Customer Reviews

Solstice

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an intriguing look at an almost obsessive friendship between two women. It's also an interesting commentary on academia, the art world. Contemporary issues such as class and rape are also explored. However, it was the story of the chilling relationship between the two women that hooked me and wouldn't let me put the book down. I think that this book can be read on many levels. I enjoyed reading it for pleasure, but it is dense enough for all kinds of literary analysis.

I first read this book in 1986 and have read it twice more since then. Joyce Carol Oates is the first contemporary American author I remember impressing me enough to linger with me long after I'd read her work. "Solstice," like other works by Joyce Carol Oates, does not paint a pretty picture. Great fiction is often about complex, sad, scary, bitter relationships. Happy relationships are better left to the Harlequins of this world. Sometimes when you're in a weird, complex mood you want weird, complex reading...catharsis and all that...

"Solstice" lingers like someone's presence after she's left the room. If you look at some reviews written about this book, there is mention of everything from stormy psyches to lesbian subtext. Whatever the motivation behind Monica and Sheila's relationship, fascination and even some kind of subtle hatred works into it. Monica is transfixed by Sheila and Sheila seems to need Monica as some kind of dumping ground. They'd probably just as soon want to walk away from each other with a clean break, but they can't. As Shelia says, "we'll be for friends for a long, long time...unless one of us dies." Probably a normal thing to say, but still sort of creepy.

They behave more like people in love than friends; what they have is not exactly chemistry, but it has drawing power. I always thought this novel was more about hatred than love, but sometimes hatred is love in confusion.

Don't let the fact I only gave this book three stars deter anyone from buying this book. "Solstice" is a good read in the traditional Joyce Carol Oates tradition -- lots of reflection, oblique references to past events leading to current madness, a slightly ironic tone. I enjoyed reading the interaction between Monica and Sheila, how they both seemed to need each other, yet could bring out the worst in each other. However, I never understood why Monica became so obsessed with Sheila and her work. Opposites may attract, but these two women don't even have opposites in common, other than in Sheila's dark looks and Monica's blonde radiance. They are simply two completely different women. I suspect this book is best suited to reading in a college classroom setting, with ample opportunities for discussion and feedback on what this book "means." Or perhaps as a book club selection. I admit defeat -- I alone could not decipher it.

I was eager to read this book because I have at times been astonished by JCO's ability to plumb the depths of relationships through her masterful writing. The quality writing is here, but the exploration of her characters seemed empty at times. I agree with the reviewer before me in that the relationship between Sheila Trask and Monica Jensen seemed to beg the question, "Why?" In a formal sense, there are things which the author uses in order to create Monica's sense of need for her connection with Sheila, such as the occasional mention of her failed marriage and a resulting facial scar. Sheila, the reslusive and eccentric painter, seems much less caring, and although the book describes their "close" friendship, none of the intimacy I expected was there. There were numerous passages describing how the two women related, and they seemed only to illustrate how uncompatable these two characters are. I had the sense that these characters could have met their needs anywhere and with anyone, not necessarily with eachother. This book is a success in the way it describes the desperation that is sometmes created by lonliness. Otherwise, I found it to be somewhat hollow. I know that JCO is capable of depth, though, and the exhilerating book _Foxfire_ is proof of that.

Joyce Carol Oates can do anything in literary terms. Her productivity is legion. Her presentation in this book is arch, knowing. The heroine, Monica, is self-conscious. This is a story about a succubus. It is claustrophobic by intention.

Monica has a cul-de-sac in her life. Sheila Trask, an artist, is a neighbor in Glenkill. To teach at a private boys school is perceived as a downward trend for Monica Jensen, a golden girl. In October Sheila Trask pays a visit. The two women commence to see each other. They have intense conversations. Sheila had been married to an older man, another high-flying artist. She has mercurial moods. Everyone at the school knows of Monica's friendship with Sheila.

Sheila feels that Monica is being exploited by the academy. When Sheila goes away, Monica's life fills up with other people. Later on Monica becomes a sort of household manager for Sheila as the artist readies her pieces for a show.

The author's exposition of the nature of friendship is focused, anguished, and satisfactory.

