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Palma: Lleonard Muntaner Editor, 2023; 492 [2] p. (Artificium; 20)
Description
A masterly work from a writer with "the uncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America" (National Review), A Garden of Earthly Delights is the opening stanza in what would become one of the most powerful and engrossing story arcs in literature. Joyce Carol Oates's Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In A Garden of Earthly Delights, Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole, the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers. Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence and poverty, determined not to repeat her mother's life, Clara struggles for independence by way of her relationships with four very different men: her father, a family man turned itinerant laborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, who rescues Clara as a teenager and offers her the possibility of love; Revere, a wealthy landowner who provides Clara with stability; and Swan, Clara's son, who bears the psychological and spiritual burden of his mother's ambition. A Garden of Earthly Delights is the first novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, Expensive People, them, and Wonderland, are also available from the Modern Library.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member karenthecroccy
If you didn't know, I really enjoy Joyce Carol Oates' writing. I have decided to go back to her early work and read the Wonderland Quartet, of which this book is the first.
Clara Walpole lives her life surrounded by men and each of them influences her huge ways.
It begins with the birth of the main
The second part of the book has Clara living a small town life, influenced by Lowry, who saved her and Revere, who loved her. You get to watch Clara grow into herself and learn who she is in relation to society.
The last part of the book dragged for me. In Clara's later years, the focus is on her relationship with her husband and sons. However, much of the plotline is clichéd and if you can't figure out what is going to happen, you must be new to this whole reading is fun thing. At first, this section dragged and suddenly, it was taking huge leaps in time and left me not caring and a little perplexed. Was there a deadline JCO was failing to meet and the book had to be wrapped up now?
JCO did rewrite portions of this book and I wonder what kind of improvements she made to the last part. I will look into that...
Next up in the series is Expensive People.
Clara Walpole lives her life surrounded by men and each of them influences her huge ways.
It begins with the birth of the main
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character, Clara, in the midst of the depression. She's born to migrant workers and is, appropriately so, born at the scene of an accident. This portion of the book, in my opinion, is the richest portion. The language is fantastic, the characters compelling and the plot moves forward in leaps and bounds. Her father, Carleton, is the driving force behind Clara in this portion.The second part of the book has Clara living a small town life, influenced by Lowry, who saved her and Revere, who loved her. You get to watch Clara grow into herself and learn who she is in relation to society.
The last part of the book dragged for me. In Clara's later years, the focus is on her relationship with her husband and sons. However, much of the plotline is clichéd and if you can't figure out what is going to happen, you must be new to this whole reading is fun thing. At first, this section dragged and suddenly, it was taking huge leaps in time and left me not caring and a little perplexed. Was there a deadline JCO was failing to meet and the book had to be wrapped up now?
JCO did rewrite portions of this book and I wonder what kind of improvements she made to the last part. I will look into that...
Next up in the series is Expensive People.
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LibraryThing member rachelv
I pretty much love anything by Joyce Carol Oates. If you're a girl and like stories about people, you'll probably feel the same.
LibraryThing member shanjan
A Garden of Earthly Delights follows Clara Walpole, the uneducated daughter of migrant workers through her life as she struggles to leave her roots and eventually becomes the wife of a wealthy farmer and land owner who employs migrant workers.
The novel is split into three sections, each named for a
The first two thirds of the novel is well-written and interesting. The narrative begins with Carleton and then is picked up by Clara who is at the onset is a complex character, although Oates fails to deliver on this at the conclusion of the novel. Eventually the narrative is transferred to Swan, or Steve, her son. While Carleton and Clara make for interesting character studies, Swan is written as a character that comes across as enigmatic and flat. Perhaps Oates writes him this way intentionally because Swan lacks a certain humanness, and has no desire to connect with other people in the novel, and this sentiment certainly is transferred to the reader. One can appreciate Oates' intent (although maybe I'm giving a young Oates too much credit here because, frankly, all of the characters in this section fall flat) but it makes the last third of the novel a bit tedious and disjointed, which left me wondering if Joyce struggled to find a conclusion.
