The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates Read online

  Waves of light, sourceless. A terrible sense of—of catastrophe—of an ending. More than personal death; an extinction of all consciousness. Haunting. Puzzling. The point of the dream seemed to be that I had to acquiesce to powers beyond my ego, rather more readily than I do at the present time. I am rebellious, the dream seemed to indicate, and must be humbled. Will be humbled. Otherwise a demonic force would overwhelm me…something queer and destructive….

  How am I to translate this into my life?—into my writing?

  I have no idea. I had thought all along, humbly enough, that I was an acquiescent person.

  The Soul dictates to the Ego. If the Ego begins to imagine itself autonomous, something will rise up out of the unconscious to humiliate it; or worse. The dream was unmistakable, more “real” than “real.” I don’t believe I’ve had more than three or four numinous (Jung’s word) dreams in my lifetime.

  January 7, 1973. Fascinating, the human mind; unfathomable. To think that we inhabit the greatest, most ingenious work in the universe…that is, the human brain…and we inhabit it gracelessly, casually, rarely aware of the phenomenon we’ve inherited. Like people living in a few squalid rooms, in a great mansion. We don’t even know what might await us on the highest floor; we’re stuck contemplating the patterns in the floorboards before us. Once in a while a truly alarming, profound dream/vision cracks through the barrier and we’re forced to recognize the presence of a power greater than ourselves, contained somehow within our consciousness.

  Dreamt just before waking of a teenaged girl who wept miserably. I was half in and half out of her personality. She sat with a couple at a kitchen table, a young married couple who were friends of hers. The girl said “this is the most wonderful place in the world,” weeping uncontrollably…. Woke, and went to work composing the scene, trying to flesh out the circumstances. Who is the girl, who are her friends, why was she crying, what would happen next? (Though perhaps this is the very last scene of the story & I must not tamper with it.)

  The emotion propels the dream-images forward, into waking consciousness. Without that emotion they sink back, they disappear. Like all of us. January 9, 1973.…Finished “Honeybit.”* The weeping girl, her friend (minus the husband: too many characters would clutter so very short a story), the kitchen table, the despair. It would have been impossible to do anything further….

  Wrote until four in the afternoon, but when I was done with the story another story intruded: another dream-image? Or what? I feel besieged. If the stories came out perfectly formed, that would be one thing; one could merely type them out. But it isn’t like that at all. I have only a few stray words, or an image or two, or a glimpse of someone’s face. Nothing is clear, nothing is sequential or logical or explained. It’s exactly like trying to reconstruct a jigsaw puzzle from the single piece you have in your hand….

  The other story which suggested itself is “The Golden Madonna,” not so sensitive a story, in my opinion, as “Honeybit.” A man’s story; a young man’s story. Playboy, possibly…?† So I was writing until 7:30 and it was time to start dinner and I was exhausted, completely exhausted, my vision blotched, my head aching. It would have been perfectly possible to put off “The Golden Madonna” until tomorrow; it isn’t that urgent. But once one is writing it’s almost easier to continue than to stop….

  What has “The Golden Madonna” to do with me? I would like to say—nothing. And “Honeybit”? Perhaps something. But these stories feel to me like dream-fragments from others’ dreams, others’ lives. I am absorbed in the writing of them, as one must be, but they don’t profoundly move me; there’s little of my life dramatized in them. Except of course we are all part of one another, as Stephen Dedalus says, not, I think, ironically…. ‡

  The Mind, the Soul: and the Ego floats atop it like a playful bubble.

  […]

  January 19, 1973. Days of teaching; meeting with students; talking with colleagues. The irresistible pull of the external world. One could very easily lose oneself within it…. “Keeping busy” is the remedy for all ills in America. It’s also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed.

  Did I die, in a sense, back in December of 1970…? A peculiar experience which I’ll never quite comprehend, though I’ve brooded over it constantly. I can say without exaggeration that a day doesn’t pass without my contemplation of it. For some time afterward I felt as if my sojourn as “Joyce” was through; or perhaps I felt that my death—since it will be a historical fact someday, at a later point in time—was already accomplished and absorbed into my life. No matter what I assume in trying to understand this peculiar experience—which refuses to reduce itself to the “merely psychological” and still less to the “merely physiological”—I am always left baffled. The only person I’ve talked to about it is Ray, and as I speak to him I seem to hear the inadequacy of my words, and I don’t doubt that he finds the whole thing murky if not muddy…. What is “mystical experience” anyway? Is it only natural, but since we lack the vocabulary to deal with it, it comes out sounding bizarre? Does one, in submission to the “mystical,” desperately project familiar images of belief which are then mistaken as the cause of the experience? A Christian, for instance, would see Christ…a Catholic might very well “see” Mary…. I try again and again to express this utterly simple experience (it lasted only about ten minutes) in words, and I always fail. Someday I must attempt a large, ambitious, risky, even rather lurid novel about mysticism: its blessings, its curses.

