Customer Reviews

A Fair Maiden

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Oates inspires my ambivalence in this strange tale of a young nanny at an exclusive enclave at the New Jersey shore and an elderly artist and author of children's books. Approached on the street with her two small charges, sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is both flattered and confused by the attention of elderly gentleman Marcus Kidder, silver-haired and silver-tongued. The Spivak family background hardly leaves Katya in a position to make wise judgments as Mr. Kidder entices and cajoles the girl to visit him at his home. Impressed with Kidder's wealth and luxury the unsophisticated teen is torn between common sense and curiosity. Kidder smoothly transitions from friendly older gentleman to subtly insistent pursuer. The girl is far outmatched in the game of seduction, handicapped by a desperation "to be liked, even... by people she resented". Taking her cue from an errant mother, the teen has also learned the folly of contradicting a man when he wants something. The result is a game of push and pull, Kidder insistent, Katya reluctantly pliable as an inner voice entertains bouts of ugly realism.

"The curious thrill of trespass kept her captive." Oates keeps me captive as well in this collision of two worlds, one of privilege, the other of want, Kidder's estate filled with gorgeous objects, glass flowers that mimic real ones but will never die, a grand piano, walls and walls of books, the ambience of wealth, children's books written by a gentle elderly man. It is easy to lose one's way in this fantastical world, a child numbed by excess and attention, flattered and half in love, though such a thing is absurd. Certainly, Oates' vision of Katya's inevitable seduction is masterful, an economy of emotion with bursts of rage, a conundrum of pursuer, prey and desperation. Ultimately, Katya is the pawn of an old man's vanity and fear, once more used by those she trusts and left to sort through the tangled remnants of her bruised feelings. The abuse of innocence is never pretty, material goods a pale reward for the battering of the soul. Luan Gaines/2010.

This is a short novella of 165pp, which can easily be read in an evening or two. It is a mystery full of twists in which the author does not reveal its intended secret plot line until near the end. Although not a normal reader of fiction, I enjoyed this book so much that I ordered two additional copies to give to friends. As a practitioner in the mental health field, I thought the psychological ramifications regarding class differences to be quite accurate. I found it engrossing and made me want to read another book by the same author.

I have loved Joyce Carol Oates since high school when I picked up Black Water and couldn't put it down, so I was naturally inclined to pick this up as soon as I saw it. The story starts off slow. Neither main character, Katya or Marcus are particularly likeable. Even once you know their motivations it doesn't make them much more sympathetic. Maybe Katya's story is a little sadder since she has been so abandoned and neglected her whole life; she doesn't even have a chance.

For a short novel, this moves very slowly until the very end where there is a quick acceleration. What happens is predictable so I only kept reading to see how it would unfold. The final revelation isn't shocking or worth the build up. When I finished I really felt cheated. If this book didn't have Oates name on it, it never would have been published. The story just isn't very good or very interesting. 6.30.10

Katya Spivak is a Jersey girl who works, in the summer, at Bayhead as a nanny for a well to to family. On a stroll through the harbor town, she meets Marcus Cullen Kidder, an eccentric old man who is an artist, writer, and patron of the town. He is eager to share his history with Katya, but only to a severe point. In Marcus, Katya (a distrusting young woman by nature and nurture) finds a wise, attentive, and eager friend. However, that friendship spirals into an unsettling romance.

Written with the utmost of elegance, grace, and poise, Oates creates a story that is romantically creepy. Katya fights demons of her own past (like sorting out her absentee father issues and dealing with an alcoholic mother with a penchant for gambling) while simultaneously trying to figure out the enigmatic Kidder. We can see that Marcus is the stability, wealthy, and earnest soul that a girl like Katya needs to help repair her fragile psyche. However, there is more to Kidder than what she "sees".

On the surface, this novel seems like a romaticized episode of "To Catch a Predator", which may be Oates' intent. What's more unsettling than a forbidden love story where we are not comfortable with the pairing? It is like watching a car accident that is paced out for 165 pages. We do not want to see what happens, but we cannot tear ourselves away.

