Wonderland (novel)

Last updated
Wonderland
WonderOates.jpg
First edition cover
Author Joyce Carol Oates
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Wonderland Quartet
Genre Naturalist novel
Publisher Vanguard Press
Publication date
1971
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages512 pp
ISBN 0-8129-7655-X
OCLC 70265617
813/.54 22
LC Class PS3565.A8 W63 2006
Preceded by them  

Wonderland is a 1971 novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the fourth in her "Wonderland Quartet" following A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), Expensive People (1968), and them (1969). It was a finalist for the annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction [1] and it has been called one of the author's best books. [2] [3]

Contents

Wonderland follows the character Jesse Vogel from his childhood in the Great Depression to his marriage and career in the late 1960s. Oates later wrote that Jesse is a protagonist who does not have an identity unless he is "deeply involved in meaningful experience", a theme that allowed her to address both what she calls "the phantasmagoria of personality" and the faceless nature of the novelist. [4]

Oates wrote in a 1992 Afterword that Wonderland among her early novels was "the most bizarre and obsessive" and "the most painful to write". [4] Oates continued to think about the novel after its completion, and rewrote the ending for the 1972 paperback edition. [4] She also continued to write about the Vogels: the play Ontological Proof of My Existence is an expansion of Jesse's visit to Toronto in the novel, and she considers the story 'How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction, and Began My Life Over Again' "an analogue of Shelley [Vogel]'s experience as a runaway to Toledo." [4]

Summary

Book 1: Variations on an American Hymn

Jesse Harte is fourteen years old in Yewville, NY, in 1939, when his despairing father Willard murders Jesse's mother, two sisters, and brother, and then tries to shoot Jesse before the father commits suicide. Jesse moves in with his maternal grandfather, Grandpa Vogel, but runs away and lives with his cousin Fritz for a while. Then he goes to the Niagara County home for Boys, outside Lockport, until a doctor named Pederson from Lockport adopts him.

Jesse lives with the Pedersons: Karl Pederson, M.D., his wife Mary (née Shirer), and their children Frederich and Hilda. Frederich is a pianist and Hilda is a math prodigy. Jesse excels in school and Dr. Pederson drills him constantly in different subjects, particularly biology, encouraging Jesse to become a doctor like himself. When he is sixteen, Jesse travels to New York and watches Hilda perform in a math competition. Mrs. Pederson becomes increasingly nervous and dependent upon Jesse. Jesse skips a grade and is accepted at the University of Michigan. One day Mrs. Pederson begs Jesse to take her to a hotel in Buffalo, because she is terrified of Dr. Pederson and claims he is controlling her entire life. Jesse acquiesces, but Dr. Pederson eventually forces Mrs. Pederson to come home, and he disowns Jesse.

Book 2: The Finite Passing of an Infinite Passion

Jesse enrolls at the University of Michigan, though the money Dr. Pederson gave him soon runs out. He legally changes his name to Jesse Vogel, studies hard, and works to pay off his debts to the University, sleeping little. He greatly admires Dr. Benjamin Cady, who teaches a neuroscience course. Jesse becomes sick with mononucleosis and, while recovering in the hospital, falls in love with a nurse named Anne-Marie Seton. One day Jesse returns to his apartment and finds a man named Talbot "Trick" Waller Monk in it, an assistant to Dr. Cady. "Trick" introduces himself and says that he would like to be a poet rather than a doctor. Jesse becomes increasingly suspicious of Anne-Marie and eventually breaks up with her.

While on an errand with his landlady's daughter, Jesse sees Dr. Cady in a parking lot with a young woman and learns that she is Cady's daughter, Helene. Jesse soon becomes engaged to Helene, as well as close friends with Trick. The three spend a lot of time together but one day at a restaurant Trick begins spontaneously reciting his own strange poetry, and Jesse and Helene try to leave. Trick tries to attack Jesse, and when Jesse defends himself, Trick collapses and must go to a hospital because of a rheumatic heart condition.

Jesse works as an intern at LaSalle Hospital in Chicago, the head of which is Dr. Roderick Perrault. Jesse marries Helene Cady and she becomes pregnant, but she feels isolated because Jesse works so much. She gives birth to a girl, Jeanne. One day when Jesse is walking with Jeanne he sees an attractive woman who seems familiar to him, and when he introduces himself she says that her name is Reva Denk. Jesse becomes Chief Resident at LaSalle and Helene becomes pregnant again, but Jesse obsesses over Reva Denk and eventually contacts her again, telling her that he would leave Helene for Reva. Reva implies that she is pregnant and needs him (a doctor) to perform an abortion for her, which he refuses. William H. Shirer, the father of Mary Pederson, dies and leaves Jesse a small fortune, but when he shows the paperwork to Helene, she accuses him of being in love with someone else. Jesse drives off and finds Reva Denk again, proposing to her that he stay with her and raise Denk's child as his own, but Jesse finds that he cannot follow through on this and he returns to Helene.

