GROUP READ: Bellefleur (June - August 2011)

A few of us have decided we'll read Bellefleur this summer/winter (depending on what hemisphere we are in).

Please consider joining us.

I have an extra copy if someone really wants to join us and needs one. Send me a note.

just popping in to say that I'm looking forward to the group read and thanks Lois for sending me a copy to this corner of the world :)

I would consider joining the group read. Would someone please say something about this book? It's been sitting on my shelf for years. I started it one time but couldn't get into it, so I put it into the "unreadable Oates" column. Should I try it again, and why?

Why? I think someone thought they might read it and a few of us thought we might join her.

Bellefleur is one of JCO's "American Gothics"

John Gardner considered it JCO's 'most moral' book (now that interested me. He used to try to convince her of his idea about fiction needing to be moral;she disagreed and was not won over).

I haven't read it myself, but I've enjoyed two of the other novels listed as American Gothics, so ...

June 1st has rolled around I shall grab my copy of Bellefleur and may tentatively start it this weekend as it's a three day weekend in NZ :)

I have just started it and am already grateful for the family tree at the front.

I will start it after I finish the two books I'm engaged with now. I'm in a bit of a book funk so it might be a few weeks before I get to it. Sigh. I need a reading weekend away from home.

I still have an extra copy of it if someone needed one.

Bellefleur is one of my most favorite books of all time, it's my favorite of the Gothic Quintet. I'll pull out my copy and find a sliver of time in between the other books I'm currently reading to join in the read! I love opening up to a random page and just diving in, it's very haunting and intense, at times, creepy. She really bends time around in this one, so each chapter isn't necessarily going to be followed by a continuous flow of natural linear time, and it might be awhile before you pick up on the end of a story started earlier in the book. The characters are put through their emotional and physical paces, the house itself is quite an outrageous character, and the property including the lake and the mountain are also quite alive, the natural forces tend to erupt with elemental sentience...it is a very strange, fascinating book. I'm really looking forward to discussion about it.

On a side note, it is also interesting to read about the period of time that she spent writing it in the The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates 1973-1982.

(I posted my review this morning, I'm still trying to get caught up with adding my reviews.)

I've just read chapter 1 during a lunch break at work. Wow - lots of characters and the story is going in all different directions it certainly seems like it's going to be a 'meaty' book to read. I agree the family tree helps!!

It's a big change from the current literary popularity for sparse and minimal writing

The family tree is quite interesting too...

I've been reading it at lunchtime at work and while waiting for my Fred to pick me up at the end of the day I'll sneak in a page or two...it is a very "meaty" book and I enjoy taking it slow, it isn't a book to gobble up in a few sittings. I've dipped into chapter 2 with young Raphael at Mink Pond where the natural elements are very much alive.

I'll be beginning Bellefleur in July. It's winking at me, but I have several other reading commitments first.

>12 Caroline_McElwee: I'm waiting until July also. I have some other books to clear out first.

How's it going, LauraJWRyan? I plan to restart the book this week.

Going along fine, I'm savoring my readings during the lunch hour at work when I get a moment alone...I'm just at the point during Leah's pregnancy and how HUGE she's growing, her proportions sound absolutely gross at times, and physically uncomfortable for the character to endure, yet she is presented as being voluptuous in the manner of an ancient fertility figure...I love JCO's descriptions, everything about Bellefleur, the house, and the family members are larger than life, and the natural elements, emotions, and colors are on hi-octane. This book really sets the foundation for the other three in the Gothic series, her use of language is at times outrageous with exaggeration, yet so beautifully written, I don't mind it at all.

I must admit I have stalled with it at the end of the first section - not necessarily because I wasn't enjoying it but because other commitments called. Should have some time soon though to restart.

ps....I've changed my name from Jargoneer.

I'm about a third of the way through the book. It's slow going, not because of the book, but because I'm only reading it a chapter or two before bedtime. Still, it's not a bad way to read it (I'm a very fast reader normally).

>15 LauraJWRyan: agree with what you say about the descriptions. I did frantically flip back to that family tree early on, but less so now. It seems to me that once you have a sense of who the current generation is (the ones living at the time the story is being told), the rest just fall "in the past", generally. Does it matter if technically it was 4 generations back or 2?

