“I read every one of her books,” said a woman in the Quick Center lobby, in reference to Joyce Carol Oates , the 43-time published author and guest speaker of the 6th Open VISIONS Forum lecture of the school year. In presenting Oates to the University community, Daniel Snydacker, executive director of the Pequot Library, the co-sponsor of the event, realized that the crowd would not need 43 works to realize the greatness of Oates – he simply offered the crowd a “taste of Oates.” “She is no Jane Austen … perhaps more of a Mike Tyson,” said Snydacker, of the author’s serious style of prose. Oates said, “It is interesting to be in a public forum because writers for the most part are perceived to be held in solitary confinement.” One of the interesting creatures that Oates discovered in her journey were the wild turkeys that roam the Fairfield campus, with Open VISIONS Director, Philip Eliasoph, citing that “those turkeys might be the topic of her next novel.” Oates read the crowd a short prose about a 14-year-old girl trying to escape a potential pedophile. Sharing the prose was written in her 20’s,. the 69-year-old said the prose dated herself by using such phrases as the “Mallowup” candy-bars.
Perhaps one of the take-away messages that Oates presented to the crowd was that you are never too old to be read to. “The short prose captured the essence of both the characters, because both knew where it was going,” said Anthony Nicoletti ’10. “It created a unique tension.” Jen Martin ’10 was surprised at how well Oates was able to relate to the crowd. “She was able to relate things so that I could understand them at a personal level,” Martin said. Though it has been quite some time since her college years, Oates has remained in Academy all her life. After graduating Syracuse, Oates went on to teach at the University of Detroit, another Jesuit school. She would go on to be nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes. She won a National book award for “them.” After her speech, Oates was interviewed on stage by another literature professor, Johanna Garvey, Associate Professor and former chair of the English department. When Garvey asked Oates about her use of pseudonyms or pen-names, Oates said sometime you have be someone else to explore another topic.
When Garvey asked Oates if failure breeds success in her life, Oates, a notable fan of boxing and author of an essay ‘On Boxing’ pointed to many boxers who have risen only to fall, such as the physical problems of Muhammad Ali, and the total collapse of none other then Mike Tyson. When an audience member asked Oates where she gets her odd characters from, the witty author responded with: “Let me take you to Williamsville, N.Y.,” where she group up in a modest background.
Oates said the area was much different from Princeton where she lives know, teaching creative writing at Princeton University. The great author’s career started with her childhood dream book, Alice in Wonderland but Oates made the Quick Center her own wonderland of literary exchange on Sunday afternoon.
Leave a Reply