A Fair Maiden is a strong work of Oates'; however, it is not by far one of her best work. Oates creates drama and mysteries in which we are not sure we want to know how it resolves itself. Yet, when it is resolved, we are left feeling satisfied.

A strange story by an author who has made thousands of fans by writing about strange things.

Katya Spivek, 16, is from a low class family. She is spending the summer in a high class beach enclave, working as a live-in nanny for a rich couple. Her employers seem to regard Katya as a possession -albeit a disposable one. One day, window shopping on the way to taking the children to the park, she meets Marcus Kidder, a long time resident who considers himself far above the new people like Katya's employers in both money and class. Indeed, the entire town considers him to be such. He and Katya are at the opposite ends of the social spectrum, yet he picks her to befriend.

Katya doesn't know what to make of him- stately gentleman? Old perve after a nubile teenager? He seems innocent enough, charming the three year old, having them to tea. But when he gives Katya an inappropriate gift (red silk underwear), she decides to never go back. Then her drunken mother calls, saying she owes someone bad $300, that she has no one to help her but Katya, and she must send her the money immediately or bad things will happen to her. Turned down by her employers, with no one else to turn to, Katya must borrow from Kidder, putting her in his debt. Already almost powerless by virtue of her social class, now she is completely powerless in this relationship. Things go completely out of her control, spiraling down into a series of dark events.

A sense of foreboding fills the entire story. Katya is isolated, not just in the summer town where she knows no one, but also at home. Her father is long gone, her mother an alcoholic gambler, her relatives abusive and violent. Katya stands apart from them because of her love of books and her ambition of going to college. She fits no where. You know all along that bad things will happen to her, that there is no way out for her. She's young, female and poor.

In "A Fair Maiden," Joyce Carol Oates returns to the theme for which she is perhaps best known: a very young woman is being preyed upon by an older man interested only in using her for his own, less than honorable, purposes. Female characters created by Oates live in a world in which they can never afford to let their guards slip because, just when they begin to feel comfortable about their surroundings, a man will step from the shadows to yank them back into the brutal nature of the real world they inhabit.

Sixteen-year-old Katya Spivak is not exactly an innocent. Even before her father disappeared from her life, the Spivak family struggled to make it from one payday to the next. These days, her mother is much more interested in partying in Atlantic City than in holding a job. Katya may have come up the hard way but she resents those who look down on people like her and her family. Despite her feelings, she is spending the summer in an exclusive Jersey shore community as nanny to the children of a wealthy couple who seem determined to put as little cash in her pocket as possible.

Marcus Kidder, 68, is pretty much the last of the Kidder family to spend time in the community but he, and his surname, are well known there. Kidder was born into wealth but built a minor reputation for himself over the years as an artist and writer/illustrator of several children's books. He begins a gentle courtship of Katya after spotting her on the street one morning with the two young children in her charge. Despite her suspicions about the old man, Katya is flattered enough by the attention of someone of his class and wealth that she visits his mansion for tea one afternoon.

The horror of "A Fair Maiden" comes from the cunning approach Marcus Kidder uses to gain Katya's trust. Ever patient, never pushing too hard or too obviously, Kidder finally succeeds in getting Katya to pose for a portrait like the ones already hanging in the mansion. That, though, is just the beginning of what Kidder has in mind for his young friend and, almost despite herself, Katya at last finds herself posing nude. She tells herself, after all, that the cash Mr. Kidder pays her after each visit means that she is a professional model and this is what professional models do. But she is no match for a man like Marcus Kidder.

As the book reaches its conclusion, it becomes clear that Katya's understanding of how someone like her is seen by a man as wealthy and spoiled as Marcus Kidder is not far from the mark. Kidder is used to buying what he wants with no regard for the cost or the consequences. The question is what, exactly, does he want from Katya Spivak - and what it will cost both of them. "A Fair Maiden" comes in at only 165 pages but, because of its subject matter and the intensity of Oates' prose, it is not an easy book to read. It is, however, vintage Joyce Carol Oates and few readers will see the ending coming before Ms. Oates is ready to reveal it to them.

