You can't help pitying the people who show up in the novels of Joyce Carol Oates. From the first page, you sense that they're going to be known to death, literally splayed by her insight. And before you realize it, she's done the same thing to us. For 40 years, she's coyly enticed us with the gothic details of ordinary life and then - when it's too late - pinned us on the sharp point of her wisdom.I read "The Falls," her latest novel, in what seemed like one held breath. Set around Niagara, the story reflects all the romance, mystery, and terror of that spectacular waterfall. It's a great confluence of tones - grotesque and domestic, tragic and comic. The currents of various styles and points of view blend together in a way that can't possibly work, but does.How else to begin at Niagara Falls but with a honeymoon - and a suicide? Ariah Littrell's desperation to be married had reached a fever pitch, which is pretty much the mental condition she maintains for the rest of her life. Though she's terrified of sex and disgusted by her own body, at 29 "she would have gladly traded her soul for an engagement ring," Oates writes. The daughter of a prominent minister, she's thrilled to be marrying another minister, even if she doesn't really love him, even if she knows he can't love her, "an old maid."The morning after their first night together - an evening of consummate humiliation - her new husband answers the call of the roaring water outside their bridal suite and throws himself over. It's a classic Oates moment - hypnotically awful, the kind of slow-motion disaster you can't take your eyes off.Ariah, long determined to be the perfect wife, immediately recasts herself as "The Widow Bride of the Falls," maintaining a seven-day vigil while police search for her new husband's body.The hotel manager, desperate to downplay this common "accident" as gracefully as possible, appeals for help to a friend, a charming, well-connected lawyer named Dirk Burnaby. But poor Dirk is drawn to Ariah the way people are drawn to the water, and he falls head over heels for this anxious, brittle woman.The heart of the novel is the story of their marriage and the family they build together through the 1950s and early '60s. Dirk loves his wife and their three children, his law firm grows more prosperous, and the Burnabys enjoy an idyllic suburban existence. Except that Ariah wields a kind of psychological brutality, cutting away anything unpleasant, anything that troubles her, such as memories of her first husband, news of the world, the complexity of her new husband's legal work, neighbors' friendly invitations, even telephone calls. It's all banished in a flurry of anxious protests and ferocious pleading. She alternately shrieks and cajoles, stares down anyone who crosses her, or runs from the room with hands over her ears.Ariah excites the same perverse fascination as Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie." In fact, she's a kind of middle-class companion to Tennessee Williams's classic mother-monster, though she's trapped in a mythical present instead of a mythical past. She draws her children around her even as she repels them, constantly calling attention to her anxieties with ceaseless, ludicrous denials that anything is wrong.Dirk, meanwhile, finds himself compelled to represent a young woman who claims that her neighborhood, along an area known as Love Canal, has been poisoned by chemical waste. There's little precedent for environmental liability, and Dirk knows that a conspiracy of business and political forces will make justice almost impossible to attain, but he pursues the case with a dogged idealism that threatens his business, his family, and his own life."The Falls" is written in a strange, fluid cycle of voices, a blending of these characters' thoughts and the author's searing, ironic judgment. Sometimes, characters speak for themselves, or the three Burnaby children speak in a kind of composite voice. Some sections employ the repetitions of a chorus. Others sound like newspaper accounts. One odd chapter reads like an eroticized ghost story.Oates handles all this with winning confidence, moving through intimate details just as deftly as she re-creates a crucial period in environmental law. Most of the mysteries here are tied up, but others are lost in the mist. When she tells the story of Dirk's grandfather, an acrobat who once walked across the Falls on a wire, I couldn't help thinking of the daredevil feat she braves herself with this novel.Ultimately, corporate thugs and their crooked judges can't keep chemicals from oozing out of the ground, any more than Ariah can keep the past from seeping into her children's lives. The desperate struggle to hide and the desperate struggle to uncover collide in these pages with gripping effect.Surprisingly, though it's full of creepy, ominous energy, by the end this is a novel of forgiveness, of learning to accept what's oddest and cruelest about those we love. It's a scary, perceptive portrayal of family life, particularly the burdens parents force on their children and the way love can make those burdens, if not light, then at least bearable.http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0914/p1...
