Them

Rating:
Summary: Revolutionary realism
Review: "Them" has an intriguing and even risky premise: Joyce Carol Oates, who was teaching literature at the University of Detroit in the 1960s, receives some rambling, emotionally revelatory letters from a former student and fashions a novel out of this poor girl's life story. The girl was not a good student--Oates had flunked her, and it's easy to see why if her epistolary manner indicates the quality of her literary essays. But the passion and the pain in her letters cry out for a story to be told, one that is probably more interesting than any that could have been furnished by a better, happier pupil.

The girl is given the pseudonym of Maureen Wendall, and "Them" is the saga of her dysfunctional lower-class family from 1937 to about 1966. A laundry list of domestic turmoil--rape, murder, attempted murder, assault, accidental death--devastates the Wendalls as they migrate throughout the poor neighborhoods of Detroit, chasing solvency and dignity in vain. Her older brother Jules, a restless, rebellious spirit, can't stay away from bad influences or out of trouble, and her younger sister Betty is a mischievous tomboy whose delinquency seems to arise from familial neglect--they only take notice of her when she's doing something wrong, which of course is most of the time.

Maureen herself is bright enough and behaves well; she likes to read and makes the public library her sanctuary, where in the permanence of the words of Jane Austen novels she finds a comforting reality lacking in the instability of her home life. Her innocence is destined to falter, however; as a teenager, she begins meeting an older man and accepts money for having sex with him. When her ogreish stepfather suspects her of misdeeds, he beats her severely, incapacitating her to a bedridden, emotionally withdrawn state for about a year.

Jules, in the meantime, has quit school and begun living the life of a job-hopping, potentially dangerous drifter, part Frank Chambers, part Studs Lonigan, and (to be kind) a little part Tom Joad. He is hired as a chauffeur by a blundering rich (or once-rich) man named Bernard and through him meets his pretty niece, Nadine, a girl residing in an affluent suburb representing a world he has never before been able to attain. She runs away with him, and what happens to them on their cross-country journey and then afterward is too sad to be comical and yet too absurd to be tragic in the classical sense; too gross for the conventions of fiction, it could be expected to happen only in real life.

Oates culminates this novel filled with various kinds of violence in a race riot, against the backdrop of which the ideological diatribes uttered by several characters newly introduced to the story, advocating large-scale social changes for the nation, seem oddly removed from the more private concerns of the Wendall family. But, after all, the Wendalls' privacy is impacted and influenced by the public force of human presence, the people we don't necessarily know: "them." Much of the novel is uncomfortable to read, not so much with regard to the physical violence as when the characters use abusive language to hurt each other, but it resonates with a power and realism rarely seen in fiction.


Rating:
Summary: makes me want to shoot myself...
Review: ... but I love this book. jules, maureen and loretta are the most foolish, pathetic and delusional narrarators that you will ever come across. almost every sentence is painful and will make you want to slap some sense into them. unfortunately, after a while you wind up thinking like them, and in the end you actually agree with their unsettling point of view. This book will haunt you..

Rating:
Summary: not as good as you must remember this or we were the mulvane
Review: Although this work shows Oates in surprisingly good early form, her sentences don't have the rich roll of her later work. I feel had she written the same plot today, she could have accomplished it in fewer pages with much richer language. Also some of the more squalid details she could have presented with less shock value (See "because it is bitter..." for a great example of what I mean). She wrote this when she was only 30 and it gives every indication of the master she was to become. In my opinion, Oates is the greatest living female novelist in English.

Rating:
Summary: 5 star book, 5 star edition!
Review: Before I read 'them' all that I had read by Mrs. Oates was 'We Were The Mulvaneys' which did not impress me all that much. Hearing all the hype about Oates being such a great writer, I thought that I should give her another chance. So I picked 'them' because it won the National Book Award.
I was amazed. With this work Oates proves that her writing stands well next to works by Doestoevsky, Hesse, Mann and most other great writers. This is definetly one of the top ten books written in the twentieth century, and perhaps the best book written post-war twenteith century.
Many times American's ask themselves, "what does it really mean to be an American?" One thing that this book does is answer that question in a very harsh way.
Are the characters in this novel hero's, or are they villans? Are there any hero's in the world? What is a hero, is a hero defined by one act of goodness, or is a hero defined by an unatural perfection? All of these questions arise in your mind as you read this incredible thought provoking novel.
The novel is very true to life, it is about a lower-class family in Detroit. Life for them is a struggle, a long obstacle leading to the comfort which is death.
The book is not one that will lift your spirits; it is very depressing. But sometimes a book like this is nessesary.

I highly reccomend buying the Modern Library Edition to anyone who is planning to buy the book. It is only a few dollars more and it has a lot to offer. It is the new revised edition and it has a very nice afterward by the authour. The Afterward is excellent! I'm not sure the Paperback edition has the extras that the Modern Library Edition has. But just buy the book in whatever edition.