As if I don't have enough authors on my "must read" list, and now because of "A Fair Maiden" I have another; and to boot, an author with such an extensive back catalogue.

How could I have gone through life having not been told just how good Joyce Carol Oates is. Hooked from the first page I read the book in one sitting. The not knowing where Ms Oates was taking us kept me turning the pages. The heroine's ambivalence was brilliantly shown portra, and Mr Kidder portrayed as uncertainly sinister yet arousing our pity.

But her prose! A style to die for. I can only sit back in wonder at the skill, exactitude and beauty of her prose. Any aspiring writer who wants to learn the craft of sentence construction, so as to express exactly and correctly any nuance of meaning intended, could not find a better mentor than Joyce Carol Oates.

If you are a Joyce Carol Oates fan, this book might surprise you.She builds a situation and just when you think you have it all figured out, she flips the situation. As the reader, you are unsuspecting and all seems normal. The fair maiden knows exactly what she is doing so you don't worry about exploitation or danger. But then things change the only way that this author can rearrange situations and make changes that totally surprise the reader. A good book.

"Getting treasures by a lying tongue
Is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death."

-- Proverbs 21:6

What kinds of relationships can you imagine between an unmarried wealthy, distinguished sixty-eight-year-old man and a sixteen-year-old girl working as a summer nanny without much supervision? After you read A Fair Maiden, you'll be able to imagine a new one.

The story starts off in a fashion that suggests unexplored fictional territory . . . and certainly delivers on that promise. But in an unexpected way. The culmination of the story wasn't my cup of tea. But perhaps it will be yours.

The underlying theme of the book is about the way that we create mental worlds out of scraps of experience that become elaborate fantasies that become controlling factors in our lives . . . and in the lives of others. Ms. Oates lets some extra reality intrude into this story, and every time we encounter such realities . . . the attraction of the fantasy life becomes greater.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a story about uplifting ways to conduct life. I'm afraid I cannot say more without adding spoilers that would make the book less intriguing.

In the alternative, you could just read the first half of the book and stop. I would have graded the book much higher if I had done that.

There is one aspect of Joyce Carol Oates' writing that most readers, I believe, would agree: and that is "disturbing". This writer can conjure the macabre in a way that sizzles under the surface, keeping the reader turning the pages, not knowing where the tale may lead.

The last novel that this reviewer read so long ago by this master was "Beasts": another, of course, extremely disturbing tale. It astonishes that I have not read more of her work - but as the saying goes - so many great books and so little time.

In A Fair Maiden, without question, the novel could not be put down until the last page.

We have the main character, Katya Spivak, a woman of about 16 years of age, from the suburbs of New Jersey. She is the youngest sibling and daughter to a single mother because her husband deserted the family as he was a consummate gambler and can be deduced he left because of heavy gambling debts. Katya is a pretty girl: blond, athletic body and beautiful eyes. She also has a terrible confidence problem that she shields from the world. Katya lands a job as a nanny for a well-to-do family in the very wealthy Bayhead Harbor, New Jersey. Bayhead is a mixture of new money and old; her employers are of the new variety. Katya is happy with her job, particularly because she's away from her lower middle class roots. As Katya is happily feeding the birds in Bayhead Park with the three year old, Trisca and baby Kevin, enter the elegant yet eccentric older gentleman, Marcus Cullen Kidder.

Kidder is old money and refers to the new inhabitants of Bayhead Harbor as "Mayflies". As the reader discovers, Kidder is a true American Aristocrat: highly educated, painter, writer, musician, and philanthropist that becomes obsessed with Katya.

A Fair Maiden is about Katya's and Kidder's growing relationship. As the story evolves, the reader is lead to believe one thing, however, it turns out much different.

To say the least, A Fair Maiden, is the most sophisticated and alluring piece of literary fiction that I've read for some time.

About a third way through the reading, I was making comparisons to Nabokov's "Lolita", but nothing can be further from the truth.

A Fair Maiden stands alone - a strange and touching love story.

My suggestion is to put A Fair Maiden on your reading list.

This novel will not disappoint.