The terrible, wonderful appeal of a raging waterfall: you can cross above it, brave acrobat... you can lose yourself in it, angst and sadness begone, your body falling into something greater than the cares that weigh you down... you can wait beside it, a spectral vision of mourning and tragedy, a local icon for tourists to gape at, waiting for that body, waiting for the falls to rebirth its lonely suicide as it always eventually will... you can live next to it, next to its tamer parts, the waterfall’s majestic rage always out of sight, a thing for the tourists but not for you... your car can plunge into it, a murderous trap, the falls your last surprise, your final destination... you can lead tours through it, thrilling and scaring the tourists with your easy ability to demonstrate mastery over nature’s terrors... you can dump things into it, no one will see, you can dump things that shouldn’t have been made and that have no place on this earth, things that move from water to soil, bubbling up tar-black in basements and schoolyards, sickening adults and killing children, and denied, always denied, by those who dumped such things.And that’s the synopsis!The Falls is a thick novel and a hypnotic one as well. It is easy to get lost in its opening 100 pages or so – not lost as in confused, lost as if in a strange waking dream, or the sleepy thoughts before slumber takes over. At first it is a story of an eccentric woman and a good man, and the love that brings them together. It is a novel that is dense with detail and characterization from beginning to end, but I had such an odd time with that first part. Perhaps it was due to that odd woman. Ariah is the most solipsistic of characters, dreadful and admirable and fascinating and frustrating. Depending on my mood, she either totally absorbed me or she put me to sleep. It was an interesting experience. At times I considered giving up because it was also a challenging experience and I’m not sure I was in the right frame of mind. I’m glad I didn’t! The story of Ariah and her suitor Dick Burnaby ends in two remarkable chapters that lit me right up: one about Ariah’s acceptance of a marriage proposal, detailed in prose so sharp and fierce and idiosyncratic that it woke all of the different parts of my mind; the other a much longer chapter depicting the early years of the marriage itself – a chapter full of loveliness and wisdom, passion and sadness, all the things I needed to suddenly become fully re-engaged with the novel.The story after that first 100 pages is quite different. More traditional, well as far as Oates can ever be traditional. It is a sort of miniature family saga that focuses on Ariah’s three children, their loves and lives and ambitions and failures, and the battle that is being waged over the poison that has been dumped in the Niagara Falls region for decades. It becomes one of those Big Novels about Important Issues... but yet it still stays intimate. I was able to feel anger at corporate cupidity and the crass banality at the heart of many evil men, but The Falls' biggest attribute even amidst all of that is its brilliant characterization. The children of Ariah and Dick Burnably are amazing – and amazingly real – creations.The novel troubled me a bit, specifically around Ariah’s later characterization. It made wonder... does Oates have a problem with women? I never expected to feel that way about one of my favorite authors, but the fact remains that many, many of Oates’ most vital female characters are either delicate victims or fascinating monsters. Is there no inbetween for her – and are there no genuine heroines? She has no problem in making Dick Burnaby and his two male children perfectly heroic in their perfectly human ways. They manage to be both real and good. Not so with Ariah. Why did she have to be transformed into such a horrorshow, such a toxic and repulsive figure? Was Oates even aware that what she was creating was not someone to be admired for her independence and eccentricity, but rather someone to be loathed for her small-mindedness, her tunnel vision, her mistreatment of her children? I dunno. Well, it was a disturbing realization but it cannot be denied that Ariah Burnaby is a unique creation. She's a great addition to the JCO gallery of Monster-Women.Oates is known to be chilly writer, at times even callous or cruel. Not so much with The Falls. With the possible exception of the monstrous, deluded Ariah, her protagonists are written with much kindness and empathy. Even better, I am happy to report that this novel somehow finds its way to grace in the end. It was well-earned. There was a small moment near the end when one nearly-broken character takes another character’s hands – big, rough, scarred paws that have felt and even caused a lot of hurt – and she realizes that they are the most beautiful hands she’s ever seen. I read that part and thought to myself, This is why I love reading… these sublime human moments, these moments of transcendence. The Falls is full of such moments.
What do You think about The Falls (2005)?
I'm sad to have finished The Falls! Joyce Carol Oates is a genius- otherwise she could not have intertwined such deep fascinating characters into several (or more) poignant themes seamlessly. I've been told her work can be inconsistent from novel to novel, but I was for in the first 30 pages. The only minor complaint about the book I may have is that it seemed to slow a bit at the end. However, I was still left wanting more. I think I have a new one for my top ten list. I love a book that makes such a strong impression upon my mind, heart and soul that I will remember it for years to come.I intent to recommend this book to all and seek out other works by her.
—Fourthemodicas
I thought this was an absolutely astonishing story. The writing is deep, and, though there were many times when I thought it seemed to go on a bit, I found myself still caught up in the rhythm of her astonishing prose. The central character, Ariah, is not a very likable character. On the first night of her honeymoon in Niagara Falls in the early 1950s, her new husband leaves their bed, walks to the Falls and throws himself over. Ariah finds the suicide note h left but destroys it without telling anyone. During the seven days that Ariah keeps watch as police search for his body, a young lawyer, Dirk Burnaby, keeps her company.A month later Ariah is back in Troy, NY when Burnaby shows up, tells her he can't get her out of his mind, and begs her to marry him. She does and they move back to Niagara Falls where Burnaby grew up in a prominent and affluent family. Burnaby's devotion to his wife is both admirable and baffling. They have three children though Ariah is never sure if their first-born son, Chandler, belongs to Dirk or her first husband, however unlikely that may seem. Throughout the years she continually hears stories about the "Widow Bride," the sad young woman whose husband left her on their wedding night and "fell" into the gorge.With three small children and a successful law practice, Dirk makes a difficult decision, he decides to take the case of a group of working class people whose lives are being ruined by mysterious illnesses. They all live in an area known as Love Canal. It is an unfortunate decision because it destroys Dirk's standing in the community, and eventually, his life.The second half of the book is told from the points of view of each of their three children - Chandler, Royall, and Juliet -- as each seeks to find the truth of their father's life.This is a deep, dark, extraordinary book in which the Falls themselves become as much a character within the story as any of the others. It is not a book for everyone but I found it mesmerizing and I'm sure it will haunt me for a very long time.
—Kathleen Valentine
What can I say about Joyce Carol Oates? Her ability to tackle just about any genre continues to amaze me with each new book. Take, for example, the Falls, which begins as a sort of modern Greek Tragedy, before seamlessly transitioning into a ravishing romance, and then (later) a legal thriller that reads like a combination of Silent Spring and A Civil Action. While the themes in The Falls aren't as potent as those found in Foxfire, they're still well worth the four-hundred-plus pages Oates takes to explore them. More than that, The Falls is an entertaining, enjoyable read and demands less from the reader than some of Oates' other novels. While some might label that a disadvantage, I enjoyed this "breather" in my exploration of Oates' canon and think this book might make a perfect introduction for somebody new to Oates country.
—Elizabeth
