The Tattooed Girl : A Novel (Oates, Joyce Carol)

Rating:
Summary: Subtle and enjoyable
Review: As a rule I tend to avoid books that list their title and then have a colon and the words "A novel" afterwards. If the target readers aren't going to be able to figure out it is a novel without help from the title, I figure that it can't be all that good. I made the rare exception with this book, because I enjoyed "We Were the Mulvaneys" by Oates and this looked like it might be decent.

The central characters in the book are Joshua Siegel and Alma Busch, the tattooed girl from the title. Joshua is a well educated, famous writer and is an heir to millions. He is reclusive and somewhat absent-minded, but is well liked in the community. Alma Busch is from a lower class background and has been severely abused by the men in her life. The crude tattoos that cover her body are the result of an abusive incident somewhere in her past that is never quite detailed.

The plot is fairly straightforward. Joshua Siegel hires the tattooed girl as his personal assistant, and becomes increasingly dependent upon her due to a debilitating neurological disorder. Alma secretly despises her employer, steals small items from his house and puts things in his food. Eventually, they grow closer to one another.

The tattooed girl and Joshua live in the same house but inhabit two different worlds. Both are ignorant of each other's lives. Joshua thinks that the tattoos are birthmarks, and hasn't the slightest comprehension of the tattooed girl's history or her private life. On the other hand, the tattooed girl is only semi-literate and has been taught a vicious and ignorant anti-semitism by her boyfriend. Although Joshua is very attracted to the tattooed girl, differences in class and background make it impossible for him to contemplate a relationship with her. On the hand, Alma sees the abusive manner in which others treat her as their way of recognizing her. For her, Joshua's absentminded kindness is a form of weakness, and a sign of how he views her as less than a person.

Both characters are prone to act without really understanding why they act. For a brief period, Joshua's neurological disorder goes into remission and he enters a manic, euphoric state. The remission ends, and after a bad visit with his doctor, he tells the tattooed girl that he is disgusted with her chewing gum, not recognizing that he is venting because of his frustation over his physical state. One evening, Alma crushes a glass and puts it in the casserole she is serving. Then she spills it on Joshua and afterwards eats part of it herself.

"The Tattooed Girl" contains a subtle discourse on the holocaust. Joshua is famous for a book he wrote on the concentration camps, and the tattoos on his employee are linked to the numbers stitched into the skin of the victims of Auschwitz and Dachau. Joshua may be the child of a concentration camp survivor, but the book suggests that the tattooed girl is more the proper heir to that legacy.

I really enjoyed this book. The ending is a little weak and both characters are a bit stereotyped, but this is the first work by Oates that I have been able to finish since "We Were the Mulvaneys".

Rating:
Summary: *Miss. O* O.K. I guess... *Miss. O*
Review: In this novel by Joyce Carol Oates, an aging ex-prodigy and author is in need of assistance, and starts to (secretly) try to find an assistant. After going through several interviews, Joshua Seigl isn't happy with any of the possible candidates. Seigl gave up searching until he met Alma Busch in a bookstore. She seemed like a good person for the job; although it turns out she is illiterate. This book tells the tale of this mixed-matched pair from a third-person writing of each of their views on their lives - interaction with each other and others.

I suppose if I were older, this book might be more appealing, for the writing is good. It is a bit advanced I guess - that or the stress of finishing the book before a deadline - for my age because it felt difficult to read at times. I recommend this novel to older, more advanced-level-reading students, but not to younger, less advanced level students.

-- >> Kathy White

Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 Stars: Flawed Souls Yearn to be Healed
Review: To say that JC Oates's THE TATTOOED GIRL is populated with flawed souls and monumentally flawed people is to understate the case. The two main characters, old-money wealthy and educated Joshua Seigl and Alma Busch (the tattooed girl of the title) are at the end their respective ropes: Seigl, a JD Salinger-type recluse living off the reputation of his first novel which deals with the survivors of the Holocaust, who can't quite bring himself to complete any of his many works in progress and Alma, a wanton, perpetually down-on-her-luck young woman who carries the marks of her past and of her lifestyle on her face and body.
THE TATTOOED GIRL is not by any means one of Oates's strongest recent works but it certainly has it's moments and patented Oatesian scenes such as this one dealing with food and eating: "Her rapidly chewing mouth...Saliva glistened in the corners..." It has always been interesting to me that Oates, thin and trim in real life, has always written of food and eating in such a manner: uncontrolled, sensually even orgasmically. And she does it here once again.
Seigl and Alma reach out for each other but not at the same time. In fact one of the weakest character motivations of this novel has to do with Anna's hate of Seigl because he is Jewish (which technically, he isn't having been born to a gentile mother) and her perceived notion that he thinks himself privileged: "Mostly that's why she hated him... he didn't know what he owned."
Throughout most of the novel Seigl is completely unaware of Alma's real feelings about him and Alma likewise of Seigl's towards her. The connection is not made until the last few pages when it is too late for both of them to revel in the kind feelings, love and ultimately the redemption of their love for each other.
THE TATTOOED GIRL is Oates at her very darkest. And even though the writing is often glorious and redolent with the aroma of truth, this is not Oates at her best: some of the characters are sketchy and could have been left out and some are retreads of characters from earlier novels, especially Alma. (Alma could be exchanged with Ingrid in MAN CRAZY or Anellia in I'LL TAKE YOU THERE. They are one and the same.)
But a good Oates novel is better than most authors best and anyone interested in contemporary fiction would be hard pressed to find better, more aggressive writing of this quality anywhere else.