  Well, if I am dead from one point of view I’m still alive from another. It isn’t “my” life here, typing out these words; it’s “a” life, someone’s life, someone both myself and not quite myself. The Soul encompasses this particular being, but isn’t limited by it. Fair enough. The Ego sees the Soul, in a sense, out of the corner of an eye—the shadow of the Soul, perhaps. The dream world quivers with the presence of the Soul. Every moment answers the question: How did I experience that moment, when I was alive? (Suddenly this reminds me of Pater: not to experience each moment fully, “in this short day of sun and frost,” is to go to bed before evening.)*

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  February 17, 1973. The memory of that odd, inexplicable experience at our Dunraven flat.† Must dramatize it somehow in a story, a novel…. Corinne of Lucien Florey.‡ But I despair of getting it right. Perhaps I’m too close to the experience; I’m too attached.

  Can one really believe in the playfulness of the universe?—and its beauty?

  In theory, yes. Very readily.

  In experience…?

  No, such beliefs, however passionately held, are a mockery of our ordinary perceptions. “God is Love” etc. An insult to those who suffer. “God is God is all”: the sum total of the universe. Neither good nor evil. Just an immense democracy. One alternates between embracing such a conviction…and running from it in horror.

  The hubris of “accepting” the universe.

  What am I, finally, but a field of experiences…a network of events…? They are held in suspension, in a sense, so long as “I” exist. When “I” am dissolved they too are dissolved. (Except of course for those that have been recorded in print.) Even so…. Harmony. Disharmony. Chas. Ives. John Cage.* The “music” of all noises. Reading Ammons’ Collected Poems 1951–1971 […]. Reading Neumann’s The Origin and History of Consciousness, an ambitious book if ever there was an ambitious book. Turgid prose, however; my eyelids grow heavy. Some Rilke poems, unevenly interesting. I have a suspicion that Rilke is vastly overrated. Mystic?—or narcissist. I have no sympathy for him. †

  Building the structure for Corinne Andersch & Jacob Florey; a mandala. The center is the birth of Lucien Florey. Many cardinal points to be filled in slowly. Back & forth in time. Could take years. The only redemption is the intensity of occasional drama. Otherwise—a mosaic, a vast tapestry.

  February 21, 1973. Read of Jung’s strange injunction to “formulate a hypothesis concerning the possibility of an after-life.”…But what of those w
ho hope for extinction? Dreadful thought, perpetual identity. Unthinkable. Reincarnation, Eternal Return: dismal. But whatever is, is right. (A bland, demonic statement.)

  February 23, 1973. Anniversary; twelve yrs. one mo. ‡ Cold & brightly blue & very icy. Red berries just outside the window. A male pheasant the other day—lovely surprise.

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  February 26, 1973. Lovely sunny sky-blue days. Immense heaps of snow. Great ice-chunks floating down the river. Warnings of possible flooding. (If you love the river when it’s tame, you are obliged to love it when it’s violent.)

  Reading Alfred Kazin’s The Bright Book of Life.* Much that’s intriguing here, but all of it is slapdash and journalistic and arbitrary. Why is Updike merely “a professional”? Why am I merely a woman writer?—a “Cassandra”? Kazin’s literal-mindedness, his penchant for interpreting works that deal with naturalistic subjects as if they were necessarily naturalistic in vision, makes him a clumsy critic for our times. He obviously can’t think of much to say about Barthelme or Gass or Burroughs…. † When he came to Windsor to visit, he seemed quite nice; we had a pleasant conversation for several hours; we served him a drink or two, and then made the mistake of declining his invitation to lunch. Evidently this hurt his feelings. He left shortly afterward, and when he published his essay on me in Harper’s, he mentioned in passing that I had not smiled at him once during our visit…. Of course that’s false, I certainly smiled, but if he remembers me as being cold and unapproachable there must be truth of a sort in it, from his point of view; I’m not inclined to think he deliberately lied.

  He really didn’t understand what I was telling him about my writing—he nodded, took notes, but had an a priori conception of what I was doing. Mixed up, I think, with leftover ideas of his from previous studies of writers of the 30’s. He tries to see writers of the 60’s and 70’s in terms of the 30’s, which is a terrible handicap for a critic…. Still, he’s very good at times. Very good. Though he rather disappointed me, and in a way, I supposes, insulted me (and my husband), he’s still a very intelligent and thoughtful person—thoughtful, I mean, in the sense of being committed to thought. What he says about Hemingway and Faulkner, though not entirely original, is nonetheless perceptive.

  February 28, 1973. Have been informed that A.K. is still trying to exploit me. ‡ Attempt to sell my letters.

  How could I have known it would be such a mistake, to offer that man advice on his manuscript…to introduce him to my agent…to supply a blurb when the novel appeared…? It’s a familiar story among writers and poets. Ugly and familiar. I helped him to begin with, and it wasn’t enough; he had hopes of becoming a best-seller (erroneously thinking that I had the power to make him famous when I don’t have the power to make myself famous); now he hates me bitterly and has written several stories about his feelings toward me, one of them with the title “How I Killed Joyce Carol Oates.” Sad.

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  March 3, 1973. Spoke today before the Michigan Association of Psychoanalysts; on “The Visionary Experience in Literature.” Drew parallels between the mystics and everyone else, especially those “in the service of humanity.” I pretended that Freud really assumed all this….

