This overly long book presented a rather complex and contradictory reading experience.

It was alternately boring, fascinating, repelling, and maddening. Ms. Oates chose to follow the lives of a family - a mother, daughter, and son - who were living in poverty in urban Detroit during the fifties and sixties.

According to her, the book was based on actual events, chronicling the traumatic lives they led. However, to me at least, there seemed to be an excess of imaginative reconstruction of nearly every thought these individuals must have had while the events were unfolding.

Or perhaps I should say MIGHT have had, because no matter how much Ms. Oates knew about them, she still would have had to fabricate about 95% of what she wrote.

I'm certain it's Ms. Oates's style, and no one can dispute her brilliance. But I found the overwhelming avalanche of the characters' introspections to be offputting.

When the reader is bombarded with too much information and the thoughts are a jumble, the narrative flow and credibility are lost.

Who are these people really? We "know" everything about them, but what we "know" doesn't even make sense.

There were several passages early in the story that provided some interest and kept this reader engaged. The vivid descriptions and the unique plot twists managed to capture my attention right from the start. It was as if I was drawn into a different world, eager to discover what would happen next.

However, about half way through the book, the characters became monotonous and stayed that way. They seemed to lose their depth and complexity, and their actions and dialogues became predictable. It was a bit disappointing, as I had expected more development and growth from them.

Despite this, I forged through to the end. I wanted to see if there would be any surprises or if the story would take a turn for the better. In the end, while it wasn't a completely satisfying read, I did gain some insights and learned a few things from it.

Just as in the previous volumes of the quadrilogy,

the looming metaphysical hollowness and hostility borrowed from Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and his other paintings remains consistent.

Although, also consistently, it turns away from Bosch's intended Christian morals and provides grounds for an atheistic viewpoint.

This unique blend of art and philosophy creates a captivating and thought-provoking atmosphere that draws the reader in and keeps them engaged.

And I love Maureen. Her presence adds a touch of warmth and humanity to the otherwise dark and complex narrative.

She is like a bright light in the midst of the chaos, a source of hope and love that gives meaning to the story.

Together, these elements combine to make this volume of the quadrilogy a truly remarkable and unforgettable read.

I am very disappointed. I have never come across more uninspiring and unlikable characters. Even when I initially thought I might be able to sympathize with them, that feeling didn't endure for long. I couldn't wait to complete the book so that I wouldn't have to endure the depressed feeling that came over me while reading.

Surprisingly, I did manage to finish it. However, it was only because I was hoping that Oates would somehow redeem herself and turn the story around. But alas, it only plunged me deeper into confusion. The various plots seemed to be disjointed and not connected to one another in a meaningful way.

If Oates was attempting to make a particular point or convey a certain message through this book, it simply didn't come across to me. The overall experience left me feeling dissatisfied and let down. I had expected more from such a renowned author, but unfortunately, this book failed to meet my expectations.

In 1974, as an English major in college, I enrolled in a course on the 20th century American novel. During this class, I independently read Joyce Carol Oates's "them." I was completely engrossed in it. I passed my paperback copy of the book to my professor, inquiring if he had ever read it. He hadn't. I said, "Read it. I think it should be on the syllabus the next time you teach this class." He did, and he concurred with me. What was then a relatively new book is now, nearly 50 years later, a 20th century classic.

Like all of Joyce Carol Oates's works, this is a challenging read. The subject matter is violent, horrific, and deeply tragic. The book is lengthy, and I felt trapped for over a week in the profoundly dark world she constructed. However, the writing, the language, the overt and subtle messages, and the symbolism are all so exquisite that I had to keep reading, regardless of how sad or depressed I felt when I emerged.

"Them" is the third installment in the "Wonderland" quartet, which also includes "A Garden of Earthly Delights," "Expensive People," and "Wonderland." (They can be read in any order.) Each book explores not only social class in America but also geographic class. "Them" centers on a downtrodden, poor, uneducated white family residing in the inner-city slums of Detroit from the 1940s to the fiery and brutal July 1967 Detroit riot.

Although this is the story of the extended Wendall family, it primarily focuses on two characters: siblings Jules and Maureen. Both are victims of their family, their community, and the era. Their lives are nothing more than attempts to survive through schemes and battles, both physical and psychological. They are good people who engage in bad deeds. The story unfolds with passion and intensity, creating a kind of fever dream for the reader. It is unyielding, which makes it difficult to read, yet brilliant due to its realistic portrayal of Jules and Maureen's lives.

This is the genius of Joyce Carol Oates: I cared deeply about each of the characters, despite having nothing in common with them except our shared humanity. This is true literature. It will both challenge and delight, but it is not a light, easy read. Be aware of this before beginning.

Bonus: Do read the afterword by Joyce Carol Oates, where, among other things, she elaborates at some length on the meaning of the book's title, as well as the cryptic and somewhat strange Author's Note that precedes the novel.