In this novel, the relationship between two women is examined primarily from a
cerebral and highly emotional perspective. Most of the action is internal. The
book is mysterious and mystical at the same time. There are undertones of
entrapment, sexual longing and cultural taboos. Oates gets at the heart of the
unspoken and is able to communicate it beautifully.

I stopped reading this book after 20 pages or so because I felt nothing for the characters (the two women). I returned to it after a week of bad reading (gratefully) and became hooked. I came to feel attached to Sheila and Monica, but only to a point, a very frustrating point. The author was giving me descriptions of the women's relationship instead of a direct view.

As for feeling mystified -- just a general feeling of not always knowing what in the world she was talking about. A jumble of descriptions and references on the page, and a big question mark in my head! The descriptions and references were usually psychological in nature, which is what drew me in and kept me going.

The book is weird and complex (as another reader aptly put it), in a relationship way, and will likely hold your interest if that's what you're after.

This book was about an abusive relatiosnhip. This abusive friendship did not have enough boundaries and nothing was clear. They never had sex however they become angry if the other one does with someone else. The jealousies, possessiveness and obsessions continue into a downward spiral with an incomplete ending. I think many people have met people like both of the characters and can relate. Sheila is someone I would stay far away from an emotional leach. Monica is begging to be abused and manipulated.

This has been one of my favorite Joyce Carol Oates reads, because it covers one of my favorite themes she hits upon--a friendship or relationship, unusual in its beginning or unexpected in who is matched up with who, begin to grow exponentially at a feverish pace, until it comes to some dramatic or unexpected conclusion.
That relationship in this book is between a schoolteacher, Monica and her famous artist neighbor, Sheila. I was reading, at the same time, Michael Cunningham's BY NIGHTFALL, and found some reoccurring themes, most notably, the personality of a famous artist. Also, the emptiness and vapidness of high society, and its allure, as when Monica gets caught up in Sheila's dramatic and sometimes melodramatic life.
As with all of these intense relationships created by Oates, I was sucked into it as was Monica. I have this affinity to Oates' books, in that, I seem to get as caught up in the same whirlwind as her characters, and find I cannot put the book down. If I do, I am haunted by it, and want to pick it up again, to be submerged in the craziness and chaos of the relationships. Everything started off so simple and harmless, and events and thoughts and decisions just keep coming at you, and find that the "logic" that gets her characters from A to B has seduced into its web. You find yourself seeing and experiencing and feeling everything as the characters do. Then, when it starts to feel off, you have gone along so far with it, that you are trapped, and can't help believe all the crazy stuff, as if it were a nightmare. I do not know how JCO gets so far into the craziness and madness of a troubled mind, and is not a gibbering lunatic herself. I also do not know if I was supposed to laugh or cry, mock or take seriously. I haven't felt this undecided about tone, since I watched to movie SAFE, with Julianne Moore, and that's a good thing. You don't know what to do, and yet you go along, unable to stop reading.
Sometimes, it is a little off-putting when the author decided to repeat certain adjectives and descriptions of people. Sheila always had a wide mouth and derisive eyes. Monica was always sloe-eyed. But, still, these women were full sketched-out people. Monica, who couldn't seem to stay away from or refuse Sheila, despite her behavior, reminded me of a bully in school, that I was "friends" with, even though he wanted me to always let him copy and give him answers. I couldn't resist being friends with him. Also, JCO captured one's inability or articulate strong feeling, and how they sometimes are two things at the same time.
The book was fantastic, lurid, gothic, tragic, shocking, and written well. She is so great because she can be both pulp, and literature, base and prolific. Most people have the shocks and nothing underneath, like the rash of exploitative torture and horro movies lately. Her books stick with you, since behind all of the shock is solid, amazing writing. Great for fans of SWF, IDENTITY, MULHOLAND DRIVE, THREE WOMEN, or any such intense relationship, switcheroo thingy.

I've read quite a few Oates novels and short stories and this is one that stands out. The two women characters were fascinating, as well as their relationship that's constantly fluctuating, nearly causing the professional demise of both. It's shorter than her standard novels, but the characters are well-rounded and developed. This is a great read for a rainy weekend.