Customer Reviews

Man Crazy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Brutal murders, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, satan worshippers -- yes, it's a new Joyce Carol Oates novel. Fresh from editing a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, Oates has been inspired to unleash upon the world a compelling series of nightmare incidents in the life of her protagonist, Ingrid Boone.Subtle it's not. The second half of the novel is full of campy scenes of grand guignol grossness that are so over-the-top they don't even try to suspend your disbelief. The prose is often fevered and ungrammatic, rattling on unpunctuated and uncontrolled like an uninspired parody of Faulkner. Most of the characters are caricatures at best, and their reductively Freudian motivations are appallingly simplistic.

Amazingly, though, much of the novel is successful. Many of the scenes in the first 150 pages are viscerally effective, the sort of images you remember for days after a really interesting nightmare. Also, the character of Ingrid is complex enough to sustain the reader's interest through much of the book, and the ending is surprisingly moving.

Some critics have been unnecessarily harsh on "Man Crazy", holding it to standards toward which it doesn't aspire. It's a potboiler, and a good one. Most of the themes were handled better in Oates's earlier novel "Foxfire", but "Man Crazy" is more fun. When Oates wants to, she can write serious and important novels like "We Were the Mulvaneys", but that's not the sort of thing she's writing here. This is Oates playing in Stephen King territory -- it's kind of like Pavarotti singing folk songs, but you'd probably never listen to folk songs (or Pavarotti) the same way again.

Man Crazy, by Joyce Carol Oates, chronicles the childhood and adolescence of Ingrid Boone, who, with her beautiful young mother Chloe, is forced to flee her normal life multiple times on account of a violent, nearly-absent but ever-present father. Set in Northern New York, in a string of towns bordering the Chautauqua River and Mountains, Man Crazy is written in Ingrid's voice--often in streams of consciousness and reflections on memories--and follows her through various events in her young life: the vision of ghosts under a farmhouse porch; secret visits with her father; the plagiarism of a poem, recited at an assembly; the dozens of encounters with faceless men in the backs of cars; the acid trips; the initiation into a satanic cult led by enigmatic Enoch Skaggs. Her uncertain relationship with her mother is what caused her life to take the direction it did, while at the same time it is her mother who pulls her out of her degradation; thus, the novel has a redemptive quality. Ingrid's life is a troubled one as she looks back on it, telling her story to a counselor. By the end of the novel, Ingrid has reformed, has turned her life around; she is the age of 21, but seems a hundred years old.

The voice Oates gives to Ingrid is a distinctive one; as I mentioned, the story is told in fragments of memory and streams of consciousness, often written in fragments, run-on sentences, and paragraphs that continue for pages. Once I got used to this somewhat confusing manner of writing, I really enjoyed the way Oates uses language for the purpose of character development. Ingrid's voice is honest, simple, and forthright, while at the same time her meanings are multi-layered; in many cases, she is saying more than she thinks she is. Oates also uses her gift for language to paint disturbing, haunting pictures with her words: a teetering bridge, drug and sexual abuse, a decapitation, a dank basement where people are trapped, forced to eat garbage to stay alive. These images are powerful and hard to read about--but at the same time, I found myself unable to stop reading. This novel is beautiful in its simplicity yet startling in its dimensions.

I was unsatisfied with the ending of the novel, however. It seemed as though Oates was eager to give Ingrid a happy ending, but I was left wondering: How can Ingrid possibly love anyone else, when she's just learning to love herself? Nevertheless, I couldn't put this book down; it is a powerful, realistic portrayal of a girl who is given a new beginning after being in the lowest possible state, and it both broke my heart and made it soar.

This story of a young girl's coming of age is both touching and horrifying. Ingrid is born to an attractive young couple whose world falls apart when the husband, an ex Vietnam War pilot, gets involved in a drug smuggling homicide and has to go into hiding. His absense, and the shabby conditions of her life with her mother, form the basis of a lifelong obsession with being needed by men. Ingrid's descent from precocious child to promiscous teenager to the ultimate degradation of being "dog-girl" to a satanic motorcylce cult, is told unflintchingly. Believable at every step, it is a painful and disturbing tale.

