Rating: 
Summary: Raw, uninhibited, excellent
Review: "Corky" Corcoran is not the best of men--a womanizer, not the most honest of politicians or businessmen, and a somewhat failing father and nephew--but as Oates develops Corky you begin to actually like him. You definitely will never love his character but you breathe with him, live with him, and feel his pain and his ecstacy over a non-stop Memorial Day weekend. Corky is always moving and sweet-talking in his expensive Caddy, in his expensive clothing, with a glass of Red Label whiskey in his hand. To tell of Corky's plight that drives him all over town during this Memorial Day weekend would be to ruin the reader's enjoyment of the book. Be warned though that Oates' prose is raw and uninhibited and speaks through Corky's male perspective. Her prose can be disconcerting at times with graphic expletives galore but get past that and you will find an excellent and engrossing novel that delves into Corky's psyche
Rating:
Summary: Raw, uninhibited, excellent
Review: "Corky" Corcoran is not the best of men--a womanizer, not the most honest of politicians or businessmen, and a somewhat failing father and nephew--but as Oates develops Corky you begin to actually like him. You definitely will never love his character but you breathe with him, live with him, and feel his pain and his ecstacy over a non-stop Memorial Day weekend. Corky is always moving and sweet-talking in his expensive Caddy, in his expensive clothing, with a glass of Red Label whiskey in his hand. To tell of Corky's plight that drives him all over town during this Memorial Day weekend would be to ruin the reader's enjoyment of the book. Be warned though that Oates' prose is raw and uninhibited and speaks through Corky's male perspective. Her prose can be disconcerting at times with graphic expletives galore but get past that and you will find an excellent and engrossing novel that delves into Corky's psyche
Rating:
Summary: Corky Corcoran lives and dies high off the hog.
Review: Corky Corcoran is a most memorable progentitor of that freneticAmericanenergy which promises to liberate and destroy us all. Through one exhausting and hyperactive weekend we follow the doomed playboy/businessman/drunk to the very point of his destruction and beyond in a dramatic tour de force which is all the more powerful because in it we see ourselves again and again and again. Many American writers today would chronicle the rise and fall of Americans. Ms. Oates succeeds in showing us the rise and fall of ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: A GOOD BOOK
Review: I found the book hard to get into, but yet one I had to finish reading once I did,,,The writing did remind me somewhat of Daniel Steel, and yet Joyce has another touch of her own . ..interesting combination. ..If you liked this book, or want to read one that goes straight to your heart, read Stolen Moments by Barbara Jeanne Fisher. . .It is a beautiful story of unrequited love. . .for certain the love story of the nineties. I intended to give the book a quick read, but I got so caught up in the story that I couldn't put the book down. From the very beginning, I was fully caught up in the heart-wrenching account of Julie Hunter's battle with lupus and her growing love for Don Lipton. This love, in the face of Julie's impending death, makes for a story that covers the range of human emotions. The touches of humor are great, too, they add some nice contrast and lighten things a bit when emotions are running high. I've never read a book more deserving of being published. It has rare depth. Julie's story will remind your readers that life and love are precious and not to be taken for granted. It has had an impact on me, and for that I'm grateful. Stolen Moments is written with so much sensitivity that it made me want to cry. It is a spellbinder. What terrific writing. Barbara does have an exceptional gift!
Rating:
Summary: The three days I spent as a middle-aged man.
Review: I have never read an author as versitile as Ms. Oates. She must have been reincarnated millions of times to understand human nature as she does. "What I Lived For" and "Mayra" are my favorite books by her, though they could not be more different. Oates transported me into the body of Corky Corcoran; so whatever my lifespan, tack on the 50 years I spent as Corky and understand that I know what it is to be a man.
Rating: 
Summary: What's the fuss about?
