Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates – review

Review originally published by the Guardian

January 14, 2014

There is no doubt that Joyce Carol Oates is an adept and fluent writer. Since publishing her first novel in 1964, she has written over 40 more, three of them published last year. She is a rare example of a prolific author who has managed to maintain her reputation as a serious literary novelist. As John Updike said, if the phrase "woman of letters" existed, Oates would be the person most entitled to it.

Set in the upstate New York town of Carthage, her latest work details the shock that runs through the Mayfield family when their dysfunctional 19-year-old daughter Cressida disappears into the desolate Adirondack mountains. As the community gathers to search for her in the wilds, evidence against Brett Kincaid, decorated Iraq war veteran and former fiance of the disappeared's beautiful sister, begins to grow.

We are intermittently shown flashbacks of atrocities the young corporal witnessed (and half-participated in) before he was "honourably discharged". His experiences in Iraq are confused with the present in Carthage, and the brutality of a conflict – so far from America – seems to invade the comfortable safety of the town: "wars were monstrous, and made monsters of those who waged them".

The plot takes bizarre and unexpected turns that – if you make it past the slightly laboured first 200 pages – keep you absorbed until the end. What at first appears to be a straightforward narrative, of a family torn apart by a loss caused by a distant war, develops into an exploration of violence in a much wider sense – psychological and emotional.

Carthage is an immensely proficient novel, with careful and elegant prose, and interesting experiments with form. Although it is hard to empathise with some of the characters, despite the time taken to relay events from each individual's perspective, this doesn't prevent it from being an intriguing and unpredictable read. Oates succeeds in portraying the complex damage done to the fabric of a society by war – no matter how far away it is.

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DAY'S NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS by Jorge Reyes

DAY'S NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS PRODUCT DETAILS PAPERBACK: 82 PAGES PUBLISHER: CREATESPACE INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING PLATFORM; FIRST EDITION EDITION (JANUARY 3, 2014) LANGUAGE: ENGLISH ISBN-10: 148121599X ISBN-13: 978-1481215992 PRODUCT DIMENSIONS: 9 X 6 X 0.2 INCHES Since his much-praised Rediscovering Cuba: A Personal Memoir, Reyes’s readers have come to expect one thing, the unexpected. This time he does it again with this new collection of poems that will grip you by their intensity and profundity. Day’s Night are poems that map the trajectory of the soul’s sojourn through the many pitfalls of love’s multiple consequences. There are many memorable poems in Day’s Night, making it difficult to choose a favorite. The second poem “Toss me now,” is filled with such isolation and anxiety that, when compared to “Death,” the last poem, one can almost live the pathos from whence these stemmed. Day’s Night are poems to be treasured for years to come.

Reza Aslan’s New Book Hits No. 1 on Amazon

If that bizarre Fox interview with Reza Aslan was a viral marketing campaign, it was a stroke of genius. The day after an uncomfortable interview in which Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green repeatedly asked religious scholar Reza Aslan why Aslan, a Muslim, would want to write a book about Jesus, Aslan’s new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, has skyrocketed to No. 1 on Amazon. In the interview, Green accused Aslan of hiding his faith and asked him why he would be interested in the founder of Christianity. Aslan replied that he notes he’s a Muslim on page two and explains, slowly and clearly, what a scholar is.

