Harper Lee: Like a Grimm’s Fairy Tale
On the occasion of Harper Lee’s death, Joyce Carol Oates considers her “astonishing” story via Twitter.
A Joyce Carol Oates Patchwork
On the occasion of Harper Lee’s death, Joyce Carol Oates considers her “astonishing” story via Twitter.
The immediate reaction on Twitter and in the traditional media was ironic indeed, though unsurprising: a massive stream of insults and threats. One could describe it as puritanical & punitive (in a joyous, celebratory kind of way). Ironic, too, that a parallel twitter conversation was happening on the topic of public shaming and free speech.
Lovecraft differs in degree but not in kind from racism/anti-Semitism of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Jack London, Hemingway & many, many more.
When Marilyn Monroe at 35 saw young Audrey Hepburn she knew her era was over; & when Ginzberg heard John Ashbery read, end of Beat era. —@JoyceCarolOates on Twitter
Disadvantage of novelists in politically charged times—a sympathy for diverse points of view will get you in serious trouble. @JoyceCarolOates on Twitter
Melville’s Ahab (19th century), Fitzgerald’s Gatsby (20th century)—our tragic American heroes to set beside Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear.
As the first sentence or paragraph in a novel is a (hidden) signal of all that is to come, so the first story in a collection is crucial.