  Strange, these ostensible Freudians spoke rather like Jungians. Even like visionaries. (Especially the older analysts.) As soon as one suggests, subtly, that they are—by dint of their difficult calling—among the visionary members of our species, they seem to warm to the whole idea of The Visionary. (Otherwise I’m inclined to think they would irritably reduce it to “oral-regressive” or somesuch jargon.)

  […] A very congenial, lively group. It must be difficult for them—meeting troubled people daily, and being dependent upon these troubled people for their own livelihood.

  […]

  March 5, 1973. […] How is a writer to contemplate his critics? To ignore them, to take them very seriously, to pick and choose among them? It would be a pity to banish all criticism simply because some of it, or most, is worthless; there are very intelligent, sensitive people writing criticism today. But just as I don’t read student evaluations of my classes at the University (having been astonished and embarrassed at what I did read: praise for all the wrong reasons), I think it’s a good general principle not to read most of the criticism and reviews written about me. If Evelyn* is especially delighted with a review, or if I open the Times and come upon a review, naturally I’ll read it; but it’s prudent not to seek out such things.

  Invited to become a member of the National Society of Literature and the Arts—but I rather doubt that it means anything much.

  March 16, 1973. It’s easy enough to resist people who dislike you, but difficult to resist those who claim to like you very much, even to love you. My God, that word Love! What atrocities have been committed in its name! R.Q.’s devouring, insatiable love for me—incredible. A nightmare. It’s necessary to resist, to struggle as if one were drowning.

  The violence of certain projections. A genuine mystery. What is meant by “transference” in psychology.

  March 17, 1973. Flooding along the river. For a while we thought we would have to evacuate the house. Rain, wind, storm, water. Great logs propelled through our backyard. I walked through the rooms of the house wondering what we should do: stay or leave? leave or stay? Should we start to pack? Should we see if the car will start? Should—?

  Ray didn’t want to leave, and I began to wonder if maybe we should leave; his sense of calm was unwarranted, his optimism not supported by the frantic storm and the news over the radio that there was very serious flooding a few miles to the east. On the other hand, he believed that I was being unnecessarily cautious…he had no interest in packing or getting ready to abandon ship. I kept telling him that since we couldn’t peer into the future, and therefore couldn’t know whether it would be wise to leave, or unnecessary, we ought to do the safest thing and leave…. In the end, however, we stayed. And the storm abated. And all was well, except for the damage in the backyard. And the rockiness in our heads. We’re both numb, still, a trifle shocked, “unreal,” from the upset of those hours.

  There are emergency situations when people escape with their lives only because they’ve acted prudently and over-cautiously. How is one to know what to do, really? I believe that Ray wanted to stay here because he would have been embarrassed to leave, if the house wasn’t flooded. He would rather have stayed and risk danger than leave and risk an insult to his ego.

  A peculiar indifference to the house and our possessions, except for things like my grandmother’s ring and a few other pieces of her jewelry.

  March 18, 1973. Terrible fatigue today, after last night. Staggering about the house exhausted. Now I can understand why soldiers fall asleep in trenches….

  A mess in the backyard. Waves came within six feet of the house. Many people did evacuate along the river—some needlessly, it turned out. Others were badly flooded.

  (Unfortunately, after this near-flood we will never be worried again. The next time there are flood warnings neither Ray nor I will take them seriously.)

  My God, the sense of fatigue….

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  Another odd dream. A man in his fifties proposes that I write a novel about him, divided into segments that relate to his schedule of some kind—legal matters? I refuse, telling him I’m not interested.

  The teasing, playful nature of dreams—not sufficiently understood. Very few of them are really solemn, or even serious.

  Jack and Elena* have appeared in a number of dreams, four or five. Usually they appear separately. It’s obvious that their “story” isn’t complete. Once Elena was crying, appealing to me about something…her life with Jack wasn’t that peaceful, that rewarding. (But whoever said it would be?—she knew very well what she was getting into.)

  No, I can’t write any more about these people.

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  March 28, 1973. Teaching King Lear in English 115. Must write an essay on that terrifying, and in some ways merely terr
ible, play; must deal with the disturbing emotions it releases in me.* And the poor students!—two or three of the most sensitive ones have been really upset by its implications.

  Fantasies of the “retreat.” A character slips into anonymity, in order to explore the world.

  Berryman’s myopic self-praise.† His alcoholism and general misery were, he said, “the price you pay for an overdeveloped sensibility.” But I had always believed the man to be underdeveloped, with a very weak sense of others’ existences. The two times we met he seemed already dead—an inert, clayey substance, really quite frightening. He was drunk beyond drunkenness. So deathly, so chilling…. His poetry means very little to me

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  The writer’s need to be humble. After all, none of us invented the language.

  Read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Unfortunate style, cluttering up a perfectly irresistible tale. I wish she’d written about her own life, though—the life of a nineteen-year-old girl genius.

  June 15, 1973.…Eve of my thirty-fifth birthday. I feel both ancient & very young. A sense that I’ve been this way before.