I don't think I'm alone in viewing essays as members of a somewhat lower caste than novels and non-fiction books. Maybe it's because I associate the essay with newspapers, and people like George Will who pretend to know more than their readers. I think the editors of this essay collection understood that popular conception, and tried very hard to fight it. In line with that fight, one of the organizing themes of this book seems to be ``Essays About Individual Experiences." True, many of the essays take individual experiences and move into a more general realm, but they're always grounded in the author's experiences. Contrast this with George Will - Trinity College undergrad, Princeton grad school in political science - writing essays about poverty and policy. There's more legitimacy - in my mind, anyway - in Richard Wright writing an essay about ``The Ethics of Living Jim Crow."

Many of the essays in this book, like Wright's, are on the subject of race in America. We have Zora Neale Hurston's ``How It Feels To Be Colored Me" (``Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How *can* any deny themselves the pleasure of my company! It's beyond me."); Alice Walker's ``Looking For Zora," on her attempts to find Hurston's lonely, abandoned, unkempt gravestone in Florida; Maya Angelou's ``I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" (later part of a book of the same name); Martin Luther King's ``Letter From Birmingham Jail"; and so forth. As the editors suggest, race has been one of the longest-running struggles in the United States; it shouldn't surprise us that it has produced works of such power. The autobiographical format of these essays particularly fits with their subject matter. That format works a lot better than, say, a collection of statistics (however truthful those statistics might be).

_Best American Essays_ is far more than a book about race, however. It contains some hilarious essays, like S.J. Perelman's ``Insert Flap `A' and Throw Away" (on his attempts to put together toys for his kids); an essay on bullfighting (Hemingway's ``Pamplona in July"); essays about suicide (``The Crack-Up" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, William H. Gass's ``The Doomed In Their Sinking", Edward Hoagland's ``Heaven and Nature"); Stephen Jay Gould on why humans seem to need to divide a complex continuum into a discrete beginning and end (``The Creation Myths of Cooperstown"); and on and on. All of them are almost crystalline in their density of information. All of them left me, after 10 or 12 pages, reeling as though I'd just set down a novel.

I'm particularly fond of William Manchester's essay memorializing the battle of Okinawa (``Okinawa: The Bloodiest Battle Of All"). I normally enter essays about war with a large dose of skepticism and revulsion, and this one was no different. ``Great," I thought, ``Manchester was a vet, so this will be another essay about the glory of armed combat." It is nothing at all like that. To use a nice vogue term, it is a deconstruction of what war really is, and what war has become over the centuries. It turned from 15-minute battles around the time of Agincourt to 10-month-long subwars of attrition during World War I. But let's look at those minutes-long battles, says Manchester:

``The dead were bludgeoned or stabbed to death, and we
have a pretty good idea of how this was done. ... Kabar
fighting knives, with seven-inch blades honed to such
precision that you could shave with them, were issued to
Marines ... You drove the point of your blade into a
man's lower belly and ripped upward. In the process, you
yourself became soaked in the other man's gore. After that
charges at Camlann, Arthur must have been half drowned in
blood."

The essay reveals war's pointlessness and the revulsion that mankind must feel in its presence. Coming from someone who fought on Okinawa, it carries more weight than all the world's pundits could ever bestow. The entire volume holds this authority. Since its contributors are also some of the most talented authors that the U.S. has ever known, there's no reason not to buy this astonishing work.

Since I am studying to be an English Teacher, I found the reading of the essays to be very useful in my studies. They helped me to gain a better understanding of an essay. I was able to picture where the reader was and to feel their pain or joy in what they felt as they wrote the essay. I especially loved the essay from Langston Hughes and Mark Twain. I recommend this book to all, not only those who want to teach but also to those who want to enhance their reading and knowledge.

Many would regard the task of selecting "The Best American Essays of the Century" as a most daunting honor, to be approached with much nail biting and trepidation. Whatever you choose, dissenters will howl. Oates, no shirker when it comes to hard work and firm opinions, offers her choices with confidence. "My preference was always to essays that, springing from intense personal experience, are nonetheless significantly linked to larger issues."

