The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque
by Joyce Carol Oates
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Twenty-seven stories of the grotesque. The story, The Hand-puppet, is on a toy which menaces a family, in The Dream-Catcher an Indian artifact suddenly comes to life, and in The Hands, a man's hands escape his control, doing the bidding of another.Tags
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Joyce Carol Oates is a fine writer, but I like her dark literature best. This is a rich serving of wonderfully dark stories that don't inspire terror so much as disturb the mind.
Collector of Hearts is another short story collection that centers around grotesque characters and plots. Despite the similarity with themes in Haunted, Collector of the Hearts pales in comparison. In fact, it seems as if Oates has ripped herself off with this collection by using almost the exact same techniques as she did in her previous collection (such as numbering certain segments and arranging the stories in three parts).Similar to Haunted, the stories in Collector of Hearts are almost entirely about family relationships that become violent with physically or sexually. However, they are far more weird and border on being science fiction.
I finished the collection but it took a great deal of motivation! I found some of the tales to show more be terrifying, but not in a "spooky ghost story". Instead, it was terrifying in a "how could someone think of anything this sick and twisted" way. Perhaps the best word to describe this collection is disturbing.
www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com show less
I finished the collection but it took a great deal of motivation! I found some of the tales to show more be terrifying, but not in a "spooky ghost story". Instead, it was terrifying in a "how could someone think of anything this sick and twisted" way. Perhaps the best word to describe this collection is disturbing.
www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com show less
If you like things a little on the dark side, but you find the horror genre a little cheesy, you might like this. Its definitely dark, but more psychological than supernatural.
A bit too grotesque for me.
19 bislang nicht übersetzte Geschichten von einer der ganz Großen der amerikanischen Literatur sind erstmals in (einer fabelhaften deutschen) Übersetzung erhältlich. Joyce Carol Oates erzählt in „Die Lästigen“ eine amerikanische Chronik, die eine Chronik der Abgründe zu sein scheint. Sprachmächtig erkennt die Autorin, dass Familie nicht unbedingt ein so argloser Ort sein muss, wie es uns vorgemacht wird. Sie ist eine Meisterin der Andeutung und schafft eine Bedrohlichkeit, die ihre Leserschaft vom ersten Satz an zu fesseln vermag. Unbedingt lesenswert!
Zu finden im Erdgeschoss: DR, OATE
mj (1.9.11)
Zu finden im Erdgeschoss: DR, OATE
mj (1.9.11)
Sep 1, 2011German
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476+ Works 62,332 Members
Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of numerous novels and collections of short stories. Her works include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Bellefleur, You Must show more Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, Solstice, Marya : A Life, and Give Me Your Heart. She has received numerous awards including the National Book Award for Them, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her title Lovely, Dark, Deep. She also wrote a series of suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. In 2015, her novel The Accursed became listed as a bestseller on the iBooks chart. She worked as a professor of English at the University of Windsor, before becoming the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She and her late husband Raymond J. Smith operated a small press and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review. (Bowker Author Biography) Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most eminent and prolific literary figures and social critics of our times. She has won the National Book Award and several O. Henry and Pushcart prizes. Among her other awards are an NEA grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Lifetime Achievement Award, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. (Publisher Provided) show less
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Die Andere Bibliothek (315)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1998
- Epigraph
- "Some are Born to sweet delight / Some are Born to sweet delight / Some are Born to Endless Night" -William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
- Dedication
- for Jane Shapiro, and for Brad Morrow
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- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.77)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
