Reception
The title of the volume is the English translation for its short story “Les Beaux Jours.” New York Times reviewer Benjamin Markovits points out that this Gothic tale was suggested by the “erotic” painting, The Golden Days (1945–1946) by Balthus. [3]
The artwork depicts a girl reclining in a chair, admiring her face in a hand mirror; she is in partial undress. A shirtless young man stokes a fireplace in the background. [4] According to Robert Schaefer at The New York Review of Books , Oates has created “a gothic tale with a portal to horror” through the medium of the Balthus painting. [5] Schaefer provides a clue as to the fate of the female protagonist with this quote: “Will they not hear me when I cry for help?” [6]
Regarding Beautiful Days as a “mixed, occasionally satisfying, volume,” Kirkus Reviews describes two tales—“Les Beaux Jours” and “Fractal”—as “surprisingly inventive.” The story “Undocumented Alien” is deemed “overly long [and] far less successful.” [7]
Citing the short story volume Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (1993) as a high-water mark in Oates’s career, literary critic Sara Cutaia at the Chicago Review of Books sharply distinguishes this early work with Beautiful Days. [8] Cutaia laments that Oates conveys her character’s emotional states at the expense of providing clarity as to their morality and motivations. [9] Cutaia reports these literary offenses:
The unwieldy sentences, lack of commas, and overuse of parentheses are distracting. The insertion of obvious facts and asides can be infuriating, as if readers can’t infer the obvious on their own. The writing is heavy with details and belabored paragraphs, and the man-woman dynamic is stuffy and outdated. [10]
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