Arranged chronologically, the essays lean heavily toward reflections on the human condition within American culture. The writing is, without exception, eloquent and insightful. Race is a pervasive theme and inspires the most powerful pieces. The best essay in the book is James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son;" visceral and intimate, full of pain, bewilderment and searing honesty, whole of heart and intellect. Pieces by Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Martin Luther King, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Langston Hughes, no matter how familiar, still shiver the soul with the conjunction of powerful intellect, soul-searing experience and the intimacy of an articulate voice.

My second favorite essay could hardly be more different. John Muir's "Stickeen," has it all: adventure, peril, pathos, the passion for nature and exploration, and the curious relationship between man and dog; a rousing good story.

Other themes place the writer in his contemporary culture; F. Scott Fitzgerald wrestling with despair, Jane Addams contemplating the downtrodden old women who comfort themselves with myths, Katherine Anne Porter internalizing the atom bomb, Tom Wolfe escorting a settled man to his rebellious son's slum apartment, Randolph Bourne exploring how his crippling disabilities have shaped his life, Mary McCarthy confronting anti-Semitism in a railroad club car.

Some find a kernel of sharp insight in a childhood memory: James Agee recalling his undefined place in the tableau of a summer night, Eudora Welty on her early reading habits, E.B. White facing mortality while revisiting a boyhood camp with his son, Edmund Wilson taking stock of the old stone house in the bleak Adirondacks only to discover he has carried it with him all his life, Cynthia Ozick devouring books in her parents' depression-era drug store, Vladimir Nabokov probing the awakening of consciousness in his Russian boyhood.

There are literary essays, but they are not the strongest: T.S. Eliot on tradition in literature, Robert Frost on sound and meaning, Susan Sontag defining "camp." And there are gaps. Joan Didion's "White Album" explores the confusion of the 60s, but there are no real political essays. The women's movement, save for a didactic Adrienne Rich piece, might never have happened, ditto for Watergate and even World War I. There are only two war pieces: harrowing Vietnam reportage from Michael Herr and William Manchester's thoughtful response to the Okinawa War Memorial. The immigrant experience is represented by Richard Rodriguez' reflection on the pain and promise of becoming Americanized and Maxine Hong Kingston's poignant story of a shunned Chinese aunt, a long-ago suicide. Science is almost completely absent, save Stephen Jay Gould on the creation myth and Lewis Thomas' famous, brief essay "The Lives of a Cell." There's no political satire and no history, except as autobiography is history. But there are two essays dealing with suicide (William H. Gass, Edward Hoagland).

This is one person's careful collection of a century's important voices. All of the writers are well known, all have published at least one collection of essays, all of the pieces have been collected at least once before. Although there are a few humorous pieces (Mark Twain, S.J. Perelman, James Thurber), this is a sober and reflective collection, each essay the product of long thought.

The book would be a rich and valuable reading experience at any time, but is especially comforting during these somber, grieving days. This is paradoxical, since the best pieces are those that lay bare the country's worst injustice - racial prejudice. I expected to have trouble reading these painful essays, not wanting to feel angry or ashamed about my country right now, but it wasn't so. The unparalleled eloquence, the intimacy of these articulate voices, stand in such stark contrast to the vicious ignorance they've endured, that they hearten the reader by proving the strength and durability of the human heart.

One of America's finest authors, Joyce Carol Oates turns her attention to the story of nurse's aide Kathleen Hennessy and the cycle of abuse and indifference that dominates her life. Orphaned at a young age when her father is imprisoned for her little sister's death, Kathleen grows up quiet and seemingly untouchable in a series of inhospitable environments while
disaster waits at every turn. Kathleen is an archetype of the cowed young woman: possessing little enough intelligence, not really much given to introspection, lacking any confidence or self-esteem, able to learn what she is taught by breaking everything down into simple tasks, but never really seeing the big picture. Naturally men take advantage of her, but Kathleen won't let their degradations affect her calm demeanor. What she doesn't see is how living without love has warped her own personality. Again and again we see her lashing out at the innocent because she can't bring herself to confront the people who are really offending her.

