake of fiction. Imagine how many unpublished and violent works are out in the world that receive no attention in addition to the work that is published and produced.
I remember some NPR joint about Patricia Highsmith and one commentator’s belief that if she hadn’t become an author of crime fiction (a notion she apparently abhorred), she’d have become Actual Murderer Patricia Highsmith. She hated people so much that she wrote stories to get it out of her system. But then there’s JCO herself, a somewhat reasonable (?) person whose career as an author is largely focused on violence by and unto ourselves.
And I reckon that’s all. I think about it.
The mere passage of time makes us all exiles.
The mere passage of time makes us all exiles.
I’ll tell you how it is, I’m always nice at first, the first time. I’ll hold you so tight you won’t think you have to try to get away or pretend anything because you’ll know you can’t. And I’ll come inside you where it’s all secret and you’ll give in to me and you’ll love me.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
I’ll tell you how it is, I’m always nice at first, the first time. I’ll hold you so tight you won’t think you have to try to get away or pretend anything because you’ll know you can’t. And I’ll come inside you where it’s all secret and you’ll give in to me and you’ll love me.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates