Customer Reviews

First Love

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In this novella, JCO, has added yet another masterpiece to her already voluminous collection. In a blue/middle collar environment, innocence is lost by a man who, in the future, would become a man of the cloth. It is a story that mirrors so much of what is visible in the news today of people who think that they are above the law. JCO shows the irony of the molester who is studying to be holy and virtuous in the eyes of God, but acts and committs in the name of unthinkable, selfish evil, which seems representative of much of humanity. A gritty, raw painfully truthful book!

This is a short book. You can read it in a single sitting. But I warn you--it will get you. It is a horrifying story. Oates is good at this stuff so beware--prepare yourself to ask: Why did I read that and put myself through such an experience? Real horror has little to do with monsters and everything to do with what resides in our own hearts and in the way our society molds us, and Ms. Oates knows how to make us squirm as she lays it all out.

Life is cruel. Loneliness adds to such cruelty, and makes one a victim of it. This is the story of the bewildered 11-year-old Josie whose life is shattered one summer, and in response becomes the victim of other lonely people.

"Fear is good, fear is normal. Fear will save your life." Oates begins her story with this warning on the first page, and ends with it just four paragraphs from the end. It is the story of a family that fell apart, and the harm that falls upon the innocent.

The background is that Josie's mother left her husband and moved to another state, where her mother was soon engrossed in a frantic hunt to escape loneliness. She forgot about Josie, alone and isolated and lonely in a new town with no friends, and with the healthy curiosity of a young girl. A 25-year-old divinity student slips into her life and offers the attention to fill her loneliness, yet he has his own bitter demons.

It is a story of sadism and domination, with Josie falling completely under the spell of the 25-year-old Jared. He strips all of her clothes off, inflicts cuts on her breasts, dominates and degrades her with taunts of "filthy little -- filthy, filth -- girl," ties her down with cloth strips to dominate her and leaves her "in terror, animal terror, beads of sweat breaking out like flame on your body."

She accepts such pain because Josie wants, "Love. Love. Love Jared, don't hurt me." Everyone wants to be wanted, and if this is the only "wanting" that Josie can find, she'll take it. Her mother is emotionally absent, she's bullied at her new school, and that is why Josie turns to any substitute who gives her the attention she craves.

Her mother finally defines the problem as her own inability to love anyone, ". . . . . . . I've been so unhappy, I've been so undefined. Every man I've ever wanted, when I have him I cease to want him -- it's a curse." Some people are like that. Give them love, and their own sense of inadequacy drives them to hurt others who offer the most.

Oates presents the story as a snapshot of life; no moral judgments, no great lessons, no redemption. It's simply a slice of life. Most stories have a "plot," but we don't think of finely crafted photographs as having "a plot." It's often said a picture is worth a thousand words; in this case, Oates turns a few thousand words in a powerful picture.

If you want answers for the cruelties of life, it's not here. If you enjoy a superb portrait of a gripping slice of life, this is a wonderful book.

I bought this book for a friend, and after she read it--I stole it for a few days. Very enjoyable. The religious symbols and allusions are amazingly disturbing, yet allows one to see how a child--perhaps even an adult--could be confused with religion and love, together. It's a definite must-read. It's first and second-person point of view play a role in the novel's eeriness. A dark, twisted, mind-boggling novel. Snakes, swamp, sexual abuse and how "easy" one can suppress bad memories--all written so beautiful it's disturbing, yet enjoyable.

First Love is a compelling novella that tells the story of an eleven year of girl named Josie whose mother leaves her father and decides to take Josie away to upstate New York where the two will live with her aunt. Josie soon realizes, that she has never met this aunt before and that the aunt is infact her GREAT aunt whom her mother has not seen for decades. Josie is an inquisitive girl, which her mother finds troubling at times, who finds it difficult to settle into her great aunt's house where there are so many unexplained rules. The majority of these rules revolve around Josie's second cousin Jared Jr. who is currently taking time off from studying theology at the local seminary and has taken up residence in the house. Josie is fascinated by Jared Jr if only for the fact that she is perplexed by Jesus Christ and his purpose/meaning in Josie's life as well as that of her cousin's. However, Jared takes advantage of Josie's interest in him by using her as a test of his celibacy. He begins to physically abuse her and often strips her naked as a way to make him stronger by not acting on his lust for her.

Though Oates' writing is as prolific and moving as always, the subject matter seems a bit too heavy even for her. Of course she has written other books with troubling themes, this novella seemed to be even more disturbing than her usual writings. First, it was written in the gothic tradition and contained numerous allusions to Satan and the devil. In many ways, the writing of the story was reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter yet with even darker underlying themes. Perhaps, it was the form of the novella and its shortened length that gave the reader the feeling of being almost assaulted by the story. Lastly, Oates wrote this story in the second person (for the most part) making the reader feel as if these events and acts were being done to his/herself.

Overall, I did not like this work. I found it too disturbing but without much depth. The themes were, at times, insipid and the characters were one-dimensional. Clearly, Oates wanted to address hypocrisy in religion and the hazards of naivete. Yet, this did not seem like the appropriate story to illustrate those points. The troubling plot was so overwhelming that Oates' message and theme were, for the most part, lost.

