Donnelly Library's Lovely, Dark, Deep Discussion Highlights

Donnelly Library had its fourth meeting of the Pulitzer Prizes Reading Group on Thursday, November 10, 2016 when we got together to discuss Joyce Carol Oates’s short story collection, Lovely, Dark, Deep.

This was our reading group’s second time to meet and discuss a short story collection; at the third meeting, we had discussed Cheever’s short story collection. Oates is a divisive author. Some reading group members love Oates and some hate her writing. However, no matter how participants felt about the stories, there was dynamic discussion at our meeting. Some of the highlights from the discussion include the below. 

• The stories focus on the relationship between the sexes and often include fragile women characters who depend on male approval, often the approval of a husband or father. The group discussed if Oates’s portrayal of women is old fashioned or if many American women today still define themselves in relation to the men in their lives.

• Group members noted a lack of dialog between the characters in these stories or at least a lack of serious discussion between the characters. Participants observed that a lot is communicated between the characters without being said. This was seen in the first story of the collection, “Sex with Camel,” where the grandson and grandmother joke around with each other, but Oates still lets the reader know how much the characters care about each other and how ill the grandmother is.

• Two of the stories that the discussion focused on were stories about authors: “Lovely, Dark, Deep” and “Patricide.” The group discussed why stories about authors are popular and if they may be especially appealing to authors and awards committees. These two short stories also sparked a discussion about how what we know about an author can color how we view their work. We discussed if literature should be judged entirely separately from the author and if it is possible to divorce a poem or a novel from the image of the creator.

• Short story collections can pose difficulties for reading group discussions as there isn’t one main narrative for the group to discuss together as there is when the group is reading a novel. Reading group participants may all want to discuss different stories. On the other hand, short story collections provide reading groups with the opportunity to explore many different works by an author at one time.

Personally, reading Oates always makes me what to read more Oates (or in the case of this collection, I wanted to read more of Oates’s fiction and to revisit Robert Frost’s poetry).

What did you find most interesting about the fourth meeting’s discussion or about the short stories? Please post in the comments below.

Books truck display of books by Joyce Carol Oates,
Robert Frost's poems, and books about Frost.

Questions for Donnelly Library's Discussion of the Lovely, Dark, Deep

Donnelly Library’s Pulitzer Prize Challenge reading group has its fourth meeting on Thursday, November 09. Below are a few questions to think about for the upcoming discussion.

Take a look at the questions and please post your own questions or discussion points for this short story collection in the comments below.

• A common theme of the books we have read for this reading group is that characters are haunted by their pasts. What events or traumas haunt the characters of Oates’s short stories?
• Oates writes a great deal about the relationship between the sexes in these short stories. What does she have to say about the role of women and the role of men in American society though these stories?
• In the title story of the collection, Oates paints a dark, brutal portrait of beloved American poet Robert Frost. In this story what is Oates criticizing, Frost himself, literary celebrity, literary biographies, biographical interpretations of literature, or a combination of these things?
• Including this short story collection, Joyce Carol Oates has been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist 4 times (her other finalist books include her novel Black Water, finalist in 1993, her novel What I Lived For, finalist in 1995, and novel Blonde finalist in 2001). Why do you think she continues to be nominated for the prize, and why does she continue not to win?

Gallup Discussion: Lovely, Dark, Deep - Frosty Reception

Joyce Carol Oates' "Lovely, Dark, Deep" was a divisive collection.  At our discussion in the Octavia Fellin Public Library, one story probably stood out as the most divisive of them all, and that was the titular tale, Lovely, Dark, Deep.

To briefly summarize the story: a female journalist interviews a famous and beloved poet, attacking the image he has cultivated for himself, revealing the far more awful man below the surface.  What makes this a particularly controversial story is that the poet is Robert Frost, a real poet who is both famous and beloved.

More than one voice in the discussion group brought up an interesting question, "Why couldn't this story have used a fictional poet instead of Robert Frost?"  The interviewer, Evangeline Fife, is a fictional character, so despite Oates' claim to base the story on real sources, it is an entirely fictional one.  Frost never had this confrontation.  So why not just create a fictional poet instead?

There was an interesting response to that argument.  One woman at the discussion thought that because he wasn't a fictional character people had stronger reactions.  Without Robert Frost, it's just two pretend people having a conversation.  None of our preconceived notions about Frost align with the image created by Oates.  Perhaps, Oates was shattering an idol.


This lead to many other issues.  For example, the lack of sources sited by Oates.  If Frost had been an actual good person, did Oates have the right to demonize him?  And if Frost was not who we all thought he was then what should we think of his works?

There were two sides to this argument.  The first side thought that we could look past a flawed man to embrace his works.  One person asked, "Does the character of Bukowski or Pound ruin their works?"  A fair question.  Without a doubt, these were great writers.  On the other side of the argument was a much more contemporary figure: Bill Cosby.  It would be hard to appreciate The Cosby Show knowing what we know about Bill Cosby now.  In that situation, the legacy of the man seems to have ruined the works.

I'm not sure there are any correct answers here.  Sometimes great works transcend the people who write them.  Sometimes great works are destroyed by them.  There was no universal consensus on Frost or Oates, and most everyone had very mixed feelings on the story, but we all walked away with a greater perspective.