Oates style is like nothing I can remember recently. I don't know if this is typical of her books (this is the only one I have read) but she takes many liberties with syntax and punctuation, yet there is no sense of deliberately trying to be literary or arty and everything about the "voice" she chooses seems appropriate.

It would not be correct to say that I "enjoyed" this book, but I did find it moving, fascinating, and ultimately satisfying. I will be in search of other fiction by Joyce Carol Oates - after reading some lighter stuff first, just to get Satan's Children out of my mind.

This book kept me up until I finished it all in one reading. And then haunted my dreams. Joyce Carol Oates has created a small work of art. Filled with disturbing emotional intensity, it is a non-stop journey into the darkest places of a human soul.

On the surface, the story is simple. Against the landscape of Oates' familiar upstate New York territory, Ingrid is born to a Vietnam veteran and his young wife. The Vietnam vet is accused of murder and must go into hiding and during the next few years there are several secret visits. It cumulates in another act of serious violence. As Ingrid grows up she is used and abused by boys and men, finally joining a Satanic cult and almost dying as a result of their abuse. However, through the eyes of Joyce Carol Oates, this is not a simple story at all.

Oates uses the first person throughout which makes the reader see the world through Ingrid's eyes, feel Ingrid's pain, and want to help Ingrid scratch all her insect bites till they bleed. Ingrid inhabits a sad and disturbing world. This is a harsh book. The violence is sick. It is hard to read.

But I couldn't put it down. Couldn't let myself be anything but drawn into Ingrid's world. And couldn't help feeling the gut-wrenching emotion that was constant throughout.

Oates follows her own rules in the writing. It is ungrammatical in places. Paragraphs are sometimes several pages long. Much of it is stream of consciousness. And there are jumps without explanations that plunge into yet new forms of despair.

I will never forget the character of Ingrid, or that of her mother. They are defined by the thousands of details of their lives that Oates describes through the distorted prism of Ingrid's memories.

This dark journey into the depths of the soul is not for everyone. It's too startling. Too intense. But somehow I feel it has enriched my life. And isn't that what art is all about?

Ingrid Boone is the child of a handsome man and a beautiful woman, whose obsession with one another is like a powerful force. But her love for each of them, especially the innocence and blind trust she places in her father sets her up for the hunger that will follow her forever after; in the wake of a violent crime, her father abandons her and her mother.

Desperate to recapture his lost love, hungry for any kind of mercy at a man's hand, Ingrid allows boys and men to abuse her, searching for affection in the alcohol, drugs, and sex they offer. Then, finally, she gives herself over to the charismatic leader of an outlaw cult, Satan's Children, and she descends into the blackest of despairs.

There's a point in the story, narrated by Ingrid, where she simply states: "It's the men who treat you like s...t you're crazy for. For only they can tell you your punishment is just."

Witnessing a violent human sacrifice, and then left to starve in a dank dungeon, Ingrid's eventual escape brings about her redemption.

There was something so lyrical about this descent into darkness, for always at the forefront is the possibility that, no matter what this girl was subjected to, she had a strong enough spirit to come through it. Maybe having had the love of her father at one point, she could believe in some small part of herself that she was worth loving...even though her behavior throughout her teens and early twenties suggested otherwise. Seeking that love ultimately would lead to her devastation, but then again, would propel her forward toward salvation.

Man Crazy: A Novel is an exploration of our eternal craving for love and the devastating effect of its loss.

Five stars.

I had to keep reading until I finished it. You travel from childhood through adulthood so Oates gives the background so you can understand more of why Ingrid ends up where she does. This is the Oates I want to see in every one of her books. I read Zombie and although I felt like getting sick through most of it, I still don't think anyone else could have written it. I was very pleased reading Man Crazy that I once again found the Oates I fell in love with in her short stories and earlier works. This is a must read for any women who questions why she keeps ending up in the same relationships with guys that don't treat her right. Ingrid is real and out there in the world with no one to help her, just as the Ingrid in the novel. If you want to see what a series of wrong choices made as a teenager and a mother with issues of her own will lead a woman too, read this book because Oates answers that question. It will lead to Ingrid.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of our best chroniclers of degradation. In MAN CRAZY, she examines what it took to be a female camp follower of someone like Charles Manson (here named Enoch Skaggs and relocated to Upstate New York).