Hauntiing..Chilling...This is my first reading by Joyce Carol Oates. The story is about an eleven-year-old girl Josie and her sad victimization and its influences exerted by her twenty-five year old cousin, Jared and her self-absorbed mother, Delia. Both Josie and her mother, Delia are set to stay with the Burkhardts in upper-state New York after Delia leaves Josie's father for unknown reasons. Unforunately, Josie is placed amongst religious hypocrisy as Jared her cousin strips her of her innocence while he is studying to be a man of the cloth. The black snake that Josie mentions throughout is the devil, the serpent Jared and it is in the marsh a modern day "Garden of Evil" where Josie is stripped of her innocence. It is Jared whose own loneliness forces himself to prey on a helpless victim, Josie as he has sexual relations and then forces her to taste her own blood to signify that there are blood cousins and invokes fear in Josie to keep their secret. However, although as sad as this story of sexual abuse may be, to Josie some loving even from an ominous relationship is better than none since Josie's mother herself is a wanderer in pursuit of her own love as she meanders from man to man. However, the reader always hopes that Delia would have motherly instinct to save her daughter from Jared, but unbeknownst to her Josie is sacrificed because of her own self-absorption leaving Josie as a target of a hypocrical yet troubled Jared. This is a gorgeous tale and depiction as to how fear operates in the mind of an innocent child and how fear from a sexual predator is a powerful weapen to paralyze its victim in not revealing the ominous act of sexual abuse--Fear is normal..Fear is good..Fear will save your life... However what is even sadder is the protection by Josie of Jared once her mother inquires into her bruising done by Jared. Unfortunately, rather than exposing Jared she protects him..One wonders what type of life will Josie lead after this abusive relationsp..This is a wonderfully hautingly yet beautiful book and the wooden-like illustrations by Barry Moser adds eerieness of the tale.

as a dedicated joyce carol oats fan i would havet to say that this story is among the best. JCO pulls the reader into the twisted web of abuse and pain of the main character while also revealing the anguish and ugliness of the abuser. although it is a short novel, it is definately worth reading.

I just wrote a paper on this story for a literature class, so my brain is full of this book right now.

There are a few angles from which to look at this story. It is indeed a story of horrifying abuse, but it also says a lot about religion. The seminary student is the most twisted character in the book, symbolized by a black snake....he represents Satan. If you enjoy reading a story that leaves you with things to think about, this is a good one. No words are wasted; everything means something, whether it is to the story or the underlying symbolic messages.

Truly it is an easy book to get through. It is short and easy to understand. It is interesting to see Josie deal with her abuse in her own way and eventually excersise the power to stop it. Nothing that happens is predictable and the attachment Josie has for Jared is actually a very realistic aspect of abuse. I could write a better review but I have been writing too much about this book lately...just read it if you enjoy literature at its finest. It is a rather dark story but that is the way life is, isn't it?

FIRST LOVE

JCO always packs a punch and this 86 page novella hits the reader hard in the stomach.

We meet 11 year old Josie and her mom who have turned up on the door step of Josie's great aunt. Also living there is Josie's 20-something cousin, Jared. Jared is a seminary student who is on leave so he is always around, lurking, lurking.

This book is not for everyone. As I was reading it I wondered if it was for me. It is about the uncomfortable, uneasy, unforgiving 'relationship' between Josie and Jared. Jared completely takes advantage of Josie not only physically but mentally. Josie's mom is never there for her even when the mother and daughter are together. Josie is on her own, full of bewilderment, scared, but also, is she in love?

The book moves rapidly through this upsetting and twisted bond between Jared and Josie. Poor Josie -- so afraid and at the mercy of Jared -- but is she totally under his sick spell or does she take a stand and become her own person and a heroine?

THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. It is upsetting and disturbing. Yet, Oates has that magic touch that keeps bringing me back to read her exceptional -- and yes -- sometimes horrifying books.

Thank you.

Pam

This novella illustrates the reason why Joyce Carol Oates is one of my all-time favorite literary authors out there. Her work has dark and sinister undertones that show unflinching truth about dysfunctional family dynamics and how it affects the young. First Love is one of the most disturbing novels I have read and one of Oates's most exquisite works to date. Set in New York state during the late 1950s, we are told the story of eleven-year-old Josie and her struggles with her manipulative, sinister mother and the abuse she endures from her cousin Jared, a twenty-five-year-old seminary student, when she and her mother visit her aunt during the summer. Her life becomes a shambles after the disturbing events. She begins to hurt herself physically, self-punishment for the things around her that she cannot control. As the novel progresses, the tension and dark undertones in the story build up to a flooring climax. Will Josie find peace in such uncontrollable conditions?

The gothic aspects of the novel go very well with the dark, disturbing story. I liked how Oates explored the disturbing fact that many people hide under religion when committing unspeakable acts. That part of the story gave me the chills. The abusive scenes between Josie and Jared was the chilliest part of the book by a long shot. The scenes were so twisted and disturbing that I had to take a break at times before continuing to read them. Oates used a great deal of mythic symbolism to get her scenes across and I was impressed with the overall language of the novel. Of course, I knew Oates was capable of creating something so dark and literary and that is why I didn't hesitate to pick up this novel. Her work is truly something else. First Love is a novella (only 86 pages!) and I wish it had been longer. I'd like to read something of hers soon and I look forward to reading her new short-story collection. In the meantime, I recommend this amazing gem.