Oates avoids melodrama in this powerful story by describing everything - even the most graphically gruesome scenes - in a very objective, detached, one could say clinical, narrative voice. Kathleen breaks these too into sequences of small but individual events so that she can more easily control, or ignore, or perhaps justify, the suffering that seems to permeate her entire world. We find ourselves wanting to forgive even her most wanton acts because we recognize how little she really understands of human kindness, never having experienced much of it. The world is full of women like Kathleen, who have been born into pain and violence, and who have no hope of ever understanding anything else. In this grim and almost gothic novel, Joyce Carol Oates weeps for those for whom life on Earth is not a rise, but a fall. This is not a pleasant book - most readers will be shocked, disgusted, or at the very least depressed by it, but the author clearly has tried to make a real difference in how we perceive the quiet, solitary, seemingly dispassionate woman who lives next door.

The more I read of Joyce Carol Oates, the more I get drawn in by her tales of women on the edge.

We have all seen women like Kathleen Hennessy. When you look at them with the eyes half-closed, they are almost fetching if you are feeling somewhat peckish; but alpha males just continue scanning for more promising material. (If the preceding sentence strikes you as callous, you may be wound up too tight to read this book.)

That Oates can take seemingly unpromising material like Kathleen Hennessy and, while being true to her subject, manages to show that, for many, life on earth hasn't risen far enough. The daughter of an abusive father and a runaway mother, Kathleen finds herself in a series of foster homes in the Detroit area, growing up hoping to become a nurse but ending up as a nurse's aide. She manages to attract a young physician named Orson Abbott, but the relationship progresses no further than her pregnancy.

Without giving away the ending, I can only say that Kathleen's solution to her problem is simple, methodical, and great material for a supermarket tabloid spread. In fact, certain events occur almost in passing that would make for a great cover story in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

Oates is second only to Anton Chekhov in her ability to take a seemingly uncomplicated person and show us depths we had never before imagined. Why, I wonder, is she not given the honor she deserves? I think many readers take her for granted because she is so prolific and writes mostly about women. Duh, so did Jane Austen!

This book, in the Gothic-Oatsian tradition, follows an trod-upon product of our society--yes, a female. Beaten nearly to death by her alcoholic father--in the same beating, her sister was killed--our "protagonist" decides she wants to be a nurse during her two week hospital recovery. She half-meets this dream by becoming a nurses aide, but she never makes a full emotional recovery. Another key event keeps her anger just beneath the surface to errupt when it seems safe for her to do so. This books twists through some small, dark avenues and ends on a scene that is unforgettable, grotesque, and devastating.

I concur with the other reviewers in general (I don't want to repeat the basic statements), but wanted to point out my defining moment of shock, not to say incomprehension, over Felix's crack-up. Why on earth did this occur? He is shown as being on top of things, when Enid has to have an abortion --- all described so well ---- and then, with no real explanation, JCO tells us "In early March it began..." Why?

Suddenly,he becomes (glibly?) like the old boxing bum he despised, and so disintegrates. The old bum is even able to spot him in a restroom and do him over(!). Sorry, but I just lost touch with the book at this point. I finished it, because so much of what had gone before was excellent. Lyle Stevick, especially. JCO certainly got inside male characters in a way most women who write do not. This was particularly so over the effect sports have on men who practise them (as opposed to sitting on their rear ends watching...). Perhaps JCO should have taken up boxing...

As you can see, I really liked the book up to the point where JCO (not Felix) loses it. I almost felt as if I was watching some other writer take over her character and proceed to write him out, sans perception. This is a vintage book, now, so I don't suppose many people will post this page, but I write FWIW and IMHO, as they say.

That said, dear potential reader, do buy it in paperback. It's worth it.

FGH

Joyce Carol Oates is a gifted writer, and although I enjoyed this book because of its attention to detail, that detail was also one of the aspects I didn't like. I was impressed with Ms. Oates study and expertise of boxing, but I also found it detracting to the story, at times. Still, this is a good book and worth the read.

