"Childwold"
This is a book review post that I originally wrote for my family's blog. As it concerns "Childwold" which I just recently read, I figured I would post it here as well.
This 1976 novel is one of Oates's relatively early works and is often analyzed as one of her first experimental novels. Oates uses multiple points of view, juxtaposed sections often jumping from one character's viewpoint to another with no prior warning to the reader. The frequent stream of consciousness narrative style makes it sometimes take awhile to figure out which character is the focalizer of any given passage. Not only does the narrative jump from one head to another, but foreward and backward in time as well.
This is the story of a Western New York farm family from the rural village of Childwold down on their luck due to an accumulation of financial burdens which started at the time of the Great Depression. Fourteen-year-old Laney Bartlett lives in a ramshackle old farmhouse with her mother Arlene, paternal grandfather, married sister Nancy and Nancy's children, and a handful of little brothers and sisters of various ages. Laney's father died several years before in a New Year's Day car accident. Since, Arlene has had a variety of different boyfriends, even having children by some of them. Another prominant protagonist is Fitz John Kasch, a well-to-do local citizen turned recluse, who, in a Lolita-esque turn, falls in love with Laney, though it is not clear whether any physical relationship occurs between the two.
The experimental narrative style attempts to capture the self-essence of each character questing for liberation of self amidst the mysteries of life. The relationship of self and other, a common Oates preoccupation, is explored at length, as when Laney wonders "Even living people, other people, how could they be like you, how could they know what you knew, think what you thought?" A correlating theme is that of the gap between our present and past selves as when Kasch thinks back to his time in high school: "My boyhood, myself: gone. I could, if I wished, summon back the high school; but I could not summon back that boy. He is not only gone, he has never been." Upon several occasions, Oates's personal philosophy of the communal nature of life is expressed. This is basically the idea that the self cannot exist in isolation but must come to terms with it's place in the greater scheme of the external world in order to achieve some sort of transcendence. A highly interesting book in many respects, though not one of my personal favorites.
2 Comments:
Thanks, for posting this Tanya!
I agree about the stream of consciousness style making it sometimes difficult to follow, but after a while, I picked up on the differences and followed with ease.
It was after reading her entries about Childwold in her journal, which was written while she was writing the novel, did I understand. Thinking of it as prose poetry helps me appreciate the language she chooses for each voice.
I think if she had kept the title "Childwold: a Romance for Five Voices" it would have been more apparent to the casual reader what she was doing. I know it would have been easier for me to understand.
This may be a work that needs multiple readings. I really enjoyed it when I read it the second time.
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