Mudwoman: A Novel

In looking at reviews for "Mudwoman", I went to several different sources. On one website I found several reviews and myriad quotes from different sources for reviews, newspapers, etc. The consensus on this site was that it was a fabulous book, well-written with Oates' usual genius for insight into her characters, and the feeling of menace that many of her books have, which the main character fails to sense until it is often too late. This book in particular was considered somewhat of a departure for her, a foray into new territory. There was not a negative review to be found, but only praise for her superb writing and spot-on account of the breakdown of a professional accomplished woman when the ghosts of her past become too much to bear.
On the other hand, on another site, I found dissenters. While some enjoyed "Mudwoman" in much the same way that had previously enjoyed Oates' other books, there were also several that felt that she was not on the mark with this novel. The writing seemed disjointed and difficult to follow. I think they were probably correct about that, but I think that says more about her main character, M. R. Neukirchen's state of mind than Oates' writing. One reviewer felt it was an utter waste of her time. Another found that she actually abandoned the book,something she had never done with any of Oates' other books.
Personally, I found "Mudwoman" consistently entertaining, although I agree that it was difficult reading at times, because the reader could not always be sure whether M.R. was hallucinating or whether the scenes were actually happening to her. That was part of the dark atmosphere that Oates' builds around M.R. Neukirchen. The first female President of a University, she lives in a rather eerie house provided for the President by the University. She is often alone, as her professional life has not provided for many close relationships to develop. While she attends many dinners, breakfasts, lunches and opportunities to mingle, she never really does, as she has secrets in her life that preclude close friendships. She has a (secret) lover. Or at least we think she does because after all, she is the only one to see him. It is as the book progresses that we see that all is not well with M.R. and we begin to doubt much of what she is experiencing. I found the novel engrossing, and the characters fully developed, I thought it was unique that Oates' was able to bring us along, moving the story forward while at the same time, we were experiencing a mind that is not really seeing what is happening around her, but rather being in an altered state. I highly recommend this book, and I look forward to another book from Joyce Carol Oates,whom I consider one of our most accomplished writers today. ( )

Usually I like JCO and I really tried to like this book, but it was a chore and just a huge downer overall. Meredith is plagued by her past as a child left to die on the banks of a river, but she is rescued, nursed back to health and eventually adopted by a kindly couple. she rises rapidly in the world of higher education and is named the President of a prestigious university at age 41. that's when it all starts to unravel for M.R., as she is known professionally. Her grasp on reality is seriously compromised. Most of the plot takes place in dream sequences, so it doesn't really happen at all. and typical of JCO, all the men are rapist monsters and the worst possible scenario is the one that plays out. ( )

JCO at her best, most perseverating & dark; muddy academic college president spirals forward into achievement & backwards into an unimaginable, imagined childhood

5.12

Mudwoman is dark even by Joyce Carol Oates standards. Oates is well known for novels featuring female leads that do not sense the physical jeopardy they are in before it is almost too late to escape it. Suddenly, these women - as intelligent and accomplished as they may be – recognize that they have wandered into a situation that could cost them their lives. The threat usually comes from an evil or deranged man but, in the case of Mudwoman, all the damage is done by a little girl’s own mother.

When she is three, Jedina Kraek's mother decides to murder her and her five-year-old sister. Jedina is shaved bald as part of her mother’s religious delusions and tossed into a mud flat near the Black Snake River where her mother assumes that she will drown in the muck. Against all odds, the little girl is found by a mentally handicapped local trapper and taken into a foster family for several years. When the Neukirchens, a childless Quaker couple, adopt her, Jedina (who had mistakenly claimed her older sister’s name, Jewel) becomes Meredith Ruth Neukirchen.

“Merry” does her best to live up to the Quaker standards of her parents, and becomes the model student, an overachiever who compensates for her insecurities by excelling at academics. Secretly, Meredith applies for, and wins, the scholarship to Cornell that she believes will be her ticket to a new life far from stifling Carthage, New York.

Mudwoman is told in chapters that alternate between Meredith’s girlhood and her present life as the first female president of a prestigious Ivy League university. Now 41, and calling herself M.R. Neukirchen, Meredith lives alone in a spooky, “historic” house on campus allocated to the president and spends all of her waking hours on university business – much of it involving fundraisers at which she must impress potential donors with her administrative competence. Oates, herself a Princeton teacher since 1978, is very familiar with this world and she exposes its inner workings here in detail.

Because so much of what takes place in the present happens entirely inside M.R.’s head, the book becomes a contrast between a realistic presentation of her childhood and the more surrealistic presentation of her present day circumstances. What happens when M.R.’s childhood demons intrude upon her present life is often painful to watch. When cracks begin to appear in her public persona, expect to be horrified by M.R.’s mental collapse as the university board of directors tries to contain the damage and deal with the problems she creates for the school.

Mudwoman is frustrating at times because Oates, who is a master of this writing style, wants her readers to be (at least temporarily) as confused as M.R. herself about what is real and what happens only in her dreams. The good news is that patient readers will find that most, but not quite all, of the answers are revealed by the end of the book. Even better news is that they will have spent so much time inside M.R.’s head that they will likely know and understand her as well as they do any fictional character they have ever encountered.

Although it can be a difficult read at times, I highly recommend Mudwoman.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )

[Mudwoman] is the story of M. R. Neukirchen, newly appointed university president of a university, not unlike Oates's own Princeton, her unraveling and rebirth.

[Mudwoman] has a mythical beginning, with a deranged, religiously-obsessed woman brutally abandoning her daughter in the Black Snake river mudflats, returning her to God, as he has allegedly has commanded her. The child, barely alive, is found later by a "simple" trapper/hunter, who follows the shrieking of the "King of Crows" to the mudflats. The local people will tell this story as that of the "mudgirl."

Of course, the mudgirl is our university president and with such a mythological beginning one cannot help but read this story as a kind of "hero's story" turned inward. M. R. is a highly accomplished and talented academic, but at the pinnacle of her success the weight of the past, which she remembers only small pieces of, becomes too much and she begins to crumble. In alternating chapters we have M.R.'s story and that of mudgirl until the two stories merge. M. R. has a nervous breakdown but will successfully wrestle her demons, come to terms with her past, and 'rise from the ashes.'

The reader, through the narrator, spends a lot of time in M. R.'s head, which can be alternately fascinating, tedious and unnerving, particularly as she begins to crumble and attempts to keep herself together. Her head is filled with university concerns, political concerns, private concerns related to her relationships, and she slips into fantasy a few times (at least one of those times I was caught thinking that the fantasy was real for awhile). It's an arduous journey we are taking with her, and one can almost imagine a biblical wilderness, a mythological fight with dragons... In the end, Oates' shows us, as in many of her books, a survivor, but in this book not only that, but M.R. is the hero of her own life ("Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. " -- [David Copperfield])

There are a lot of things I could add as I find Oates's work endlessly fascinating. The use of names, the mythological and astronomical threads (her secret lover is an astronomer), the use of personal fantasies in M. R.'s story, a philosophy thread (M.R. is a philosophy scholar)...etc. But, for brevity's sake, I will restrain myself. I should mention here that I did read somewhere that JCO was initially inspired to write [Mudwoman] by a dream in which she envisioned a woman whose makeup was so thickly applied that it resembled mud (and that image will show up in the book). It was such a potent vision that when she awoke she immediately started making notes, though it took years to develop. She has never done this before, she says.

This will not be one of my favorites, and I would not recommend it as a "first" Oates to try, but it is very good, interesting, and certainly could appeal to those who might have more of a connection to academia. But, as usual, I find myself still thinking about one of her books long after I have closed the back cover... ( )