I read this book a number of years ago and I can still remember, vividly, what the story is about--the characters--the setting. I took to watching boxing for a while after I read it, not the big title matches but the small town boys going at it dreaming of fame. Thanks to Ms. Oates' love for boxing I found a new way to see this "sport". But that is not what I remember most. I remember a character who is nothing short of a despicable, who does evil, unspeakable things and who I was made to care about. I don't think he will ever leave me...I couldn't forget him if I tried. Reading Oates can make you a more compassionate person--if you want her to our not. What a gift. Read the book, you won't be sorry you did--and, it is my guess that you too will remember this one.

This is a beautiful book of photographs of cemetary sculptures. Though I have artistic opinions on whether photographing another person's art makes one an artist, this is certainly a lovely collection. However, there is very little written about the sculptures or cemeteries they came from. It is literally a picture book. If you are looking for scholarship on sculptures in cemeteries, this is a poor source. There isn't even enough information about each of the sculptures to research them, basically just a location identifying each. But it is a very nice book of photos nonetheless.

I take photographs of cemetery sculpture and many of the images in this book I have seen for myself and though I have my own pictures on my walls, I think this collection of photos is "breathtaking". I had not realized the depth of sculpture in Milan cemeteries. This book contains no text on any sculpture, except its whereabouts, and it is all I need. For people like myself who find peace when wandering through a graveyard this collection makes me wish to grab my camera and go.

This is not scholarly, it is as the title says "Images of Women in European Cemeteries" and you won't get very much information about who did the carving, what they were thinking draping a nude woman over their grave, or even who's grave she is indeed draped on. What you will get are many many lovely black and white photos, that are really finely taken. I should point out that I love cemeteryies and photography and this is really a little book I could get into.... if you do like photography ... check out Wee Gee as well.

Joyce Carol Oates starts with a violent family scene and moves to a rather nightmarish but almost comical family as the story of Jesse carries the reader into the realm of personality. But the story itself soon bogs down as the author uses Jesse's middle years of education and marriage as a framework to hang her convuluted ideas of why we do things, why we are violent, and how society figures in this "personality". After being horrified by his first family who quickly and violently disappear, we are truly entertained by his second very bizarre family who also instantly disappear from "Wonderland". Thus begins a long maze for the reader which will end in a most unsatisfying and poorly realized ending but thankfully it is an ending. "Wonderland" is a book, according to Oates for "all of us who pursue the phantasmagoria of personality". Yet her hero in Dr. Jesse Vogel leaves us unsatisfied in revealing this personality through behavior and emotions. Several hundred pages of wandering never did give us enough insight.

In 1975, I was reading Joyce Carol Oates "Them", when my classmate Lenny noticed it. His reply to me was "Get Wonderland". I took his advice. Wonderland is fabulous. This reader simply couldn't put it down. It is a fascinating story of a doctor from his poor childhood in NY State during the depression through the end of the 1960's. The characters are so real - from the freaks in the doctor's adoptive family, through his heroin-addicted friend who becomes a hippie cult figure. I have since read most of Oates' books, but Wonderland IS my favorite. Joyce Carol Oates has an excellent grasp of the poor in rural NY - she is a genius - totally understanding as to what goes on in the minds of regular people and very talented at putting it down on paper. Do as Lenny said - Get Wonderland!

Of the seven or eight books by Joyce Carol Oates that I've read, this one is far and away the best -- which is saying a lot, because I think she is supremely talented. I read her work only once every few years, because it's SO grim, but I always look forward (in a macabre sort of way) to going back to her. WONDERLAND just seems to have more depth and complexity than the others -- and so much of the writing is intensely vivid. Wonderful character study, as well, with a fascinating psychological framework AND commentary on writing and the art of fiction (truth? fabrication?) deftly blended into the narrative.

Read it.

H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite horror writer. At his best, he is unsurpassed by any current author, including Stephen King. He creates nightmarish worlds which are uniquely his own. However, in regard to consistency, he may be likened to a pure power hitter in baseball: for the most part, he either hits a homerun or strikes out. Fortunately, most of the stories in this collection are homeruns. "The Rats in the Wall", "The Call of Cthulu", "Shadow over Innsmouth", "The Colour out of Space", and "The Dunwich Horror" are arguably five of the best horror stories ever written. Most of the others are almost as good. The one clear strikeout in the collection is "The Shadow out of Time" which I found murky, unfocused, and repetitive in style. Speaking of repetitive, a few of the stories do make you wish that Lovecraft had sprung for a thesaurus at some point: if I read the words "eldritch" or "nameless" one more time, I thought I would scream! At any rate, the collection is a good introduction to one of the true masters of the horror genre.