Now I will rate the book from a scale of A-F in some certain catagories as I do in my book reviews:

Character Devolpment: A
Plot: B+
Thought Provoking: A+
Suspense: A-

With an overall grade of an A, you can see that this has become one of my favorite books.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites!
Review: I first read Them in the mid '80's and was drawn to read it again in the mid '90's.I have just read it again in the year 2002. I can't seem to forget these charactors.They haunt me.This is my all time favorite American novel and I would encourage everyone to read it at least once.

Rating:
Summary: Them
Review: I was assigned to read this book for my English Honors class. It was very painful. I have never read anything by Oates before. It was very difficult for me to get through the book because she left so many things hanging. Something happens and then you find yourself in another setting and what happened back there. My English teacher felt it was worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Not a fun book but fabulous acomplishment
Review: Oates can write. She has a steam of consciousness style that makes you feel like you are in the head of a person???and, when her characters happen to be a bit off kilter--Oates takes you off kilter with them. This isn't linear story telling--it is a compiling of information about lives with an undertone of helplessness. What is happening won't change, can't change because there is not a bit of reflection going on -- the characters just spin into the future with no plan, no goals, no idea why their lives are as they are and making no effort to change. Oh they spout platitudes but the distance between even their limited idea about what is right and wrong and their actions is enormous. Well, one character in this story does aim to change--and boy does she go through a gauntlet of painful changes to try and find her way out???eventually she must separate from 'them'--but is her life really so different? She stumbles on the power of a young female???s sexual attractiveness and she uses it as a kind of ticket out. But she is far from a model showing the way out of the miasma of life on the steep edge of poverty. ???Them??? is not a fun book to read. It is hard to take at times...just like many of Oates stories--not because it is boring, or hard to understand, but because it is a bit too real. Oates makes the pain found in the ordinary slap you around. Who wants to get slapped around anyway?? Well, lots of people tell me they can't read Oates--she is too heavy. Yes, she loads her stories--there is nothing light about them--at least none that I've read so far. But there is something she is doing that calls to anyone who cares about the world: She sets up shop in common places, with real people and then makes you say how can this be real--when you know it is--otherwise it wouldn't bother you. She writes real horror stories without in supernatural elements. You don???t need anything supernatural to scare yourself to death--real people create horror--and Oates makes us look ???them??? in the face. ???Them??? accomplishes that. No education, poverty, racism, violence, obsessions, unfilled needs these are the ingredients of horror fiction--and Oates stirs the pot with all of them and more. Read her. Think about what she is saying about human potential and what can happen to people who are left spinning and rotting in the empty corners of our land. Thank you Ms. Oates--for making us uncomfortable.

Rating:
Summary: A departure for Oates
Review: Them is a great book. Don't get my wrong. I enjoyed it very much and was fascinated by even the characters that didn't arouse much sympathy. But it also took me by surprise. As a fan of Joyce Carol Oates, this book was not what I expected. It's very down-to-earth without many of the gothic elements that can be found in her other novels, short stories, and plays. But that doesn't mean it isn't very dark in places as well. The story starts out in the early part of this century with Loretta - a teenage girl living in the inner city with her carousing brother and alcoholic, widower father. She is concerned mostly with having fun and meeting boys until her brother committs a murder that will change her life and the lives of her future family dramatically. The bulk of the story is centered around Loretta's son, Jules, who struggles with his family and the harsh environment of the city. The pace got a little slow in the middle, but it was appropriate for the lives of the characters. Real life doens't happen at a whirlwind pace for many, and one of the striking things about Them is how Oates captures the mundane nature of daily living even as life-changing events occur around the characters. So if you want to read Joyce Carol Oates save this book for another day and pick up Zombie or Foxfire instead. But come back to it

Rating:
Summary: Oates at her finest
Review: them, written at the beginning of Oates' illustrious career, remains as one of her finest, if not, her finest novel. Its a dark tale of love and passion that will keep you hooked until the very end. I guarantee you that, once you've read them, you'll start reading other works by Joyce Carol Oates.

Rating:
Summary: A Work Of Excellence
Review: This is one of Ms. Oates' earlier works set in Detroit.
It is a book of excellence as one generation is rolled into the other. A very true to life book where as the characters advance in reaching their destiny however small, they are always setbacks and stumbling blocks, not allowing them to see the light at the end of the tunnel, reminding us of the pathways we've walked before and are forever walking in. This was a very emotional book for me with great depth to the story line.

It is a long book and should be read with patience in order to get the gist of the Detroit the author penetrates in that century with it's poverty, racial and violent concerns. You won't forget Maureen Wendall who some will empathise with you see her desires and the things she yearns for with all her heart and soul.......and you won't forget her brother Jules either...intelligent and so very intricate you wonder what he is about to do next with that brain that never stops ticking. I cannot help saying what a brilliant writer I have found in Ms. Oates, and I encourage those who love her as much as I do to try THEM. I recommend it to all her favourite readers who haven't read this one as yet.

Nutface
March 2nd, 2002.