Review: I normally enjoy Oate's work, especially her editing and short stories, but this book is weak. It's incredibly predictable, fantastically boring, and was a struggle for me to finish. The only redeeming feature is that it is a fairly accurate portrayal of male motives to be written be a female
Rating: 
Summary: Just another brick in the wall - a foreigner's perspective
Review: I read "What I Lived For" in Polish several years ago when it was freshly translated and published in a deluxe hardcover series in Poland. My impressions faded a bit in their freshness since that time, but I still remember what tickled me while reading this novel. Never having been to America beforehand, I tried to form the image of this country based on literature, motion pictures and third-hand information coming from people of my cultural heritage who have been there already. This novel by Joyce Carol Oates helped me form the initial expectations, adding just another brick in the wall of expectations, to borrow a phrase from Roger Waters. Much like the Floydian Wall, that house of cards fell down and disintegrated almost from the very first day of my visit to America, but after several years spent here, I think that if nothing else, Oates's novel is about the only remaining bastion of my old impressions. I still perceive the fictional world of Oates as representative for America, or to be precise, a slice from the overall cake of a picture. Her fiction, though never being pompous or in-your-face-yankee-style patriotic quasi-fiction of the engaged kind, it serves quite well as a door to America, to the anxieties specific to the upstart middle class, an endemic layer of the American society half of the country aspiring to, the newcomer generation in particular, the other half having just outgrown it and moved forward. There is a multitude of possible answers to a trite question what makes America so special, what makes it a magnet attracting people from all over the world. "What I Lived For" is one of these answers, and a compelling one at that. The book starts off with a brutal scene several decades ago, and we are introduced to the life of one "Corky" Corcoran, a son of the relatively poor Irish neighborhoods, whose life will soon turn about to be one long quest in the search for an escape valve from the maze of the labyrinth of his complexes, the inferiority complex with financial grounds being one of the most prominent ones. Corky moves upward, and as soon as he reaches one rung higher in the social ladder, he turns and faces his thus-far perfectly acceptable peers in condescending manner. As soon as he becomes a locally recognized man of moderate power, he decided to reach down to the bottom, and familiarize with the masses. There are few scenes in literature that depict the snobbish artificiality and resulting embarrassment better than many scenes in the second half of "What I Lived For". Oates looks very critically at the typical new-American upstarts for whom grace and tact are lost art. America attracts people of specific personality; by the laws of nature it is a self-selection process. The worst kind, and the most brilliant kind are attracted to come to that "golden land of opportunity". And then the second and third generations are not free from their inferiority complex, as this novel illustrates. While it's only one aspect of the American phenomenon, it is not a negligible one, and that is one of the reasons why this particular book is translated and popular in Europe. While the details fade away in time, the overall impression is long-lasting, and should you happen to be more familiar with the specifics this novel is rich with, the more sense it makes. Joyce Carol Oates has written a thought-provoking book that bitterly asks questions few people seem willing to answer.
Rating:
Summary: Just another brick in the wall - a foreigner's perspective
Review: I read "What I Lived For" in Polish several years ago when it was freshly translated and published in a deluxe hardcover series in Poland. My impressions faded a bit in their freshness since that time, but I still remember what tickled me while reading this novel. Never having been to America beforehand, I tried to form the image of this country based on literature, motion pictures and third-hand information coming from people of my cultural heritage who have been there already. This novel by Joyce Carol Oates helped me form the initial expectations, adding just another brick in the wall of expectations, to borrow a phrase from Roger Waters. Much like the Floydian Wall, that house of cards fell down and disintegrated almost from the very first day of my visit to America, but after several years spent here, I think that if nothing else, Oates's novel is about the only remaining bastion of my old impressions. I still perceive the fictional world of Oates as representative for America, or to be precise, a slice from the overall cake of a picture. Her fiction, though never being pompous or in-your-face-yankee-style patriotic quasi-fiction of the engaged kind, it serves quite well as a door to America, to the anxieties specific to the upstart middle class, an endemic layer of the American society half of the country aspiring to, the newcomer generation in particular, the other half having just outgrown it and moved forward. There is a multitude of possible answers to a trite question what makes America so special, what makes it a magnet attracting people from all over the world. "What I Lived For" is one of these answers, and a compelling one at that. The book starts off with a brutal scene several decades ago, and we are introduced to the life of one "Corky" Corcoran, a son of the relatively poor Irish neighborhoods, whose life will soon turn about to be one long quest in the search for an escape valve from the maze of the labyrinth of his complexes, the inferiority complex with financial grounds being one of the most prominent ones. Corky moves upward, and as soon as he reaches one rung higher in the social ladder, he turns and faces his thus-far perfectly acceptable peers in condescending manner. As soon as he becomes a locally recognized man of moderate power, he decided to reach down to the bottom, and familiarize with the masses. There are few scenes in literature that depict the snobbish artificiality and resulting embarrassment better than many scenes in the second half of "What I Lived For". Oates looks very critically at the typical new-American upstarts for whom grace and tact are lost art. America attracts people of specific personality; by the laws of nature it is a self-selection process. The worst kind, and the most brilliant kind are attracted to come to that "golden land of opportunity". And then the second and third generations are not free from their inferiority complex, as this novel illustrates. While it's only one aspect of the American phenomenon, it is not a negligible one, and that is one of the reasons why this particular book is translated and popular in Europe. While the details fade away in time, the overall impression is long-lasting, and should you happen to be more familiar with the specifics this novel is rich with, the more sense it makes. Joyce Carol Oates has written a thought-provoking book that bitterly asks questions few people seem willing to answer.
Rating:
Summary: This book has stayed with me.
Review: I'm a big fan of Joyce Carol Oates, but this book was much better than I thought it would be, and has remained in my thoughts though I read it more than a year ago. Corky Corcoran is a fascinating, tragic character and his story is alternately repulsive and compelling. I loved this book.
Rating:
Summary: Weird combination of great writing and pop sleaze
Review: Joyce Carol Oates is a terrific writer, and some of the passages in this book are incredibly powerful. However, whenever the topic turns to sex and romance, her prose becomes embarrassingly commercial, excessive, predictable, and gushy, kind of like Danielle Steele on speed. The character of Corky Corcoran is realistic in some ways, but when she ultimately presents him as some kind of macho superstud hero, the book takes an irrevocable turn toward being a disappointment.
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