The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Page B

corner of an eye—the shadow of the Soul, perhaps. The dream world quivers with the presence of the Soul. Every moment answers the question: How did I experience that moment, when I was alive? (Suddenly this reminds me of Pater: not to experience eachmoment fully, “in this short day of sun and frost,” is to go to bed before evening.) *
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    February 17, 1973. The memory of that odd, inexplicable experience at our Dunraven flat. † Must dramatize it somehow in a story, a novel…. Corinne of Lucien Florey . ‡ But I despair of getting it right. Perhaps I’m too close to the experience; I’m too attached.
     
    Can one really believe in the playfulness of the universe?—and its beauty?
     
    In theory, yes. Very readily.
     
    In experience…?
     
    No, such beliefs, however passionately held, are a mockery of our ordinary perceptions. “God is Love” etc. An insult to those who suffer. “God is God is all”: the sum total of the universe. Neither good nor evil. Just an immense democracy. One alternates between embracing such a conviction…and running from it in horror.
     
    The hubris of “accepting” the universe.
     
    What am I, finally, but a field of experiences…a network of events…? They are held in suspension, in a sense, so long as “I” exist. When “I” am dissolved they too are dissolved. (Except of course for those that have been recorded in print.) Even so….Harmony. Disharmony. Chas. Ives. John Cage. * The “music” of all noises. Reading Ammons’ Collected Poems 1951–1971 […]. Reading Neumann’s The Origin and History of Consciousness , an ambitious book if ever there was an ambitious book. Turgid prose, however; my eyelids grow heavy. Some Rilke poems, unevenly interesting. I have a suspicion that Rilke is vastly overrated. Mystic?—or narcissist. I have no sympathy for him. †
     
    Building the structure for Corinne Andersch & Jacob Florey; a mandala. The center is the birth of Lucien Florey. Many cardinal points to be filled in slowly. Back & forth in time. Could take years. The only redemption is the intensity of occasional drama. Otherwise—a mosaic, a vast tapestry.
     
    February 21, 1973. Read of Jung’s strange injunction to “formulate a hypothesis concerning the possibility of an after-life.”…But what of those who hope for extinction? Dreadful thought, perpetual identity. Unthinkable. Reincarnation, Eternal Return: dismal. But whatever is, is right. (A bland, demonic statement.)
     
    February 23, 1973. Anniversary; twelve yrs. one mo. ‡ Cold & brightly blue & very icy. Red berries just outside the window. A male pheasant the other day—lovely surprise.
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    February 26, 1973. Lovely sunny sky-blue days. Immense heaps of snow. Great ice-chunks floating down the river. Warnings of possible flooding. (If you love the river when it’s tame, you are obliged to love it when it’s violent.)
     
    Reading Alfred Kazin’s The Bright Book of Life . * Much that’s intriguing here, but all of it is slapdash and journalistic and arbitrary. Why is Updike merely “a professional”? Why am I merely a woman writer?—a “Cassandra”? Kazin’s literal-mindedness, his penchant for interpreting works that deal with naturalistic subjects as if they were necessarily naturalistic in vision, makes him a clumsy critic for our times. He obviously can’t think of much to say about Barthelme or Gass or Burroughs…. † When he came to Windsor to visit, he seemed quite nice; we had a pleasant conversation for several hours; we served him a drink or two, and then made the mistake of declining his invitation to lunch. Evidently this hurt his feelings. He left shortly afterward, and when he published his essay on me in Harper’s , he mentioned in passing that I had not smiled at him once during our visit…. Of course that’s false, I certainly smiled, but if he remembers me as being cold and unapproachable there must be truth of a sort in it, from his point of view;