I just finished reading The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. It was a bit better than okay. I’ve read several other novels by Oates and found her writing style to be absorbing, but… how do I put this? Is it fair to criticize fiction for being too contrived?
The Gravedigger’s Daughter tells the life story of a woman named Rebecca, born to German immigrants who have fled the Nazis to end up living in a cemetery in rural upstate New York. In the typical Oates fashion, Rebecca perseveres her humble and ultimately tragic upbringing. She gets involved with a charming man who turns out to be a monster, and perseveres this too. Rebecca continually perseveres again, and again, and ultimately she marries a millionaire and her son becomes a world-renowned pianist.
Oates’ aim was to create an epic centered around an unlikely heroine, but the result was a vacant, self-indulgent plot padded with rambling descriptions, obvious metaphors, and “come on, please” moments.
The book’s most intellectually pleasing moment appears in the unrelated P.S. section addendum that features an interview with Oates in which she states, “I think we are most influenced when we are adolescents. Whoever you read when you’re fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen are probably the strongest influences in your whole life.”
I have long felt that musical tastes are firmly rooted in adolescence, but I never considered that my tastes in reading have been similarly shaped. The two authors who captivated me most as a teenager were Jane Austen and Kurt Vonnegut. This may seem random, but Austen and Vonnegut do have something in common: Both employ a consistent narrative voice that guides and sometimes dominates their stories. As I read and re-read their books, Austen became a prim, hilarious, snarky spinster, while Vonnegut struck me as an eccentric, cynical, and wistful aging hippie. They were my friends, and I liked them, and I trusted them to tell me a good story.
Maybe that’s why I’m hard-wired to look for an author’s voice, someone who winks at my disbelief and shares my amusement, anger, joy, or sadness over the events and characters of which they write. Yet an author cannot be so heavy-handed that it is obvious where their sympathies lie. Ultimately, this is my issue with Oates. She readily betrays who she likes, who she dislikes, who she pities, and who she will dispose of. Her books lack complexity or nuance, and any resonance dims the moment that the pages are closed.
