A Garden Of Earthly Delights (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
This book was published in 1967 and is the first book of the Wonderland Quartet. That year I was a junior at the University of Michigan, married with a one year old son. I had recently avoided being drafted because I was a father. I worked almost full time at the Ann Arbor Post Office as an evening special delivery carrier. I would end up having an English major with only the slightest knowledge of Joyce Carol Oates who was 29 when A Garden of Earthly Delights was published.In this book JCO writes about migrant workers picking beans, strawberries, tomatoes. They have numerous children, the men drink and fight, the women are subservient. They work in Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, New Jersey, following the harvest seasons. We follow the life of Clara closely. I especially enjoyed the fact that there were relatively few characters which helped my limited memory.I read the original edition but JCO made some significant revisions (three-quarters of the book changed, I read) for the 2003 Modern Library edition that includes a lengthy Afterword by JCO. You can read that look into how JCO revised this book on the Amazon website at http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Earthly-... Go to the Table of Contents on the left of the page, scroll to the bottom and click on the item titled Afterword. She was motivated to do this substantial rewrite when the book was selected to be published in a Modern Library edition. She considered this a major landmark for the book; a revision was something she had considered for some time. A major rewrite of a book is a very large undertaking but JCO is known for a lifetime of continuous production.This, speaking of The Wonderland Quartet, from Invisible Writer A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates:This rich, kaleidoscopic suite of novels displays the young Joyce Carol Oates exercising her formidable artistic powers to portray a turbulent twentieth-century America. They offer the reader a singular opportunity to experience some of Oates's best writing and to witness her development, novel by novel, into one of our finest contemporary writers. The copy of the book I am reading is a former library book. It has many due dates stamped on the pocket in the back of the book. The dates start in 1967 when the South Salem (NY) Library put this new book into circulation. Now the pages are softened by much use and possibly a higher rag (cotton) content in the ‘olden days’. It feels good to be reading the words that many people in the Salem area read decades ago. The last date is April 7, 2000 when it appears the library switched to a bar code scanning system. And now the book is part of my personal library where it joins quite a few other works of JCO. I seem to have a thing about her!Clara is a complex character with a mixture of being controlled by men (her father, Carleton; Lowry} and controlling men (Revere). It is hard for me to keep it in my mind that she is just a child, a barely literate child at that. Just as she was being a mother to her younger siblings at a very early age, her experience of ever actually being a child was severely limited. Children having babies in the 1930s was not uncommon. For Clara the baby was the first thing in her life that was really hers. I think this sad motivation can be translated into the current era although teen birth rates have been declining in the US in recent decades. The concept of a “sugar daddy” plays out as Clara finds a way to manage her wants and needs at the age of sixteen.This book has kept me interested throughout because it has involved several social/relationship issues that interest me. Migrant workers were in the forefront of the news when this book was published with Cesar Chavez leading the organizing effort of the United Farm Workers in California with major grape and lettuce boycotts. Lowry coming back unexpectedly strikes a chord with me as it brings up the emotional issue of a lost love reappearing with complicated results. And finally the last segment of the book comes on heavy with blended family issues, a matter with which I have considerable personal experience. My interest level with these and other matters kept me turning the pages and sorry when I had to interrupt my reading.Before I read A Garden of Earthly Delights, I hadn’t read any Joyce Carol Oates in probably over a year although I have another nineteen unread books by her on my bookshelf. With A Garden being such an enjoyable read, I think I will take another one off the shelf quite soon. I am giving JCO four stars for this effort although there were moments when I was definitely having a five star experience. This is the best JCO book that I have read so far. I also have the 2003 substantially rewritten edition and am looking forward to comparing it with the original. I have never done that kind of comparison before but reading JCO’s Afterword about the rewriting process has made me want to make that effort.
I have a copy of the original version of this work, but I had not gotten around to reading it when I found this one. Lucky me! I don't know if I would have read the newer version if I had already read the old. I can only guess at the origin of the title. Clara is the daughter of migrant farmworkers in the eastern part of the U.S. She is familiar with the earth from these beginnings, but it is only when she takes off that she really starts to search for the "delights". A beautiful young woman, she attracts the attention of more than one male, and it is through their assistance that she climbs the ladder to a more prosperous life. She would never have put it that way, though. She believes that her success is hers alone. Clara's male influences start with her father a bitter, resentful, crude, selfish man, who nevertheless loves Clara in a way he cannot love anyone else. As she grows, though, Clara is determined that her life will not continue in this rut. She hitches a ride with the gentle Lowry, a mysterious, kind man for whom Clara seems to retain a lifelong affection. Later she finds her way into the life of Revere, a wealthy man quite smitten by Clara in spite of his tendency toward hard practicality. When Clara gives birth to a son she calls Swan, her self-involvement expands to include the boy. In fact, she is so taken by him that she can hardly bear to have him out of her sight. To say that she actually loves him, though, may not be accurate. It appears that Clara cannot love others, not really. Is this because of her beginnings? The lessons she learned from her father and mother? I had difficulty really liking any of the characters. In a way, this situation reminded me of Madame Bovary. I wanted to care, at least to sympathize, but I couldn't quite manage. This novel reveals much about migrant farm workers, reminding us that they are not only in California and are not only from Mexico. It also presents us with hard stories of the rich and poor, the gaps we see increasingly in the present-day United States. I took away a different vision of these different lives, and I think I'm better for it.
What do You think about A Garden Of Earthly Delights (2003)?
"A Garden of Earthly Delights" (1967) is the second book written by Joyce Carol Oates, who is arguably the most prolific modern writer in the world as the author of more than 100 books. When it was selected for publication by Modern Library in 2002, she rewrote it. She didn't change the story or the characters, but changed the way the story was told. Of course, it is excellent. While all her books are dark and somewhat depressing, the writing is exquisite and the characters so fully developed they almost jump off the page and join you for dinner.This is the first in what has become known the Wonderland Quartet ("Expensive People," "them" and "Wonderland" follow). All four novels explore social class in America and the inner lives of the people presented.From the Amazon book description:The lead character is 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: Carleton, her father, who is 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.I highly recommend it!
—Cathryn Conroy
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 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.
—AmberBug *shelfnotes.com*
The first book in Oates's Wonderland quartet and the third of them that I've read (now just need to read Expensive People to finish up); A Garden of Earthly Delights is, like its sister novels them & Wonderland, beautifully and at times harrowingly written. Oates captures the lives of her careworn, desperate, bewildered characters with deep empathy and zero sentimentality or condescension. Her brief author's afterward in this revised and partially rewritten edition is a real bonus: fascinating to read the now fully-mature artist looking back and assessing her younger work, explaining what she feels she left out in the early version and how she feels her revisions broaden the scope of the book and enrich and deepen the inner lives of her characters. Any glimpse of the artistic process of an important writer/visual artist/musician is always so appreciated.
—Robert
