JCO Discussion Blog

Childwold as seen through The Journal of JCO

I haven't finished the journal, went on to other things, but one part really caught my attention, the 1975 writings on her novel Childwold. When I first read Childwold, I was very confused. I had trouble figuring out the point of view, which kept shifting. I liked something about it, but I didn't really "get it." I put it back on the shelf and didn't try reading it again.

However, after I read her journal entries from that period, it began to intrigue me. At first she called the novel "Broken Reflections." She talks about the sexual revolution as a disaster for many people.

Girl students are as apprehensive, as miserable, as worried about 'not being loved' as ever before, and perhaps things are even worse now: the offer of marriage still remains THE token of esteem, no matter if they've been living with a young man or not. The emotions seem unchanged, entirely. There is a premature gowing-up of a sexual or physical nature, though. . . .

She goes on to discuss precoucious sexuality as a mark of "relatively uncivilized cultures . . . and constitutes, in species other than man, an evolutionary finesse of some kind" before going on to discuss "Broken Reflections."

Broken Reflections breaks into five points of view certain preoccupations of my own, merged with certain personalities deserving of study, of exploration.

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That intrigued me, and even though I had picked up on the five points of view, I hadn't understood why she was doing it. I felt I was on to something, beginning to understand one of the least discussed of her many novels.

By July 26, 1975, JCO changed the title to "Childwold: a Romance for Five Voices." She calls it a "prose-poem" disguised as a novel. This again caught my attention! a prose-poem! I loved the idea. No wonder I hadn't understood it! Poetry is more complex than a novel; poetry always requires me to pay more attention to appreciate it fully. She says that the voices haunt her.

Voices. Not even words so much as voices. Laney, her grandfather, Kasch, Arlene, Vale. Five people, five voices. Perhaps they will all be absorbed into one, into the landscape of Eden County itself.

I won't go on to repeat her journal here, but my point is that without her journal, I would never have understood this beautiful work. I began rereading it immediately and found it fascinating it way the voices expressed themselves.

I've just talked myself into going back to the Journal to find more insights into JCO's work.

posted by Jane @ 3:59 PM