Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Characters Worth Knowing
Review: First off, I find it hilarious when people criticize Joyce Carol Oates' work for being overly long... The business of every day living is often interrupted mercilessly by tangents out of our control. Oates' writing often takes on that characteristic as it delves into the thoughts and feelings of its main characters. Yes, it often takes away from the urgency of the plot, but the people in Oates' books are important and you get to know them at their pace.This brings me to her newest novel, Middle Age. What's fascinating about this book is that the main character, Adam Berendt is killed off in the first few pages of the book. The aftermath of his fatal accident sets off a chain of events among his social circle which is comprised of the upper crust of an upscale enclave in New York State. During this examination of relationships, the plot often takes a number of Oates' normal tangents. At times, it's uncomfortable but it exposes you to the same state of mind shared by the characters. The reactions and subsequent foibles of these charaters is memorable and worth every minute you spend with this book. Sure, some of these characters are vapid and have very little to offer the world but there's value in reading what happens to them. Others become so twisted based on the death of Adam Berendt that they come close to throwing away their lives. The book is billed as darkly comical but I rarely laughed because I saw so many glimpses of real life in these people. Some of it was inspirational, a little bit of it was funny, and some of it was disturbing. In short, it's a lot like many of her other books. The only downside of the book was after I finished and asked myself what she was trying to say in writing this book. The overall ending and message left me a bit empty, although it could be described as being somewhat positive. The future for many of the characters in this book, much like the future many ofus face in similar situations, is somewhat unclear and I don't think Oates' provided a strong sense of message or purpose. That being said, I still heartily recommend this book much like I would for many of her books. The main body of the book reveals a lot about human nature and relationships and the stress brought on by tragedy. This book is a winner but given it's ending I'm interested in seeing which direction she takes in her next work.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful, thought provoking work...
Review: I enjoy Oates' short fiction, but never have really liked her novels. She piles on the details, is unerring and insightful, but somehow, I just can't care about the characters. They are among the world's most boring people, seen through a haze of tranquilized accuracy. They are rich, but have dull thoughts, dull lives, dull problems. The few who think of the world beyond themselves have dull thoughts about somehow doing things differently. I kept thinking, so what? while reading about their lives. So what? Who cares? This is just not interesting enough to be this long. On the positive side, Oates' style is to keep piling on the accurate anesthetized details, so it really is okay to get bored and skip around. This isn't a book that needs to be read from beginning to end. You won't miss anything by dipping in here and there and hoping for a quick character profile in which Oates names designer names (shoes, suits, jewelry, handbags, autos). It is a bit telling that her idea of an inspirational, somewhat disreputable artist-type is secretly a millionaire, but likes to live in a messy house. The fiction, and maybe the author herself, is kind of insulated from reality, although she dips nervously down toward it from time to time.
Rating: 
Summary: Characters you don't really care about.
Review: I enjoy Oates' short fiction, but never have really liked her novels. She piles on the details, is unerring and insightful, but somehow, I just can't care about the characters. They are among the world's most boring people, seen through a haze of tranquilized accuracy. They are rich, but have dull thoughts, dull lives, dull problems. The few who think of the world beyond themselves have dull thoughts about somehow doing things differently. I kept thinking, so what? while reading about their lives. So what? Who cares? This is just not interesting enough to be this long. On the positive side, Oates' style is to keep piling on the accurate anesthetized details, so it really is okay to get bored and skip around. This isn't a book that needs to be read from beginning to end. You won't miss anything by dipping in here and there and hoping for a quick character profile in which Oates names designer names (shoes, suits, jewelry, handbags, autos). It is a bit telling that her idea of an inspirational, somewhat disreputable artist-type is secretly a millionaire, but likes to live in a messy house. The fiction, and maybe the author herself, is kind of insulated from reality, although she dips nervously down toward it from time to time.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I feel humbled trying to write anything about this wonderful novel. How can I, a mere mortal, say anything about Joyce Carol Oates' incredible writing? How can I say anything meaningful about the twists and turns that the plot takes? The suprises that lurk? In the opening pages, I didn't like Adam. Nope. Not at all. I thought he was a fake, a fraud, a man who played with the hearts of women and was untrustworthy to men. His small redeeming quality was that he owned a Siberian mix- a rescued dog at that. No one who lives with the wily ways of a Sibe can be all bad. :-) He started redeeming himself to me a little by saving the child, but only a little since she would have been saved no matter what he did. When Marina Troy came into the picture, I thought she was overdone and overly dramatic. But then, *more* women came in and I started to really wonder about the man. Joyce Carol Oates can write like no one else and her characters move through so much and are so much themselves. There is tragedy and joy- there is complexity. I have a hard time putting down anything she's written. this novel isn't as dark as "We were the Mulvaney's" but it is nearly as powerful.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I feel humbled trying to write anything about this wonderful novel. How can I, a mere mortal, say anything about Joyce Carol Oates' incredible writing? How can I say anything meaningful about the twists and turns that the plot takes? The suprises that lurk? In the opening pages, I didn't like Adam. Nope. Not at all. I thought he was a fake, a fraud, a man who played with the hearts of women and was untrustworthy to men. His small redeeming quality was that he owned a Siberian mix- a rescued dog at that. No one who lives with the wily ways of a Sibe can be all bad. :-) He started redeeming himself to me a little by saving the child, but only a little since she would have been saved no matter what he did. When Marina Troy came into the picture, I thought she was overdone and overly dramatic. But then, *more* women came in and I started to really wonder about the man. Joyce Carol Oates can write like no one else and her characters move through so much and are so much themselves. There is tragedy and joy- there is complexity. I have a hard time putting down anything she's written. this novel isn't as dark as "We were the Mulvaney's" but it is nearly as powerful.