The plot is predictable and uninspired. I expected more from Oates, so that made it all the more disappointing. There are flashes of brilliance that transport the reader into the lives of these characters, the schoolroom scene and the scenes in the shop where Clara works, to name a few, but they cannot carry the novel. Oates rewrote three quarters of this book forty years later. It seems safe to assume that these moments of crystallization came out of this revision as Oates states that she left the plot unchanged, and focused on enhancing the characters and their experiences. It's possible that the other three novels in this series will carry this one, and I liked it enough to find out, but on it's own it lacks what I have come to expect from an author as talented as Oates.
The novel is split into three sections, each named for a
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man who influences Clara. The first book is Carleton, her father; the second is Lowry, her lover; the third is Swan, her son. Clara's husband does not head a section. His influence on her life is largely financial, and while Clara changes on the surface with him, she still remains the self-admittedly uneducated daughter of the fields in her essence.The first two thirds of the novel is well-written and interesting. The narrative begins with Carleton and then is picked up by Clara who is at the onset is a complex character, although Oates fails to deliver on this at the conclusion of the novel. Eventually the narrative is transferred to Swan, or Steve, her son. While Carleton and Clara make for interesting character studies, Swan is written as a character that comes across as enigmatic and flat. Perhaps Oates writes him this way intentionally because Swan lacks a certain humanness, and has no desire to connect with other people in the novel, and this sentiment certainly is transferred to the reader. One can appreciate Oates' intent (although maybe I'm giving a young Oates too much credit here because, frankly, all of the characters in this section fall flat) but it makes the last third of the novel a bit tedious and disjointed, which left me wondering if Joyce struggled to find a conclusion.
The plot is predictable and uninspired. I expected more from Oates, so that made it all the more disappointing. There are flashes of brilliance that transport the reader into the lives of these characters, the schoolroom scene and the scenes in the shop where Clara works, to name a few, but they cannot carry the novel. Oates rewrote three quarters of this book forty years later. It seems safe to assume that these moments of crystallization came out of this revision as Oates states that she left the plot unchanged, and focused on enhancing the characters and their experiences. It's possible that the other three novels in this series will carry this one, and I liked it enough to find out, but on it's own it lacks what I have come to expect from an author as talented as Oates.
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LibraryThing member jeffome
Sort of a chick-book.....not that i view that necessarily a bad thing....(my cover, though, was a bit much for me.....one of those romance/heartthrob covers!!). I enjoyed it in the sense that it captured my attention rather quickly and i wanted to know what came next, but i was sort of disappointed
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with the ending....it left me with a sense of ....'you mean we went through all of that story to bring us to this????' Mostly the first 4/5's of the book was chock full of character exploration and detail, and then the end just barreled quickly through multiple years to the climax making me wonder why all of the previous was even necessary. Well, it is an earlier book of Oates and she is a prolific award winning author, so i shall continue through her many books on my shelf and see where they take me. Show Less
LibraryThing member writestuff
'Clara felt heavy and hot and sad, imagining already school over in the afternoon and the way she would have to run to get away from the stones and mud balls. She and Ned would both have to run, cutting across muddy fields, with the boys laughing behind them…”White trash!” They were white
There are plenty of stones getting thrown in Joyce Carol Oates’ early novel: A Garden of Earthly Delights. The novel centers around the character of Clara, an economically disadvantaged child growing up as part of the dysfunctional Walpole family. Clara is literally born in a ditch at the side of the road - symbolic of her later struggles to rise from the muck of poverty and dysfunction to make something of her life. Clara’s early years are marked by her alcoholic, abusive father who is a Kentucky-born migrant farm worker. Carleton Walpole is a harsh, angry man who moves his family from one encampment to the next, never providing a stable home for any of them.
Oates’ descriptions are raw, real and depressing - she captures the hopelessness of Clara’s surroundings perfectly. So it is no wonder when Clara meets the much older and charming Lowry, she wastes no time in fleeing from her father and her downtrodden family. Still a child, Clara envisions a life much different from that which her mother lived. She is not discouraged by the seemingly insurmountable challenges she faces, and is not afraid to work hard. She sees Lowry as her knight in shining armor, a man she can rely on. But as with all the men in Clara’s life, Lowry is less than dependable.