Book 3: Dreaming America

Jesse Vogel uses his inheritance from William Shirer to start his own clinic. He attends a doctors' conference with his family - Helene, Jeanne, and their younger daughter Michele (Shelley) - in New York City on November 22, 1963. Jesse works harder than ever, at his clinic and on editing the book that Dr. Perrault failed to complete before dying. As he neglects his family, his daughter Shelley becomes very rebellious, though Jeanne progresses and plans to study biology in college. Shelley travels with some friends to Toledo, and after they get arrested Jesse drives there and takes her home. Shelley eventually runs away again, this time for good, and she sends postcards to her father with no return address. These postcards come from all over the map - Homestead, the Gulf of Mexico, New York City, San Angelo, Best, Venice Beach - and Shelley says that she is with a young man named Noel. One postcard mentions the poet T. W. Monk, and Jesse journeys to New York to find Trick. Trick is now a published poet but also in poor health and a drug addict, and Trick has no useful information as to Shelley's whereabouts. Finally a postcard says that she is on Yonge Street, in Toronto, and it implies that she is very sick from drug abuse. Jesse drives to Toronto and finds her emaciated in a disgusting apartment. She resists her father, saying that Noel told her that Jesse is the devil.

Interpretation

G. F. Waller characterizes "Wonderland" as "a society of schizoids: its inhabitants define their goals in the rhetoric of idealism - the integrity of the individual, the promise of the future, the freedom and uniqueness of the personality - but it acts as if these great goals...are graspable only in the most immediate material forms." [5] Mary Ann Wilson observes, "the elements of the past from which Jesse thinks he is escaping reappear again as he is in the end a frustrated, ineffectual father like his own...as Jesse had fled his insane, murderous father at the beginning of the novel, his own runaway daughter, Shelley, flees her father accusing him of wanting to kill her." [6] Jeoffrey Steven Bull argues that Jesse refuses to accept his own past, and instead "looks for relief in the nihilism of isolated sovereignty," denying his own personality so that he can dominate everything. [7] Bull also states that "homeostasis is the goal towards which Jesse works...the term can help readers understand the simultaneous dread of contingency and longing for freedom evident in Jesse and other characters." [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Carol Oates</span> American author (born 1938)

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).

<i>Them</i> (novel) 1969 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Them is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the third in her "Wonderland Quartet" following A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967) and Expensive People (1968) and preceding Wonderland (1971). It was published by Vanguard in 1969 and it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucia Joyce</span> Professional dancer

Lucia Anna Joyce was a professional dancer and the daughter of Irish writer James Joyce and Nora Barnacle. Once treated by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, Joyce was diagnosed as schizophrenic in the mid-1930s and institutionalized at the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich. In 1951, she was transferred to St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton, where she remained until her death in 1982. She was the aunt of Stephen James Joyce.

<i>Angélique, the Marquise of the Angels</i>

Angélique, the Marquise of the Angels is a 1956 novel by Anne Golon & Serge Golon, the first novel in Angélique series. Inspired by the life of Suzanne de Rougé du Plessis-Bellière, known as the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière.

"The Reach" is a short story by American writer Stephen King. First published in Yankee in 1981 under the title "Do the Dead Sing?", it was later collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is a frequently anthologized short story written by Joyce Carol Oates. The story first appeared in the Fall 1966 edition of Epoch magazine. It was inspired by three Tucson, Arizona murders committed by Charles Schmid, which were profiled in Life magazine in an article written by Don Moser on March 4, 1966. Oates said that she dedicated the story to Bob Dylan because she was inspired to write it after listening to his song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". The story was originally named "Death and the Maiden".

<i>Black Water</i> (novella) 1992 novella by Joyce Carol Oates

Black Water is a 1992 novella by the American writer and professor Joyce Carol Oates. It is a roman à clef based on the Chappaquiddick incident, in which U.S. senator Ted Kennedy crashed a car and caused the death by drowning of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. The novella was a 1993 Pulitzer Prize finalist for fiction.

Une page d'amour is the eighth novel in the 'Rougon-Macquart' series by Émile Zola, set among the petite bourgeoisie in Second Empire suburban Paris. It was first serialised between December 11, 1877, and April 4, 1878, in Le Bien public, before being published in novel form by Charpentier in April 1878.

