Heartbreaking. Raw. Eloquent. Long winded at times.

“For what are the words with which to summarize a lifetime, so much crowded confused happiness terminated by such stark slow motion pain?”

Molte cose avevano nomi in codice a High Point Farm. Come i nostri nomi, che potevano creare una certa confusione perché dipendevano da stati d’animo, circostanze, sottointesi.

Famiglia. Bellissimo.

n  The Mulvaneys: Gold Medal Winners for Bad Parentingn

I've read reviews by those who think this book is "what happens when a horrible event poisons a happy family" or something similar to that. Uh uh. Not quite. This book is all that, PLUS two ferociously bad parents, who stick to their ferociously bad parenting, and learn nothing, all through their journey.

(Forgive me if this review sounds catty, I'm still kinda pissed off.)

The Mulvaneys start off well. Michael Sr is so good looking his vivacious red-headed wife Corinne doesn't always know what he sees in her (aside: why must red-heads always be 'vivacious' or full of energy in some way?? There has GOT to be a lazy, or temperate red head out there in the world. A show of hands??). He starts a roofing business. They buy a farm. People like them. They have a few gorgeous sons, Michael Jr and Patrick, and then a daughter, Marianne, who they love more than anything. Oh and then Judd comes along later and it is he who is sort of telling this story. Sort of, because his narrative voice comes and goes - I was a little bit confused by this, actually.

They're a rowdy, loving bunch, all adorned with nicknames ("Curly", "Pinch", "Button", "Whistle" and the like) and accompanied always by a gaggle of animals.

Then, on prom night, something horrible happens to Marianne. And the sweet little life on the farm goes to shit. But it ain't because of what happened to Marianne. It's the sick-ass parenting of good-lookin Michael and feisty Corinne that screws everything up. I mean, they couldn't have reacted in a worse possible way. They ship off their victimized daughter, they exclude her and ignore her for YEARS, leaving her to fend for herself, to find a place of belonging somewhere else, because it sure as heck wasn't at home. Michael drinks; Corinne puts her red, spiritual head in the sand. And everyone around them gets screwed up, royally.

This is the first book I've read by Joyce Carol Oates. I overlooked the "Oprah's Pick" sticker and went for it. Maybe I should have trusted my initial instinct. Because not only is the plot rather off-putting, but this book is so much longer than it needed to be. There's so much unnecessary detailing, that I found my eyes sliding over entire paragraphs pertaining to one of the family cats' habits, or yet another romanticised memory of the family, pre-incident. I wasn't interested in the cats, and I wasn't interested in romanticising a family parented by these two numbskulls.

And, that's all I gotta say about that. ;)

“Le famiglie sono così, a volte. Qualcosa va per il verso sbagliato e nessuno sa come rimediare e gli anni passano e… nessuno sa come rimediare”

I Mulvaney sono una famiglia unita, felice e realizzata rispettata e invidiata
Quattro figli ben educati e pieni di valori.
Una fattoria da favola a High Point Farm vicino a New York,´con cani, gatti, cavalli, mucche, pecore
La loro casa è sempre piena di amici e parenti.
Tutto trasmette gioia di vivere.

Fino alla sera di San Valentino del 1976 quando l’unica figlia femmina, Marianne Mulvaney, sedici anni, studentessa modello, vivrà un dramma.

“Era la grazia che scendeva inattesa dall’alto. Era la celebrità al liceo.”

È un "incidente “ innominabile che riveste tutto di un'atmosfera pesante lasciando trapelare il terribile disagio di un segreto inconfessato descritto con estrema delicatezza.

Il resto è solo il lungo racconto di una caduta inesorabile che lascia i familiari sgomenti
La famiglia unita va in frantumi.
I legami, prima così stretti, si allentano si raffreddano
Su tutto e tutti scende il silenzio.
Alcuni se ne andranno ,altri resteranno tra la tristezza che consuma e la a rabbia che acceca, perché la tragedia ha aperto la porta all'ingiustizia
La famiglia Mulvaney non sarà mai più quella di una volta.
La dolce armonia della famiglia non è bastata a fare da scudo all’ imprevedibile , non c’è stato l’aiuto reciproco "dopo”
Ciascuno seguirà la propria strada fatta di insidie dolore rinunce.
“Per parecchio tempo ci avete invidiato, poi ci avete compianto.”