With so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may help prospective buyers to know what's actually in this one:

[By Joyce Carol Oates:] Introduction; [by H.P. Lovecraft:] The Outsider; The Music of Erich Zann; The Rats in the Walls; The Shunned House; The Call of Cthulhu; The Colour out of Space; The Dunwich Horror; At the Mountains of Madness; The Shadow over Innsmouth; The Shadow out of Time

This is an excellent introductory selection of short fiction -- Lovecraft didn't write any other kind -- by one of the major figures in the history of what is nowadays called horror fiction (though a very good case can be made that, as with his idol Poe, Lovecraft belongs among the ranks of literary greats, period). Still, there are comparably fine collections available, e.g. THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD TALES, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD TALES (both of which, unlike the collection being reviewed here, have endnotes), THE DUNWICH HORROR AND OTHERS, and AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS AND OTHER NOVELS.

What makes this particular collection a marketing novelty -- indeed, why it was ever published in the first place -- is that it's edited and introduced by a well-established, much-respected mainstream literary fiction writer, namely Oates. The publisher's hope may have been that some of those who wouldn't otherwise consider reading an oldtime pulp horror writer like Lovecraft will finally give him a try, what with Oates's more widely intellectually respected name attached. As one who believes Lovecraft deserves a much higher rank in the proverbial literary pantheon than the literary establishment generally accords him, I have no complaint about trying that approach.

But marketing strategy aside, the main reason a prospective buyer should consider choosing this particular collection is the moderate-length introductory essay by Oates, since the fiction selections are readily available elsewhere. The question, in other words, is: How valuable is her essay?

Somewhat. It's a repackaging of her review of S.T. Joshi's LOVECRAFT: A LIFE that she wrote some years back for THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. In it, she makes some sophisticated observations about Lovecraft's psyche, literary techniques, and parallels with various great mainstream American writers: Little that serious-minded Lovecraft readers don't already know, but perhaps have never before seen put so well.

Oates's essay, for those who care to do a search, can be found on her own site.

Oates provides a nice collection of mature HPL stories which might be a nice introduction for everyone who has not made acqaintance with Lovecraft's work yet. Included are stories such as, The Shunned House, Rats in the Walls (great!), The Outsider, The Dunwich Horror -> mature works!

The stories provided by this selction are very dark, true gothic horror stories which won't disappoint any fan of the genre. Reading Lovecraft's language is like looking at a painting by Van Gogh or Da Vinci - overwhelming!

Lovecraft's words are very sensitive for the story they tell, very true to the heart of the darkness within, as haunting as seeing a ghost by yourself.

Joyce Carol Oates is certainly prolific. But a book this long should not have the same sentence structure on every single page. The prologue is promising, but the rest of the book maintains exactly the same style of questions, incomplete sentences, and sentences beginning in prepositions. I got so bored with the repetition that I couldn't get past the first chapter. The style is pretentious and overly simplistic at the same time. Maybe if you like Oates you'll like this book; if you're not sure, I'd advise at least reading a bit of it before you buy it. Then, if you can imagine enjoying that style of prose for 531 pages, more power to you.

"With dignity he rises from his chair; with dignity, manages to maintain his balance; his thin cheeks, hawklike features, the stain of old ivory, a fleeting elderly beauty . . . now his heart's laid bare, for greedy daws to peck at." -Joyce Carol Oates

The story begins in early 1900 at a New York racetrack. The first vignette and the prologue are breathtakingly written; they set a standard and hold out the promise of a journey with fascinating people. The story then jumps from one seeming unrelated event to another, all revolving around a character having a name with "licht" woven into it. It becomes evident that the characters are of the same family, and are involved in "The Game," their father's word for gaining others' confidences and then taking from them. The work details the father's life during the time of his three youngest offspring, and winds its way around the experiences (as well as the people) spawned by this father. It is an exploration into the art of Taking and the art of "The Game." At the end we are presented with the specter of the father who is reaping the fruits of his life. It gives one pause to consider the actual benefits of "The Game" and the repercussions of one's actions.