The book "Them" was published in 1969 and is part of a series of four books. However, it can also be read independently. My Norwegian copy was a hefty 600 pages long, and it took me over a month to finish this "brick". Was it worth the effort? Honestly, not really.

This is a coming-of-age novel. Loretta escapes and relocates to another place to flee from violence. Her children, Maureen and Jules, grow up in the midst of their tumultuous lives.

There are other family members as well, but the story mainly focuses on Maureen and her brother Jules. Maureen attempts to set things right but still finds herself in trouble. Jules often falls for women and allows his emotions to overtake him. Will they ever find their place in life? As a reader, we witness them growing up and getting older, as this is mostly a character-driven book. However, there wasn't much of a plot.

The writing style is a bit outdated, as there are words used that are no longer acceptable today. Sadly, we still see the problems depicted in the book exist. I have read some of Oates' books and liked them, but her writing style was less engaging this time. I was mostly bored, but if you enjoy reading about sex that goes on for page after page or about thoughts and feelings, this book might be for you. It definitely wasn't for me.

I found myself struggling through this book in much the same way I struggled through Lolita.

Both of these works are based on real life, and both have a rather depressing tone.

them, in particular, is a hefty 576 pages long. The constant sense of depression throughout the story nearly wore me out completely.

Initially, I had set my sights on reading all four books in Oates' Wonderland series. However, after this third book, I'm seriously considering quitting.

The experience of reading "them" has been so draining that I'm not sure if I have the energy or the motivation to continue with the remaining books in the series.

It's a difficult decision, but I need to take into account my own mental and emotional state as I approach these literary works.

This is one of the strangest things I have ever read - and I have read many unique works such as "Notes From Underground," "Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys," "Flatland," and "Lolita."

I'm not even sure how to describe this story accurately. It seems that was the author's intention. Oates tells the story from the perspectives of a mother, Loretta, and her two oldest children, Jules and Maureen. With each perspective, I can understand the events taking place, but I have the feeling that the protagonist is not fully present and not fully aware of the events surrounding him or her. This is not like an unreliable narrator as in Poe's "Ligeia." Here, I have a clear idea of what is happening, yet the person experiencing it does not form a connection with it.

On the surface, this appears to be a story about a poor white family that endures the Great Depression, World War II, and the tumultuous sixties by taking on odd jobs, seeking support from others, and occasionally engaging in criminal activities. However, this novel has no real surface. With every scene, I felt as if I were stuck behind a glossy, muddied layer of glass. This layer allows for a visual, but it makes everything feel distant and uncomfortable. I understood what happened, but the events and the viewpoint did not form a coherent whole. The reality of the plot seemed unreal, while the protagonists' personalities intrigued me because of their complete lack of interest in that reality.

Perhaps Maureen describes it better herself in a letter to the author. She says, "I hate you...with your books and words and your knowing so much that never happened, in a perfect form, you being driven to school by your husband, and now there are even photographs of you in the paper sometimes, you with your knowledge while I've lived a lifetime already and turned myself inside out and got nothing out of it, not a thing. I don't know anything now, anything more than I knew before. Those men taught me nothing. I don't even hate them. I lived my life but there is no form to it. No shape. All the people who lie alone at night squirm with hatred they can't get straight, into a shape...we women know things you don't know, you teachers, you readers and writers of books, we are the ones who...look slowly around when we get off a bus and can't even find what we are looking for, can't quite remember how we got there, we are always wondering what will come next...dreaming, waiting for something to come to us and give a shape to so much pain."

Is it symbolic that this character rebels against the author, the very person who has the power to create logical, tightly-constructed stories that make sense and come to a sensible conclusion? I can almost hear Rebecca Harding Davis's bitter, ironic tone: "Do you want to hear the end of it? You wish me to make a tragic story out of it?" Is "Them" a sort of "problem play," one that reveals the "aching disparity between the ideal and the real?"

What I can say is that in this book, we have a group of characters who continuously try to analyze themselves but can't figure anything out. The woman Nadine says, "You don't believe in me, you don't believe that I'm real. I'm something you made up, even my body is something you made up." Maureen later says, "What I wanted all my life was to be one person, a success of a person, something firm and fixed." When someone asks Jules, "How can you live without getting free of yourself once in a while?" Jules responds, "I'm always free," and he reflects that he feels "rotten" and "hollow" as he says it.

Again, I must refer to other works of literature to try to find an angle to this complex story so that I can navigate through it. In the first book of this series, "A Garden of Earthly Delights," we saw a woman painstakingly rising to the top of society but having a son who cannot connect to the real world. In the next book, "Expensive People," we have a young man whom nobody listens to and who fails to be one of the "normal people," the "expensive people" who buy things and make important decisions. Here in "Them," we have to see the fragility of everything - barns, planes, marriages, cars, jobs, the entire city of Detroit - to create the sense that nothing is truly anything. Everything is just composed of smaller things that can be broken down further, and so on, until everything seems like chaos no matter where you look. This novel contains almost no beauty, no functional relationships, and the few educated people who enter the story come across as either pretentious revolutionaries or starving artists.

