Speaking of Amazon reviews, here's a case where I take my cue from the Average Customer.
_The Accursed: A Novel_ by Joyce Carol Oates seems dull, quaint, twee, to me, at first glance. And second glance -- the first 20 pages or so, and glimpses of the rest of it.
I've joked about JCO, because she's a monster of productivity with high quality.
The Average Customer on Amazon gives _The Accursed_ three stars out of five, with many complaining that the book needs editing.
It's set in Princeton, New Jersey, just after the turn of the century.
A branch of my family lived in one of those big houses on Hodge Road in Princeton -- though they are not mentioned in the book -- which is a sort of historical pastiche in which fact and fiction mingle. So I'm familiar with this kind of upper-class Christian piety and sanctimony, and I never
could stand it. Don't get me started.
I wanted some vampires and some atmosphere, with good writing. Instead I was bored by JCO's good impersonation of a second-rate amateur historian's attempt to limn the nervous complaints of a fictional Woodrow Wilson. And her equally skillful -- but incredibly tedious -- creation of someone's diary.
It all adds up to...what? I'll never know, first-hand. I'm content with the executive summary -- or the Average Customer summary.
The longer the book, the more caution required before committing to it.
Why have I stayed with Proust? Because I'm pretentious, and because over a long time the commitment has payed off. Because my life is enriched by knowing the Baron de Charlus -- from a safe distance. Because books like Proust's make life worth living, and life would be nearly unbearable without them.
Choose your battles, choose your books.
5 star: (53)
4 star: (21)
3 star: (41)
2 star: (39)
1 star: (35)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Accursed-...iewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Burdened with its vast expanses of historical musing and detail, though, that brilliance is as effectively concealed as the beautiful silver urn in your Aunt Tillie's closet by a fifty-year-old coat of tarnish. If you've plowed your way through George Eliot's *Daniel Deronda*, you should get the idea.
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/06/172876228/the-devil-to-pay-in-oates-accursed-america
The Accursed is, in the end, neither a paranormal romance nor an easy read. With its many digressions and historical asides, it is not a page turner. And it's not a "vampire book" any more than Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a young-adult romance. In Oates' hands, this supernatural tale becomes a meditation on the perils of parochial thinking.
Great.