As the novel progresses, the reader watches Clara evolve from a girl with dreams of a home she can call her own, to a woman who is hardened by the world around her. With the impending birth of her son Swan, Clara takes control of her future by falling back on her ability to manipulate others into giving her what she needs.
Clara’s relationship with Revere - a man who offers stability and predictability to her - is developed over the last half of the book. This relationship represents all that Clara’s father was unable to provide, and so it is rimmed with sadness and disappointment. The adult Clara, a woman who sees happiness in the accumulation of wealth, is a hard character to like. She hides behind the lie that everything she does is done for Swan - her only son. And yet her behavior is solely narcissistic and tinged with childishness. Swan is a tragic figure, a boy cut loose from his “roots” and unsure about where he fits in society. His moral decline is almost predictable, and yet still stuns the reader.
Originally written in 1966 (the first novel in the Wonderland Quartet), A Garden of Earthly Delights was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1968. Oates rewrote it in 2002 for publication by the Modern Library. She writes:
'As a composer can hear music he can’t himself play on any instrument, so a young writer may have a vision he or she can’t quite execute; to feel something, however deeply, is not the same as possessing the power - the craft, the skill, the stubborn patience - to translate it into formal terms.'
In rewriting her novel, Oates discovered some autobiographical elements to which she had previously been unaware - her own upbringing on a struggling family farm, her youthful exposure to stories about her paternal grandfather (a violent alcoholic named Carlton), the crude language of her childhood which was accepted as commonplace, and the similarity of the name Clara to that of Oates’ mother Carolina. In the rewritten version, Oates attempts to examine her characters more thoroughly so that the reader can ‘experience them intimately, from the inside.‘
A Garden of Earthly Delights is not so much about what happens to a young girl raised in poverty and abuse, but is more about the awful gap between social classes. It is about a young girl who must confront her past in order to move into her future. And it is about survival, as well as about those who do not survive. Oates writes:
'The trajectory of social ambition and social tragedy dramatized by the Walpoles seems to me as relevant to the twenty-first century as it had seemed in the late 1960s, not dated but bitterly enhanced by our current widening disparity between social classes in America. Haves and have-nots is too crude a formula to describe this great subject, for as Swan Walpole discovers, to have and not to be, is to have lost one’s soul.'
This is not an enjoyable book. It is harsh, shocking, and tragic. Dreary and depressing at times, this is a novel not always easy to read. And yet Oates writes with a beauty that is hard to deny. Her ability to uncover the soul of her characters is amazing. Readers who enjoy strong literary novels with tragic characters, will want to read this book. Those who are offended by foul language (Oates does not temper her dialogue) or dislike stories centered around dysfunctional families, will probably not like A Garden of Earthly Delights.
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trash, everybody knew that, and what it meant was that people were going to throw stones: you had to get hit sooner or later. -From A Garden of Earthly Delights, page 47-48-'There are plenty of stones getting thrown in Joyce Carol Oates’ early novel: A Garden of Earthly Delights. The novel centers around the character of Clara, an economically disadvantaged child growing up as part of the dysfunctional Walpole family. Clara is literally born in a ditch at the side of the road - symbolic of her later struggles to rise from the muck of poverty and dysfunction to make something of her life. Clara’s early years are marked by her alcoholic, abusive father who is a Kentucky-born migrant farm worker. Carleton Walpole is a harsh, angry man who moves his family from one encampment to the next, never providing a stable home for any of them.
Oates’ descriptions are raw, real and depressing - she captures the hopelessness of Clara’s surroundings perfectly. So it is no wonder when Clara meets the much older and charming Lowry, she wastes no time in fleeing from her father and her downtrodden family. Still a child, Clara envisions a life much different from that which her mother lived. She is not discouraged by the seemingly insurmountable challenges she faces, and is not afraid to work hard. She sees Lowry as her knight in shining armor, a man she can rely on. But as with all the men in Clara’s life, Lowry is less than dependable.
As the novel progresses, the reader watches Clara evolve from a girl with dreams of a home she can call her own, to a woman who is hardened by the world around her. With the impending birth of her son Swan, Clara takes control of her future by falling back on her ability to manipulate others into giving her what she needs.