Ingrid Boone grows up the daughter of a former aviator on the run and a good-time girl named Chloe who supplements her earnings by accepting money from well-off men who are "separated" from their wives. Even before the onset of puberty, Ingrid feels she must win approbation by offering sexual favors to the boys in her school. It is only a small step from there to becoming "Dog-Girl" for the sadistic Skaggs and his gang.

The scenes with Skaggs's gang take a strong stomach to read through, as a "traitor" named Gem is put to death by Enoch and as Ingrid is passed around from man to man and "punished" by being thrown naked into a cellar overflowing with rubbish and feces. There is enough will to live (but only just) for her to escape and find help after having been locked in there for days.

Oates is brilliant at showing us what horrors can lie behind the bland face of the pretty clerk who takes our applications or the receptionist who answers the phone and puts us on hold. The book ends with a now "rehabilitated" Ingrid looking at trees felled by a storm:

"They were alive, only not vertical. The heartbeat inside them had maybe slowed, only a murmur but if you squatted to listen, if you knew how to listen, if the wind would die down you would hear it."

This was the first book by Oates that I read. Excellent. I was disappointed with the ending, though. But the way it was written made me feel a part of this young woman's life. At times I thought I was literally having a panic attack! The pace of her writing, the thought process, the mentality of the characters all kept me glued to this book. Some say this book was too gruesome, but I disagree. That was only a small part of the book. Man Crazy is a story about a woman's growth through her fear of abandonment, need for male attention, and obsessive compulsive nature. We're all a little bit like Ingrid sometimes, and parts of this book can hit a little close to home. Sad story, but great writing. I'll definitely read more Oates.

I just stayed up most of the night to finish this book as I could not put it down and while I won't relate the plot or even describe it as others here have done a more than adequate job in doing that already, I am in agreement that this book in haunting and many scenes from it will be forever seared into my memory.I'm actually shaken by it.
And that truly is the mark of quality fiction.
I have no desire to ever read it again though as I find much of it too vividly disturbing.

Described as a novel, it may also be categorised as a series of short stories, centred on the point of view of a female character in various stages of growth - although that term can only be used in the temporal sense. Six of the "chapters" originally appeared as short stories in a range of magazines. An epilogue and prologue were tacked on to the total thus a "novel". Fair enough. But If you imagine a notice board with a series of snapshots depicting various stages of a life then you will get the idea. Each can exist on its own, but looked at in sequence and overall, a larger picture emerges. Some pictures are packed with detail, others offer a glimpse of a moment. THis technique is fitting to the way in which we all of us tend to remember our respective pasts - happy times tend to be foggy blanks where months and years may drift by suddenly punctuated by a dramatic incident. Ms Ingrid Boone has her share of drama. If there is an overall theme it may centre on self loathing, or the search for love, sentiments that are central to many young women growing up in Western society where immediate survival is not an issue. The attraction the likes of the infamous Mr Manson, or even Jimmy Jones, have to young women is a central concern on MAN CRAZY. Is it that when the female child is abandoned by the father it reasons that the fault is one's own, by not being atttractive enough for the father to WANT to stay. The Manson character and Satanist she is beguiled by may be confirming her own view of herself, confirming the loathing, and thus being "honest". In any case, their is much to disgust, including the constant scratching of Ingrid of herself, picking at the pimples, picking at the sores, picking at the scabs, as if trying to destroy the evidence of her loathing - her body. Is the obsession we have with our bodies - Princess Diana and the millions she spent on maintaining her appearance, the series Nip and Tuck - are these evidence of the dislike we have for our bodies? Is Ingrid just an extreme manifestation of millions of young women as the emerge from childhood and realise they do not look like Princess Diana and that that is BAD, and therefore they are worth LESS? Nothing sentimental about Ms Oates' take on being a young woman in a certain place at a certain time. THought provoking and memorable.