Review: My First Joyce Carol Oates

            I chose to read this novel because 1) it was a dystopian novel that came out last year that got a bit of buzz and excitement around its release 2) it is written by an author of prominence and one that a fiction writing mentor in my Masters program highly recommended and 3) it got really bad reviews. I’m a person who makes my own decision. I will read the worst novel just to make sure there isn’t any merit in it even if a thousand people have already told me so. I don’t think that the bad reviews are warranted.

            This novel centers around Adriane Strohl, a graduating high school student who was just named valedictorian and Patriot Scholar. While this would seem pleasurable in our society, in Adriane’s near-future dystopia, people who think originally or are too smart are a threat to the government’s precisely delegated society. Adriane is arrested during her practice valedictorian speech in front of her entire class and teachers. Adriane is teletransported to the past where she must live out her sentence of four years obtaining a university degree in 1959.

            I think the way that Oates plots and characterizes is simple and effective. At this point in her career, she is perfecting her craft. Publishing nearly a novel year is such an unimaginable feat that I can only consider Oates has been experimenting and tuning her writing for decades. I have to admit that I have tried to read some of Oates’ older works before. I did not finish them, and I did not find them compelling. However, Hazards of Time Travel is quite brilliant in my opinion. Reviews of disgruntled readers have said things like “it is a dystopian novel, and then a romance, and then what the hell was the ending?” but I believe the best novels explore bits and pieces of genre, never sticking fully to the conventions of a set in stone genre. Oates’ narrative is a contemplation of the place of government and free will as well as desire, madness, and perception. This novel wasn’t perfect, but it was thought-provoking and compelling. I can see why Oates made the choices in craft that she did, and I think she made them wisely. Developing a character in a dystopian world isn’t all about how they interact with the rules of that society, but also how they interact with other people interacting with the rules of that society. The dynamic between Adriane and Ira exemplifies just this. Their interactions can tell us more about the dystopian world than an info-dump for sure. Surprisingly, I will be praising this novel even though it was the only one of Oates’ I could get through so far.

SPOILERS BELOW! For those who would like my thoughts on the ending - 

Adriane becomes obsessed about her young psychology professor, insisting that he knows that she is an Exile, therefore, he must be as well. It turns out that Adriane’s madness actually isn’t. Ira is an Exile as well. They develop a relationship and attempt to escape together. Ira is murdered by the government and erased from her memory. Adriane ends up living with and marrying the hunter who found her on the trail and saved her life after Ira was murdered. The ending of the novel has readers in turmoil. In the ending scene, Adriane attempts to read a book. Earlier in the novel, Ira told her that you can always know if you’re dreaming by trying to read a book, because you can’t. When Adriane tries to read, the books are blank, blurred, or in a made-up language. This “it was all a dream” thing has really seemed to upset readers. However, I read this as Adriane’s journey up until Ira’s death as real. I believe the government then took her and put her in a coma or something similar so she would not be a threat. Other readers believe this ending means the entire novel was a dream. I have no issues with this “it was all a dream” ending, but it needs to serve a purpose. I think it does in this instance. It gives the reader uncertainty and this exactly how I feel a reader should leave a novel about such a dystopic world.