Clara’s relationship with Revere - a man who offers stability and predictability to her - is developed over the last half of the book. This relationship represents all that Clara’s father was unable to provide, and so it is rimmed with sadness and disappointment. The adult Clara, a woman who sees happiness in the accumulation of wealth, is a hard character to like. She hides behind the lie that everything she does is done for Swan - her only son. And yet her behavior is solely narcissistic and tinged with childishness. Swan is a tragic figure, a boy cut loose from his “roots” and unsure about where he fits in society. His moral decline is almost predictable, and yet still stuns the reader.
Originally written in 1966 (the first novel in the Wonderland Quartet), A Garden of Earthly Delights was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1968. Oates rewrote it in 2002 for publication by the Modern Library. She writes:
'As a composer can hear music he can’t himself play on any instrument, so a young writer may have a vision he or she can’t quite execute; to feel something, however deeply, is not the same as possessing the power - the craft, the skill, the stubborn patience - to translate it into formal terms.'
In rewriting her novel, Oates discovered some autobiographical elements to which she had previously been unaware - her own upbringing on a struggling family farm, her youthful exposure to stories about her paternal grandfather (a violent alcoholic named Carlton), the crude language of her childhood which was accepted as commonplace, and the similarity of the name Clara to that of Oates’ mother Carolina. In the rewritten version, Oates attempts to examine her characters more thoroughly so that the reader can ‘experience them intimately, from the inside.‘
A Garden of Earthly Delights is not so much about what happens to a young girl raised in poverty and abuse, but is more about the awful gap between social classes. It is about a young girl who must confront her past in order to move into her future. And it is about survival, as well as about those who do not survive. Oates writes:
'The trajectory of social ambition and social tragedy dramatized by the Walpoles seems to me as relevant to the twenty-first century as it had seemed in the late 1960s, not dated but bitterly enhanced by our current widening disparity between social classes in America. Haves and have-nots is too crude a formula to describe this great subject, for as Swan Walpole discovers, to have and not to be, is to have lost one’s soul.'
This is not an enjoyable book. It is harsh, shocking, and tragic. Dreary and depressing at times, this is a novel not always easy to read. And yet Oates writes with a beauty that is hard to deny. Her ability to uncover the soul of her characters is amazing. Readers who enjoy strong literary novels with tragic characters, will want to read this book. Those who are offended by foul language (Oates does not temper her dialogue) or dislike stories centered around dysfunctional families, will probably not like A Garden of Earthly Delights.
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LibraryThing member RDHawk6886
Dickens-noir. Reminescient of Great Expectations, it's a tale of how the main character, Clara, goes from dirt poor to elite rich and a glimpse into the personality that is capable of making that leap. I try not to read other reviews until I have completed my own. My purpose is to provide enough
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content to have some recall of what I read, and to give a hint of what the book was like should someone chance onto to this. That being said, the individual who described this as a "chick book" then, graciously forgiving it as such is simply, shallowly, and literally judging this book by its cover. The book concerns relationships, and some between men and women, but what great novel does not? Clara is unsentimental and ambitious, not the standard subject of a romance novel. To the contrary, I think if one read the book without looking at the cover or noting the author's name, you would assume it is written by a man. As for what some have regarded or reported as an abrupt or unsatisfying ending, aren't most of life's endings such? It worked for me. A life time of ambition for ambition's sake, leaving the main character to question what it was in particular she was striving for in the first place. If you like Jane Smiley, Donna Taart, Tom Wolfe this is a multi- layered work in the same vein. Show Less
LibraryThing member latorreliliana
First part of the book was interesting. Family saga too long.
LibraryThing member yougotamber
While reading this, I was unsure of where Oates was going with it, normally the books I have read so far have been shocking. This was so far different from what I was expecting and surprisingly I really enjoyed it. The story follows Clara through her desolate poor life while she works herself up to
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wealthy rich. The changes she goes through during this time are astonishing and I believe to be quite accurate for someone moving up the class system. Oates tells us through this book how unimportant money can be and how happiness is found elsewhere. Where? That is something she does not divulge but it certainly has nothing to do with money. Again, her characters are rich and involved, Oates has a way of getting within the soul of a person/character and breathing life into them. I can't wait to continue on the road of this Wonderland Quartet and see what else she can teach me. Show Less
LibraryThing member lauriebrown54
While I’ve certainly not read all of Joyce Carol Oates’s work, I’d be willing to say that her work isn’t joyous. And this book takes the lack of joy- the lack to *any* form of happiness- to nose bleeding heights.