Beginning with such blazing promise, this book just never delivered. The plot lurches from one vignette to another, presenting characters that are stilted and neither likable or fascinating. The story spans a 30 year period which ended after the election of FDR, and it seemed like it took thirty years of real time to finish, as well. It was a work that was very easy to put down. The writing was certainly competent, brilliant at times, but what was lacking was depth and sparkle, both in terms of the characters and the heart of the story.

when i initially began the book, i almost gave up. it didn't seem to make that much sense...the sentence structure was a bit unconventional. who are these people? it didn't make sense. after the first chapter the entire scene changes and the characters are completely different. Then we are let into the secret of the Licht family. from then on it kept me reading to see what was going to be their next exploit. it was quite a long read for me but worth it. i grew attached to the characters because of their flaws. the Licht family developed a culture all their own.

Oates' stories in "The Collector of Hearts" are billed as grotesque, but the stories are not grotesque in the usual sense. Rather, it is the sense of foreboding, of struggling to conquer childhood hurts and broken relationships, that provide the horror in these tales. These are not stories you read for a good scare, so much as to get a sense of what in our ordinary lives might be horrific. One drawback -- the characters in these stories start to look and sound alike after awhile.

Joyce Carol Oates has an interesting approach to horror. The vague view of the plot and characters allows you to fill in their personalities with the traits of those whom you know. Most of the stories center around family relations gone wrong. I found Haunter more frightening and suggest you read that first.

It is one thing to read fantasy/horror novels that are "safe" because of their improbability; there is nothing "safe" here. Oates zeroes in with relentless precision at the spectres that quietly haunt our hearts: lost loves, parental relationships, childhood fears, the darkness of closets and beneath beds, sexual longings, hometown memories, strangers. These stories draw up from within your tenderest vulnerabilities and quietly slice into them, crushing your heart. Good storytelling...but not for the thin-skinned.

Re-read this book for an online English class. I had forgotten how well London was able to convey the message of how you should listen to those who are only trying to look out for your best interests. I even went so far as to turn up the heat in my house after reading this book!

Although at times this book becomes slightly boring, the overall effect makes it well worth reading. A multitude of stories are told throughout time, yet few truly well-told tales exist among them. These well-told tales are not only memorable, they also exhibit exceptional grammatical ingenuity. The extreme setting and vivid, descriptive adjectives, by a notable author, make this a remarkable piece of literature. A lone, rather unlikable man and his dog are portrayed throughout the story. This inhumane man, in ingnoring his elders, does himself great damage. As the temperature in the story lowers, the suspense rises considerably. The reader may find themself at the edge of their seat while reading, as the man, oblivious to the cold, continues to trudge on. This book ought to be read by everyone, for the theme of the story appears to be that oftentimes an animal's instincts prove to be far better than one human's supposed intellegence

I remember reading this in grammar school over and over, and recently reread it. I usually find this author boring but this one's a classic!

I'm actually reading the story "Where are you going, where have you been?" in my English 11 class. I'm looking for some help on interpreting it... I really don't understand it at all! I'm wondering if it is a dream sequence, or if it really "happened"... It reminds me of "The Yellow Wallpaper". I have no idea why... But it does. Anyone up to helping me get his story? My e-mail is ...

There is something very unnerving to me about these stories, something that makes me feel exposed and unsettled. Many of the stories deal with awkwardness and youthful vulnerability, and the mood is contagious.

Regarding the famous title story "Where Are You Going", my husband suggested that it is a dream sequence about a young girl's decision to lose her virginity, rather than an actual occurrence. This makes it a little less tense ~ but only a little.

Every story is very well-written and captivating, though not exactly pleasant. These subjects are hard to look in the eye.

I first read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" in a english course I took and it had such a profound effect on me I was prompted to pick up a copy of this book. To say the least her stories are profoundly moving, thought provoking and insightful. If you don't know much of her work, I would recomend this collection as a starter.