Top 10 Atheism Books

The following books are a great start for anyone interested in learning more about atheism. This list is not in any specific order - all 10 books are educational, entertaining and effective at communicating the atheist position. Atheist web sites are welcome to link directly to this Top 10 Atheism Books list.
1	The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins Book Description Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes. He critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design," or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East—or Middle America.
2	Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills Book Description Clear, concise, and persuasive, Atheist Universe details exactly why God is unnecessary to explain the universe and life's diversity, organization, and beauty. The author thoroughly rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence - arguments based on logic, common sense, philosophy, ethics, history and science. Atheist Universe avoids the esoteric language and logic used by philosophers and presents its scientific evidence in simple lay terms, making it a richly entertaining and easy-to-read introduction to atheism. A comprehensive primer, it addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including: Is there proof that God does not exist? What evidence is there of Jesus's resurrection? Can creation science reconcile scripture with the latest scientific discoveries? Atheist Universe also answers ethical issues such as: What is the meaning of life without God? It's a spellbinding inquiry that ultimately arrives at a controversial and well-documented conclusion.
3	Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett From Booklist A century and a half after Darwin rattled religionists with his revolutionary theory of human origins, one of his disciples has intensified the challenge to faith by advancing an evolutionary account of religion itself. Weaving together research in anthropology, genetics, and psychology, Dennett argues that religion first emerged not as a divine gift but rather as a thoroughly natural adaptation for enhancing the reproductive success of the species. Even more provocatively, Dennett further argues that religion--like language--has subsequently evolved so as to ensure its own survival in the ceaseless winnowing of cultural mutations. The pious in most faiths will likely protest that this approach gives only the husk, not the spirit, of religion, but Dennett insists that his study will ultimately benefit society by exposing the myths that empower fanatical terrorists. Remarkably bold, Dennett's agenda includes plans for preventing overzealous parents from instilling their faith in their children and for deploying the technology of mass advertising to foster religious doubt. A book certain to spark heated controversy.
4	God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens From Booklist *Starred Review* God is getting bad press lately. Sam Harris' The End of Faith(2005) and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (2006) have questioned the existence of any spiritual being and met with enormous success. Now, noted, often acerbic journalist Hitchens enters the fray. As his subtitle indicates, his premise is simple. Not only does religion poison everything, which he argues by explaining several ways in which religion is immoral, but the world would be better off without religion. Replace religious faith with inquiry, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas, he exhorts. Closely reading major religious texts, Hitchens points to numerous examples of atrocities and mayhem in them. Religious faith, he asserts, is both result and cause of dangerous sexual repression. What's more, it is grounded in nothing more than wish fulfillment. Hence, he believes that religion is man-made, and an ethical life can be lived without its stamp of approval. With such chapter titles as "Religion Kills" and "Is Religion Child Abuse?" Hitchens intends to provoke, but he is not mean-spirited and humorless. Indeed, he is effortlessly witty and entertaining as well as utterly rational. Believers will be disturbed and may even charge him with blasphemy (he questions not only the virgin birth but the very existence of Jesus), and he may not change many minds, but he offers the open-minded plenty to think about.
5	The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris Book Description An impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes-heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion - an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world. Natalie Angier wrote in the New York Times: "The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated... Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."
6	Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris Book Description "Thousands of people have written to tell me that I am wrong not to believe in God. The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse." So begins Letter to a Christian Nation...
7	Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheistby Dan Barker From the Back Cover Losing Faith In Faith records Dan Barker's dramatic journey form devout soul-winner to one of America's most prominent freethinkers. After 19 years of preaching following his "calling" at age 15--including work as a missionary, ordained minister, associate pastor, touring evangelist, Christian songwriter and performer--Dan Barker "lost faith in faith." Today Barker, Public Relations Director of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., frequently represents freethought on the talkshow circuit and at personal appearances around the country. In Losing Faith In Faith, Barker explains why he left the ministry. He also offers a definitive, compelling analysis of why he rejects belief in a god and the claims of religion. He explores the fallacies, inconsistencies, and harm of Christian doctrine and theistic dogma. In its place, he issues an appealing and compassionate invocation of freethought, reason, and humanism. Losing Faith in Faith is both a challenge to believers and an arsenal for skeptics.
8	God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger Richard Dawkins, Author of the New York Times best-seller The God Delusion "Darwin chased God out of his old haunts in biology, and he scurried for safety down the rabbit hole of physics. The laws and constants of the universe, we were told, are too good to be true: a set-up, carefully tuned to allow the eventual evolution of life. It needed a good physicist to show us the fallacy, and Victor Stenger lucidly does so. The faithful won't change their minds, of course (that is what faith means) but Victor Stenger drives a pack of energetic ferrets down the last major bolt hole and God is running out of refuges in which to hide. I learned an enormous amount from this splendid book."
9	Atheism: The Case Against God by George Smith From About.com Is theism a reasonable and rational position, or can a better case be made for atheism and against faith in the existence of gods? The goal of George Smith's books is to demonstrate that irrational beliefs are in fact harmful and that theism and religion are prime examples of irrationality. The conclusion, then, is that both must be abandoned and new ways of thinking about the world adopted in their place.
10	Why I am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell Book Description Dedicated as few men have been to the life of reason, Bertrand Russell has always been concerned with the basic questions to which religion also addresses itself -- questions about man's place in the universe and the nature of the good life, questions that involve life after death, morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics. He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire. "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954. The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York. Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Veronica