<i>A Garden of Earthly Delights</i> 1967 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

A Garden of Earthly Delights is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, published by Vanguard in 1967. Her second book published, it is the first in her "Wonderland Quartet" followed by Expensive People (1968), them (1969), and Wonderland (1971). It was a finalist for the 1968 annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

<i>The Gravediggers Daughter</i> 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

The Gravedigger's Daughter is a 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It is her 36th published novel. The novel was based on the life of Oates's grandmother, whose father, a gravedigger settled in rural America, injured his wife, threatened his daughter, and then committed suicide. Oates explained that she decided to write about her family only after her parents died, adding that her "family history was filled with pockets of silence. I had to do a lot of imagining."

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1949 film) 1949 French film

Alice in Wonderland is a 1949 French film based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Directed by Dallas Bower, the film stars Carol Marsh as Alice, Stephen Murray as Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Bussières as The Tailor. Most of the Wonderland characters are portrayed by stop-motion animated puppets created by Lou Bunin.

<i>Freaky Green Eyes</i> Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Freaky Green Eyes (2003) is the third young adult fiction novel written by Joyce Carol Oates. The story follows the life of 15-year-old Francesca "Franky" Pierson as she reflects on the events leading to her mother's mysterious disappearance. Through what she calls Freaky's thoughts, Franky accepts the truth about her mother's disappearance and her father's hand in it.

<i>Son of the Morning</i> (novel)

Son of the Morning is a 1978 novel by American author Joyce Carol Oates. The book was first published on August 1, 1978 through Vanguard Press.

<i>The Little Red Chairs</i> Novel by Edna OBrien

The Little Red Chairs is a 2015 novel by Irish author Edna O'Brien, who was 85 at the time of publication. The novel is O'Brien's 23rd fictional publication.

<i>Mudwoman</i> 2012 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Mudwoman is 2012 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. The novel is a psychological horror and campus novel, which follows the experience of a university president, M.R. Neukirchen, "haunted by her secret past as the child of a poor, mentally ill religious fanatic who tried to drown her in a riverside mudflat".

<i>The Sacrifice</i> (Oates novel) 2015 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

The Sacrifice is a 2015 novel by the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. Set in blighted urban New Jersey in the 1980s, it follows a young Black woman, Sybilla, who is discovered in a degraded condition in an abandoned factory after going missing. When she alleges that she was kidnapped, assaulted, and left for dead by a group of white police officers, her cause is taken up by an ambitious and unscrupulous civil rights activist and his lawyer brother, despite evidence of deceit in her story. The events of the novel are based on the real-life Tawana Brawley case, and takes place in a part of New Jersey still suffering from the aftermath of post-war deindustrialization and the 1967 Newark riots.

<i>Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.</i> 2020 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a 2020 novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, about a man who was killed by the police and the aftermath of his death on his family. Its title comes from a poem by Walt Whitman.

The Poisoned Kiss and Other Stories from the Portuguese is a collection of short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1975 by Vanguard Press.

Unholy Loves is a novel written by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in 1979 by Vanguard Press. In an interview Oates called it "an academic comedy set at an upstate New York university larger than Bennington, smaller than Cornell, prestigious yet not quite competitive with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale."

<i>Pursuit</i> (Oates novel)

Pursuit is a 2019 thriller and suspense novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It was published in the United States by Mysterious Press on October 1, 2019.

References

  1. ↑ "National Book Awards – 1972". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
  2. ↑ Davis, Duane. "Joyce Carol Oates for dummies", "Where to start", "Onto the novels" (series of articles). The Rocky Mountain News , June 13, 2003. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  3. ↑ "Book News: Daily Oates Consumption". Entertainment Weekly , July 6, 2007. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Wonderland". Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  5. ↑ Waller, G. F. (1974). "Joyce Carol Oates' Wonderland: An Introduction". Dalhousie Review. 54 (3): 482.
  6. ↑ Wilson, Mary Ann (1977). "The Image of Self in Selected Works of Joyce Carol Oates". Historical Dissertations and Theses. Louisiana State University. p. 45.
  7. ↑ Bull, Jeoffrey Steven (1977). "Trying Nothing: Appraisals of Nihilism in American Fiction of the 1970s" (PDF). Department of English. University of Toronto. p. 99.
  8. ↑ Bull, Jeoffrey Steven (1977). "Trying Nothing: Appraisals of Nihilism in American Fiction of the 1970s" (PDF). Department of English. University of Toronto. p. 127.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.