Rating:
Summary: The master at work
Review: I just finished reading this wonderful novel, and I can only say it reinforces once again my belief that Joyce Carol Oates is simply the best writer working today in America, a towering figure among her peers. This is fascinating character study, a love story, a mystery and a gothic metaliterary game, all in one explosive cocktail. Just the sheer power of her craft, the crisp and masterful writing is a pleasure to experience, page after page. Few novels bring us this astounding moral clarity, this richness of character yet retain the breezy quality of a page turner. Lots of fun, and even more lots of talent in display here. Jump without a parachute.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, thought provoking work...
Review: I loved this book by Joyce Carol Oates. It was very insightful about the lives that the rich and beautiful live in the city, and surrounding 'country-side'. She provided such an accurate example of the relationships and expectations husbands and wives, and parents and children have for each other and place upon each other to achieve the lifestyle and keep up the image of the advantaged class. The author painted an realistic picture of life on the Hudson, but left the reader with enough unanswered questions to make us search inside ourselves and our beliefs for the answers... What is loving someone about? Is it loving the person we believe them to be, or adoring the person they truly are? What is an affair? Is it the physical act of loving another person, or is the obsession and fantasizing about an intimate relationship with this person? Is it just an insatiable need to be in the presence of the 'loved one'? And finally, if your life ended tomorrow through an act of heroics, or an accident...how many lives would be changed or effected by you not being present in their world? Is anyone really known for who they truly are, or by what people believe is their truth? This turned out to be a novel that got better with every page!!
Rating:
Summary: Middle Aged Insight
Review: I worship Joyce Carol Oates. I am amazed by her insightfulness, by the complexity of her characters, and by the sheer quantity of her work. Her subjects range in class and income from the disgruntled marginal (FOXFIRE) to the seemingly contented middle class (WE WERE THE MULVANEYS) to the wealthy. MIDDLE AGE takes on the wealthy, excluding as she says in her preface, "(her) Princeton friends, who are nowhere in these pages." Salthill-on-Hudson is a picturesque suburban village half an hour from Manhattan. It's residents are all beautiful, rich, and middle-aged. The only obvious misfit -- the mysterious sculptor Adam Berendt -- is a breath of fresh air in a stifling environment. His sudden half-heroic death while attempting to save a child from an overturned boat is a shock wave that reverberates through the community. Those affected include sleek lawyer Adam Cavanagh who lies to save Adam's reputation, sculptress and book store owner Marina Troy to whom Adam bequests a second chance for an artistic life, smug Lionel Hoffmann bent on reclaiming his youthful vibrancy, fragile Camille whose life seems empty without the wandering Lionel, and crazed Augusta Cutler who is determined to make a new start. Be prepared to laugh and reflect.
Rating: 
Summary: Very observant not insightful, racist, a chair at PRINCETON?
Review: JCO can write. At first I was stunned by what I thought were insights, those flat characters I thought would reveal something after a series of Middle Aged crisis provoked by the death of Adam (who was whatever each wanted him to be). THEN, the book went on, the characters became flatter, their middle aged crises revealed nothing, just the same superficial, racist, stereotypical spiritually free (although the usual hypocritical United States typical lip service paid to God)lives rearranged minutely - SIGNIFYING NOTHING. No critique just a thinly veiled endorsement hidden beneath the bitchy comments of a courtier. No philosophical reference (the Socrates references token to say least and with no resonance or am I stupid???? someone please correct me) no intellectual depth. NOTHING. The Middle Aged crises and the former lives stayed the same. Nothing revealed, not particularly to the reader and apparently not to the author. Her relationship to these people remains unchanged. Like Warhol I think. No critique, just bitchy envy which is really an endorsement of her subjects and the wish to be like them. Was it Du Pres who said her racist ex husband said those things, when a few minutes later she said something similar herself. Was it JCO saying this or her characters when the tale changes nothing no insight provided, no philosophical turnaround made, the last word is stasis. I was left surmising that JCO wishes herself, or does to live in Salthill on Hudson as an amalgam of her racist, botoxed, female characters. yuk.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Short of Great
Review: Joyce Carol Oates has the most impeccable ability for characterization that I have ever seen. She entertwines the reader with the characters emotionally and psychologically so well.. I read this and We Were the Mulvaneys and I felt that WWtM was pulling at your heartstrings just for the sake of doing it but I felt as though this book said a lot of profound things about BASIC human nature and human desires (all any of us really want is not to be lonely). I learned much and cared as much for the characters. I think that everyone should read this book sometime in their lifetime, if not for pure enjoyment than for how well it chronicles the study of who we are as the middle class (as you'd probably need to be to be able to buy books on the internet in the first place) americans, and under it all as human beings.
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