Book Talk
- Catherine Moscatt
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
I am in the middle of several books/ audiobooks yet again. This month for book club we are reading The Psychopath Inside by James Fallon. It is about an average who discovers his brain scan indicates he is a psychopath. It is an interesting book and it touches on several other mental illnesses as well. For example he suffers from OCD at several points during the book. Actual OCD not just bulllshit some writers stuff in their book to make themselves seem more relatable or intriguing. I felt a connection with him even though I thought he was kind of a shit father and also a shit husband (he speaks about how his “flirtations” hurt his wife. Also “flirtations” is such a a vague term. Was he just dressing down an affair?). Then one of his colleagues suspects he is bipolar. And that is where he lost me as an ally.
Bipolar disorder has wreaked havoc all over my life from the time I was fifteen. Seriously there’s a clip of me on Facebook, manic as hell. I literally say “I think someone slipped something into my iced tea” Bipolar disorder has led to me cheating on really good guys. It has led to me spending at least a hundred dollars of shoes in one summer. It has led to heated fights between me and members of my family. It has led to delusions, hallucinations and a suicide attempt. And that’s just the manic part! But Fallon has a different POV. He says bipolar disorder is great and that it makes him feel euphoric all the time. He romanticizes it which I feel is very irresponsible. I stopped listening after that. I’ll finish the book. I just needed a break from it.
Today we are doing another author profile: Joyce Carol Oates
My Favorite Books:
Faithless: Tales of Transgression (short story collection)
Sourland (short story collection)
Black Dahlia and White Rose: Stories (short story collection)
Lovely, Dark and Deep (short story collection)
Beautiful: Stories (short story collection)
Obviously I like her short stories. I have tried full length novels especially Blonde but as of yet I am not prepared to make that investment.
Total Number of Books: 58 novels plus plays, novellas, short stories, poetry and nonfiction. It might take a lifetime to read her entire body of work.
Awards Ms. Oates has won:
PEN/ O. Henry Award: 1973, 1967
National Book Award for Fiction: 1970
Pushcart Prize
Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement
Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society 2019
Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel 1995
National Humanities Medal 2010
St. Louis Literary Award 1988
Rhea Award for the Short Story 1990
Commonwealth Award for the Distinguished Service 2003
PEN/ Malamud Award 1996
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award 2009
Helmerich Award 2002
Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, U.S. and Canada 1967
Bram Stoker for Best Fiction Collection: 2012, 2011
Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction
Facts:
She lived and taught in Detroit during the sixties among unrest where she set her book them among the slums
In 1965 she wrote a play that was performed. The headline read “Detroit Housewife Writes Play”
She wrote several suspense novels under the name of Rosamond Smith.
She was the valedictorian of her Syracuse University class in 1960
She now teaches writing at Princeton
Quotes from Ms. Joyce:
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”
“Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Faithless : Tales of Transgression
“Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.”
“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”
“And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.”
“Keeping busy" is the remedy for all the ills in America. It's also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed.”
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