I'm nearly through part II. Does anyone want to discuss the book in parts, would that be easier?

Hmm page by page perhaps Avaland? I jest of course. I have found I most enjoy reading this book after midnight. It is the first of her Gothic novels I've attempted, and sometimes find I am irritated by the million diversifications. However I am also really enjoying it. That said I have got a thousand and one things bubbling in my brain, and under way at the moment, that I can't give it the level of attention I would like to. I've been trying to finish the last 40 pages of a favourite re-read (not a JCO) this week without finding the time! I know, if it is a re-read, why bother, but I must (and want to!)

I just started part II a week ago and haven't gotten very far because it is my 'lunch time' read, and these days I've been too busy at work to land long enough to crack it open (disappointing, cuz I do need the mental break to step away from gallery and art collection inventory business), hopefully, the weather will stop raining soon so I can tuck myself out in the sunshine for a bit o' reading and a vitamin D soak up before the Upstate NY winter sets in!

ha ha, we all seem to be puttering along with it. I'm really amazed that I have not blown through this book as I did her other Gothics, but this one seems to demand a leisurely pace.

I'm somewhere in Part III, after the addition of the dwarf to the family.

I forgot about the dwarf! It's probably been nearly 10 years since I last read the book cover to cover and I'm surprised how much I have forgotten...like the fella that turned into a bear...gotta love the weird-factor of this book, part of its charm! I'm near the end of part II, lunchtime has been a bit busy at the gallery...if I don't leave the building, I get interrupted a lot. The brutality is still just as alarming as it was my first time around...a very unique and unusual book. What an all consuming task it must have been to write this book...it has an obsessive nature. Hard to put down once I've started reading!

I just read "The Bloodstone" about Aunt Veronica last night...perfect for a pre-Halloween October night! I'm slowly making my way through, and rediscovering bits and pieces that I don't recall...it's such a magical book...

I'm putting Bellefleur back on my reading list for December I have decided. I really enjoyed what I had read, when I read it late at night; but had so much else going on in my life that I didn't get back to it, and tried not to have such late nights. But now Winter is drawing near, I think it might be the perfect time to revisit this novel.

I am within 50 pages of the end but have put off finishing it until I can give it my undivided attention OR maybe I don't want it to end! It weirdly compelling. Women with pet spiders, child prodigies who run away from home at 11, very odd musical instruments, oddball reclusive religious zealots, vampiric relationships, mirrors which open to other worlds...

A perfect book to read for Halloween!
:)

I finished it last night...can't say enough how much I love this book. Sad to see it come to an end...and such an ending.

It is a book so unlike any other, it has everything and the kitchen sink in it...

Before you begin, beware...you must be willing to suspend belief, you must be willing to time travel...beyond page one, there be dragons! Good uns n' bad uns, big uns n' li'l uns.

>27 LauraJWRyan: Oh, Laura, I meant to stop in and say that I finished the book shortly after my post above. It does not go down as my favorite Oates, but it is quite a book -- an epic, satirical American family saga.

I thought her use of fantasy in the novel quite interesting; it's a bit of a departure for her. It's clear she's using it symbolically, and a bit tongue-in-cheek at times (yes?). It's done so well!

I only managed the one Oates this year. Last year I read 9 of hers. Guess we'll have to see what next year brings.

>28 avaland: Yes, she does use quite of bit of humor in this...and it's quite the same way with the rest of the Gothic's in this series...the book is outrageous and at times over the top unbelievable...I think once I accepted it as being this way, I loved it more for what it is...I think I love it because it is a departure from her more serious work, and I got a sense that she was really enjoying herself very much during the time she spent immersed in constructing it. I'm about ready to pick up another one to read...I have Expensive People waiting in the wings, I can't believe I haven't read it yet!

>29 LauraJWRyan: Apologies for the tardy response. I don't remember much humor in Mysteries of Winterthurn but A Bloodmoor's Romance had plenty, more overt than the satirical Bellefleur.

I've started 2012 by picking up The Tattooed Girl, it's interesting thus far, not a lot of characters to really warm up to (not any!) but the character development is interesting.