Oates herself described this novel's title as "disdainful and timorous," suggesting that she could only maintain a distance from "them," the unfortunate, shapeless souls she documented. Was Oates truly flipping the middle finger at literature itself? No more "happily ever after," none of that. NOTHING lasts forever. The fire must burn and burn, and we must constantly reinvent ourselves because anyone who remains in the present will decay. "Them" is a novel about chaos, without any illusion of hope or dependability. Once again, Oates demonstrates her skill as an author by making "The Grapes of Wrath" seem like a comedy in comparison.

3.5 stars

Poverty and a dysfunctional family are indeed the “soul destroying forces of Detroit.”

Loretta, a strong and independent woman, takes charge to keep her family afloat. She shoulders the burden with determination and resilience, doing everything in her power to provide for her loved ones.

Jules, on the other hand, leaves home in search of his own path. Through hard work and making connections, he carves out a life for himself. His journey is one of self-discovery and growth.

Maureen attempts to survive by getting good grades, hoping that education will be her ticket out of poverty. However, when that doesn't work, she turns to money for solace. Her story highlights the desperation that can drive people to make difficult choices.

The first half of the book was extremely engaging, drawing the reader in and making them invested in the lives of the characters. However, by the end of the book, I found myself losing interest in the two main characters. Their arcs seemed to plateau, and I was no longer as compelled by their stories.

The sum was less than the whole of its parts.

I really can't quite put my finger on exactly what it was that I didn't like about this book. On one hand, I want to say it was boring. But then again, how can a book that contains elements such as rape, murder, madness, and riots be considered boring? And yet, while I did think that the dialogue was really well-written, the characters themselves seemed to have nothing truly meaningful to say.

The book gave the impression of being arbitrary and random. To such an extent that it really did seem like a mere reportage of one family's lives. And for any of our lives, without the overlay of a proper storytelling framework, it simply becomes a tedious series of events. This is exactly what happened throughout the 500+ pages of "them".

I found myself completely unable to tell which of the secondary characters I should be paying attention to. Events that seemed significant at the time ultimately amounted to nothing. Other major events occurred between chapters, so that one was suddenly plunked down in a new and disorienting place and had to figure out what was going on.

Probably all of this was intentional on Oates's part. Why not make the reader feel as groundless, as subject to caprice, and as confused as the characters in the story? But if that was her intention, it only served to make me frustrated, rather than sympathetic.

Finally, I think the book could be greatly improved by liberal editing. It is simply too long; its excessive length does not add any real value to it. Just 1-2 pages of characters saying anguished "I love yous" would be able to convey the insanity of a relationship just as effectively as the 10 or 20 pages that Oates uses. So many scenes went on for far too long. I would often think "I get your point," and yet still have pages and pages of the same thing to wade through.

I only stuck with this book because it is part - the very first part, in fact - of my plan to read a National Book or Pulitzer Prize winner from each year of my life between now and when I turn 50 in 2019. I'm still scratching my head in wonder that this was the National Book Award winner for 1970.

Oh, Joyce Carol Oates, you truly baffle me. I have an intense desire to love your books as they always seem so fascinating. However, once I begin reading, I can't help but wonder what substances you might be using while writing. Perhaps you operate on a higher literary plane than I do. Maybe your works are an inside joke, with you laughing as the NY Times and other highly esteemed book review publications hail your latest novel as a "breathtaking tour de force from a bona fide literary genius", even though the reviewer is probably just as perplexed by your writing as the average person on the street.

In any event, while you clearly have a command of words, this book, like all the others of yours that I've attempted to read, appeared to lack a coherent thread. Indeed, there was a basic structure to "them", but the plot was chaotic, jumping around erratically. It felt as if "we're here at this moment...oops, now ten years have passed...oops, now we're back at the beginning because I forgot the numerous inane plot devices I wanted to throw in for kicks." And this often happened on the same page.

And the characters...were we supposed to like them or despise them? Honestly, I felt nothing for them, except for an irritation that everything they said seemed to have a hint of hysteria, probably due to the overabundance of exclamation points in the novel. They also seemed to engage in a lot of self-reflection and wallow in a great deal of metaphysical angst that was out of character, considering they were supposed to be an uneducated white trash family living in the ghetto of Detroit.

So, I reached approximately the halfway point of this book before deciding to stop, mainly because the disorganized plot and characters were making my head whirl.

I have to say that I was really looking forward to this book. I had high expectations for it. However, when I started reading, I was disappointed to find that it was so depressing and long. It felt like it would never end.

On the other hand, it did offer an amazing look into a part of society that is completely foreign to me. This aspect was always interesting and kept me engaged to some extent. It was like opening a door to a different world.

But the continuous portrayal of people being horrible to one another just seemed to go on and on. It got tiring after a while. I guess I am already tired of seeing such things in real life on the news. Maybe that's why this book didn't have the impact on me that I had hoped for.