Rape: A Love Story (Oates, Joyce Carol)

Rating:
Summary: Rape: A Story of Unrealized Love
Review: At 154 pages, Oates latest book can more properly be called a Novella than a novel, but a brilliant one nonetheless. It is hard to imagine, how a Rape could also be a love story, which is a reflection of the ingeniousness of the title. Yet Oates does in fact, develop a love story, through her protagonist, her narrator, and as Joyce would say herself, "her voice" in this work.

The protagonist is a twelve year old girl. In fact, the daughter of the victim. And here is injected an astonishing irony, that a victim, of the most heinous of crimes, can find a love, deeply buried in this horrid experience.

While Oates first chapter is clearly written in the style of Donald Barthelme, a style she used to argue against, but then adopted and adapted to her own special use, it is wonderfully graphic in its descriptiveness of the incident, the setting of the scene, and the preparation of the reader to take in the rest of the story.

Her psychological style, so reminiscent at times of D. H. Lawrence, continues to be fascinating, but yet, all the more so, through a 12 year old girl's eyes. And the girl in fact, has a love affair, in her mind, with her guardian angel, or so Oates would have us believe. And yet, clearly, it was in the eyes of that girl, an intense and indelible experience, as in some way or another, she continues to love her angel, for the rest of her life, never revealing it to public scrutiny, but only in her heart.

The book is truly a terrific sketch of a conceptual psychological interpretation of events, that even with its macabre and gothic elements is exquisitely constructed.

Rating:
Summary: Rape and Love. Polar Opposites.
Review: Finally, a novel that ends the way you want it to (almost). The spectre of shame overcome by heart felt feeling and compassion. Leave it to Joyce Carol Oates to dig into our innermost feelings about this most intimate issue.

I recommend this as a good read.

Rating:
Summary: This one will go to my must-reread pile!
Review: I admit that the title of this novella caught my attention. I have read and loved Joyce Carol Oates's short-story collections and I couldn't wait to read more of her stuff. Rape: A Love Story is one of the most thought-provoking novellas I've ever read. The darkness and poignancy of this story enthralled me from beginning to end. Teena McGuire is an attractive thirty-year-old widow and mother of a pre-teen girl. Her life is normal until the day she is gang-raped and left for dead. Now her life isn't the same as she disintegrates from the life as she'd known it. What's worse is that her twelve-year-old daughter is left to pick up the pieces. But the truly disturbing things arise when Teena is in the witness stand and in front of her attackers. There are various disarming twists throughout the story.

I have noticed that Oates likes to delve into rape and sexual abuse issues, but she has gone all out with this novella. The story is truly chilling and you don't know whether to cry or wish the characters the best. I wanted the attackers to pay for what they did more than anything -- that's an excellent indication that the story and its characters have touched you in a deep level. Oates has always made me care about the stories and characters, even in her short stories. This is one of the best books I've read this year and I cannot recommend this one enough. Rape: A Love Story is definitely going on my must-reread pile.

Rating:
Summary: "She had it coming. She asked for it."
Review: I've hesitated reading RAPE: A LOVE STORY since it was published; the idea of reading about a rape never constituted pleasure reading for me with any stretch of imagination. But to tell the truth, I was also intrigued by the subtitle "A Love Story". Something was telling me that Joyce Carol Oates was going to put an eccentric spin on a terrible sequence of events and for that I wasn't disappointed.

I read this novella in one setting and it was a very difficult and painful experience for me. Oates creates a typical situation in which the victim is ruthlessly blamed for her demise while the perpetrators receive the community's sympathy. In this rendition of this tale the victim has the backing of a renegade who takes matters into his own hands to right the wrongs of the faulty criminal justice system.

In retrospect RAPE: A LOVE STORY is worth reading and to a degree necessary, not just for fans of Joyce Carol Oates but also for individuals everywhere. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A short novel with a huge impact
Review: Joyce Carol Oates, the master of tales about hapless women victimized by men, has written a brilliant novella that brings this theme to a terrifying pinnacle in a story about rape, revenge, and love. Teena Maguire and her 12-year-old daughter Bethie are assaulted while walking home through a deserted park at night. Teena is brutally gang-raped and severely beaten while Bethie hides within hearing range of the violence. Bethie is able to identify several of the assailants. At the preliminary hearing, the defense attorney makes a fool of the deputy prosecutor and humiliates Teena on the witness stand. John Dromoor, the policeman who first arrived at the scene of the violence, takes a liking to Teena and Bethie and vows to help in any way he can to right the wrongs against them. Yes, this book is also a love story, but certainly not in the more conventional sense.

The story paints a powerful picture of the lingering after-effects of a horrible and violent crime. The friends and relatives of the rapists cast Teena as the instigator rather than the victim, and Teena becomes an outcast in her own town. She is so devastated that she wishes she had died instead of surviving the attack. Bethie finds that her identity has been irrevocably altered to that of the daughter of the woman who was gang-raped. She is now her mother's caretaker. The perpetrators are out on bail, and they continue to menace the victims. Bethie fears for her life since she was the person to identify the rapists.