Clara is born into misery. Her parents are migrant fruit pickers in the Great
Her life becomes one of securing her place in the world. In her quest she loses friends and is scorned by all, but gains financial security and doesn’t care a bit. All her life, she is defined by both men- her father, her boyfriend, her husband, her son- and by her lust for *things*; clothing, furniture, jewelry. In a humanizing touch, she is also an avid gardener, reveling in planting and weeding and pruning, even after she has enough money that she could afford to hire someone. It seems to be her single creative outlet or interest. She’s not a bad person, despite what the townspeople think; she’s just very driven to never be like her parents. She learns to read on her own, and watches other people to learn how to behave.
The prose, despite the grim subject especially in the first part of the book, is brilliant to read. The brutal lives the migrants are living comes vividly, frighteningly, alive. Clara is mostly a sympathetic character. Of course she makes mistakes, some of which have horrible consequences, but she does the best she can in a bad situation. This could have been a depressing read, but for the most part it’s not; it’s oddly uplifting to see Clara make a life for herself and her son.
Note: I read the original 1966 version, not the updated one.
Clara is born into misery. Her parents are migrant fruit pickers in the Great
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Depression. They own nothing and live in shacks on the farms for a few weeks before moving on. They can never make enough to escape this life. Her father copes by drinking, fighting, beating his wife and kids (except for Clara), and committing adultery. Constant pregnancy eventually kills her mother. This doesn’t change much; Clara has been taking care of the younger siblings for years. One evening in ‘town’ she meets an unusual man- one who doesn’t want to have sex with her. She stays out late, and when she returns to her shack, her father brutally beats her. She runs away, and with this man’s help, starts a new life with a room of her own, a bed of her own, and a job at a dime store. This is luxury beyond anything she’s ever known. Her life becomes one of securing her place in the world. In her quest she loses friends and is scorned by all, but gains financial security and doesn’t care a bit. All her life, she is defined by both men- her father, her boyfriend, her husband, her son- and by her lust for *things*; clothing, furniture, jewelry. In a humanizing touch, she is also an avid gardener, reveling in planting and weeding and pruning, even after she has enough money that she could afford to hire someone. It seems to be her single creative outlet or interest. She’s not a bad person, despite what the townspeople think; she’s just very driven to never be like her parents. She learns to read on her own, and watches other people to learn how to behave.
The prose, despite the grim subject especially in the first part of the book, is brilliant to read. The brutal lives the migrants are living comes vividly, frighteningly, alive. Clara is mostly a sympathetic character. Of course she makes mistakes, some of which have horrible consequences, but she does the best she can in a bad situation. This could have been a depressing read, but for the most part it’s not; it’s oddly uplifting to see Clara make a life for herself and her son.
Note: I read the original 1966 version, not the updated one.
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LibraryThing member starbox
I've read a few of Ms Oates' novels; this, one of her earliest, is utterly brilliant and just leaves the reader astounded that anyone can so bring to life her characters, getting inside the minds of the strangest and most unaccountable, so we feel we know them.
Opening in the Depression, we meet the
The final section hones in on her son...a guy with Issues...
Unputdownable, fabulous writing.
Opening in the Depression, we meet the
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poor, migratory Walpole family. dragging from state to state, seasonal farm labourers living in squalor; poor, hard-drinking, resentful, violent....Daughter Clara gers away, with a strange, distant, mentally uncertain man- Lowry, the love of her life. And finds herself abanoned, pregnant, but with a potential get-out in the form of wealthy, married, older Curt Revere...The final section hones in on her son...a guy with Issues...
Unputdownable, fabulous writing.
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Subjects
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 1968)
Language
Original language
Catalan
Original publication date
1967
Physical description
496 p.; 14 x 1 cm
ISBN
8419630322 / 9788419630322