Mary Gaitskill
Pantheon
Hardcover
240 pages
October 2005


Veronica is a sad, melancholy tale of love, sex, death, friendship, illness, and pain. Writing as though she is single-handedly redefining the genre of literary fiction in the disturbing yet exquisite Veronica, Mary Gaitskill has penned a compelling and persuasive story of a seemingly incompatible friendship in the age of AIDS.

Alyson first meets Veronica working as a temp for an ad agency in New York City. Initially finding her a little too forward, brash, and a little too hard to handle, Alyson is hesitant to befriend this slightly heavyset older woman who has difficulty making friends and is, at least to Alyson's eyes, an unmitigated fashion disaster. But a sympathetic connection forms between the two.

When Veronica confides that she has contracted HIV from Duncan, her self-confessed bisexual boyfriend, Alyson, with a mixture of pity, compassion, and perhaps even love, adopts this abrasive, prissy, uncompromising woman who doesn't know when to keep quiet,:"she has a lot of smart cracks stored up. She needed them, when she didn’t have them, she was naked and everybody saw."

But Alyson's friendship with Veronica is only part of the story. Gaitskill steadily charts Alyson's journey from her claustrophobic childhood in suburban New Jersey, complete with an uncommunicative, reserved father, a wayward, nervy mother, and two very ordinary sisters, to her time as a fashion model in the decadent Paris and Manhattan of the '80s - "the dumpy apartments full of sadomasochists, tattooed doorman in cave-like nightclubs, and strip mall bars for the beautiful club crowd."

We are first introduced to Alyson at fifty, the decadent hedonistic life of a model - the coke, the sex, the parties, and the beautiful people - a thing of the past. Now she is living a sad life full of pain; she has lost her looks and is on disability, plagued by chronic arm and neck pain. Only her best friend John is there to pity her, "a beautiful girl in a ruined face," forever broken with age and pain coming through the cracks.

It is only natural that Alyson should cling to something familiar, remembering her friendship with Veronica with a kind of whimsical regret. Veronica certainly wasn't the center of her life, but she was always there, the loyal person to fall back on. The recollection of her not only helps Alyson cope with her pain but also provides the story's central mirror image - while Alyson was carried way, "loving the rich things and the money and people kissing my *ss," Veronica's friendship ultimately provided the only solid bedrock of her life.

This novel is all about memory and the search for connection, perhaps even for love. Alyson aches for a meaningful relationship, for some kind of bond with someone. Her problem is that she's constantly looking at people in her life as objects without specific functions, circulating in a world where the physical beauty is all. She wants to know people and to love, but she has developed a "habit of distance" that has become so deep she doesn't know how to be with another person. Even when Veronica is near death's door, silently suffering, Alyson is quick to pass brittle, frail judgments upon her.

Most of the characters in Veronica are unlikable, but it is testament to Gaitskill's enormous talents as a writer that she can expose their very real human flaws yet create certain sympathies for their plight. Alyson is an utterly fascinating character; she seems to be suspended forever on an imaginary brink, eyes dimmed and looking at nothing. In Veronica, the author has created a complex women who gradually realizes that there is a senselessly "disordered world" that is "slowly being taken from her. "

The characters in Veronica are constantly living on the verge, but they also fully hold close their fates even if they are reluctant to do so, whether it is chronic pain, a life of bad luck, or even certain death from an incurable disease, or just plain sadness – "sadness brimmed; it bore up my hate like water bears ice and carried it away." Their complicated relationships and their lives in the big city are rife with distress, lonesomeness, and neglect. But for Alyson, hope is on the horizon, and you get the feeling that she'll be able to make her way in the world. The novel ends optimistically, an undeniable vestige of sanguinity in this profound work of contemporary literary fiction.


Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Michael Leonard, 2006

A Thousand Times More Fair

Joyce Carol Oates

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