This book is well written and the characters convincingly portrayed. The narration switches between the point of view of several of the main characters. The voice of Bethie is implemented in an unusual second person narrative. What makes this story most frightening is that rape victims can be, and often are, tormented by these same scenarios. In Oates' skillful hands, the psychological impacts are brought home in a frightening way. I recommend this story whether or not you are an Oates fan. It will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

Eileen Rieback

Rating:
Summary: I Didn't Really Get It
Review: Men are evil, and women...well that's another story. I didn't get it. Call me morbid, but I did rather enjoyed the death of the rapists. That's all I got to say on that.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Get Into It
Review: Oats has done it again. She has written a short, intense novella that treats a horrible topic in a haunting and beautiful way. Through Bethie's experiences we live her terror, and through Dromoore's revenge we share her relief. My only criticism is that the ending was too swift, too pat. Where the few weeks following the rape were described in excruciating detail, the time after (especially Teena's) is glossed over. You wonder if she ever knew what Droomoore did for her, and if not, how she coped.

All in all a worthwhile read, and one that will stay with you for a long time after.

Rating:
Summary: Please God Kill Me: A Plea for JCO's Pity
Review: The first time I was exposed to the vast sea of wreckage of interpretation of human emotion that is the writings of Joyce Carol Oates, I was trying to pass an AP exam. Since then, the mere murmer of her initials brings a tear to my eye, a shudder to my spine, and a heart attack to my cardio vascular system. Trust me, JCO (who by the way you guys, really wants you to know she is totally seperate from her work- TOTALLY SEPERATE, don't forget now sillies) will soon be receiving my vast medical bills to make up for the complete damage to my body.

Just by the title of "Rape: A Love Story", you know this is the biggest crock your clever little mind will ever have the insult of having it pass through your realm of consciousness. JCO is a crazy old woman who does not love you, dear readers. In fact, she is so clueless she would not know a good plotline, title, or literary technique if it bit her on the ass and danced around her house naked.

So, concluding, I beg of you to heed my advice, so that you may not one day end up a shattered soul, typing to you from the comfort of a bleached hospital cell, recovering from one of the many attacks on my body and mind from the vicious Medusa that is Joyce Carol Oates (or, the author formally known as Joyce Carol Oates). Save yourselves, do not read this book, or any book, by JCO, ever.

Rating:
Summary: Please God Kill Me: A Plea for JCO's Pity
Review: The first time I was exposed to the vast sea of wreckage of interpretation of human emotion that is the writings of Joyce Carol Oates, I was trying to pass an AP exam. Since then, the mere murmer of her initials brings a tear to my eye, a shudder to my spine, and a heart attack to my cardio vascular system. Trust me, JCO (who by the way you guys, really wants you to know she is totally seperate from her work- TOTALLY SEPERATE, don't forget now sillies) will soon be receiving my vast medical bills to make up for the complete damage to my body.

Just by the title of "Rape: A Love Story", you know this is the biggest crock your clever little mind will ever have the insult of having it pass through your realm of consciousness. JCO is a crazy old woman who does not love you, dear readers. In fact, she is so clueless she would not know a good plotline, title, or literary technique if it bit her on the ass and danced around her house naked.

So, concluding, I beg of you to heed my advice, so that you may not one day end up a shattered soul, typing to you from the comfort of a bleached hospital cell, recovering from one of the many attacks on my body and mind from the vicious Medusa that is Joyce Carol Oates (or, the author formally known as Joyce Carol Oates). Save yourselves, do not read this book, or any book, by JCO, ever.

Rating:
Summary: Literarily questionable, yet intriguing. . .
Review: With its disturbingly ingenuous title, Joyce Carol Oates incessantly surprises the reader by twisting the hidden agendas of humans and their messed-up truths, only to leave the reader gasping for breath in hopes the undeniably doomed fate is simply a dream.

?Rape: A Love Story? begins with scantily-dressed, sexy, white-trash widow Teena McGuire and her 12-year-old daughter Bethie taking the short-cut home, July 4th, through the park where they are groped, verbally attacked, and beaten. Bethie, with a dislocated arm, hiding in the boathouse, witnesses the gang-rape of her mother ?[ . . .] by the five drunken guys?unless there were six, or seven. . .?, and instinctually becomes her mother?s savior.

Oates follows her traditional motif of portraying two types of characters?the victimizers and the victims. As the only witness, Bethie identifies the victimizers in a line-up and soon a trial begins, while Teena, barely alive, recovers. Oates creates a marvelous, yet unsafe, haven exemplifying how an entire town, even the media ?basing their knowledge on rumors? turns its back on one family, and ultimately one woman, one child, and one grandmother; and how Teena denies, and eventually loses, boyfriend Casey who apparently can?t get over ?what-happened-to-Teena? on the Fourth of July.

?Rape: A Love Story?, effectively overshadowed with convoluted thoughts, puts one in perspective with the psychological windows of remembrance that victims of rape must slowly open to begin healing. But the question remains?will justice prevail? And, if so, in what form?

An explicit tale of a group of young men?s unwaning ardor and eventually a woman?s requited love. Literarily questionable, yet intriguing?simply for the notion of discovering its ending. For the weak-kneed reader, try hard-to-find (but easy-to-order) tale also by Oates, ?First Love?, for comparison in regard to the forced-forward approach in ?Rape: A Love Story? versus a metaphorical, yet more subtle approach.