Joyce Carol Oates Oates scava nell'animo dei suoi personaggi con rigore, meticolosità e incredibile verità.
Con una scrittura magnifica ritrae la storia di una famiglia nell'arco di più di vent'anni attraverso la voce di Judd, l'ultimo dei fratelli.
Un romanzo di grande sensibilità che ruota attorno al peso della colpa da vivere in silenzio, e al ruolo della famiglia che non è necessariamente un luogo di protezione né un rifugio quando serve, se non ha la forza necessaria per curare le ferite altrui
La famiglia, dopo tutto, è il riflesso di chi la compone e spesso è solo una bella facciata a cui è stato inferto uno sfregio
Il sogno americano, traboccante di felicità abbondante e disordinata, è anche questo: salvare le apparenze prima delle persone
In fondo "è stata solo una cosa che è successa”

3,5

This is the first novel I have read my Joyce Carol Oates. She has many, and the fact that I didn't like this one won't stop me from reading others. I honestly feel like I wasted days on this book. Just simply wasted precious time. Here you have a loving couple with 3 boys and 1 girl. The girl gets raped. The father is so anguished by it that he has her sent away for years and years. The mother actually agrees to this (as a mother myself, I can't fathom this thought, especially if my child had done nothing wrong), the brothers eventually break apart due to these actions being taken, the father becomes a drunk, the marriage and family crumble...REALLY?? I felt there was too much time devoted on other characters. Who cares about the details of the character who drove Marianne to her grandmother's funeral. It took way too much time for the plot to thicken. Too much time spent on the darn cat. I was ready to put the book down for good middle-way, because by the time I got that far, I looked back thinking, 'so just what IS going on here? Is it going to be about exacting revenge, the family falling apart, what!?!' But being the person that I am, I usually finish, and I did. So, it's like they all barely have contact with each other, or they hate each other, til someone dies, then all of a sudden the mother wants a family reunion, they all come together and it's like they've been best friends for years. Everything is perfect. Mind you that this is at the VERY, VERY end of the book. If I had been Marianne, cast out by my own family like I was a piece of trash because I had been raped, there is no way I would give them the time of day. Her father didn't even want to see her until he was on his deathbed!! Ugh! I think this book infuriated me more than anything.

Il titolo originario in inglese mi sembra molto più conforme allo spirito del libro: “We were the Mulvaneys”.
Eravamo, quando ancora la famigghia Mulvaney era un modello alla mulino bianco, tutti insieme appassionatamente a lavorare nella fattoria, a primeggiare tra i membri della comunità locale, a collaborare, a parlottare attorno al tavolone per pranzo e cena, a sorridere e sorridersi.
L’articolo indeterminativo della traduzione italiana sembra invece voler definire i Mulvaney come una famiglia qualsiasi, quasi un emblema dell’America del secolo scorso.
Se così fosse,le famiglie americane mi starebbero sulle scatole tutte.
Ho provato una antipatia insostenibile per Corinne ora et labora e per la montagna di sabbia Micheal sr., genitori inadeguati e ottusi, e per la dolce sperduta sconsolata Marianne, vittima all’ennesima potenza, vittima dello stupro, dei suoi stessi genitori, delle malelingue e del proprio smisurato senso di colpa.
(e lo so, avrebbe dovuto farmi tenerezza, la Marianne principessa, e invece il suo nascondersi fino a diventare quasi evanescente, un fantasma buono, teso a cancellare ogni traccia di ego sotto il lavoro, sotto i panni stracciati, il suo scappare per anni e anni da ogni possibile barlume di autoaffermazione, la sua esistenza dedicata alla cura degli altri a patto che di sé non rimanesse niente, mi hanno indispettita)
Naturalmente, certe dinamiche familiari, soprattutto se relazionate ad un certo tipo di ambiente sociale, sono proprie del mondo occidentale moderno e non è difficile riconoscerle anche tra le famiglie di casa nostra:
“I membri di una famiglia che hanno vissuto assieme nella surriscaldata intensità della vita familiare si conoscono poco. E' una vita troppo diretta, a distanza troppo ravvicinata. E' quello il paradosso. La contorta realtà che lascia perplessi. L'esatto contrario di ciò che ci si aspetterebbe. Perché ovviamente non stai mai a pensare a quei rapporti, mentre li vivi.”
Ed è così.
Il narratore, Judd il figlio minore, il piccolo, fossette, e vai ancora con tutti i nomignoli, racconta della sua famiglia, racconta dei Mulvaney, con il debito distacco, da adulto, quando ormai tutto si era sgretolato e ricomposto in nuove e diverse forme di raggruppamento “familiare”.
“Pensare, formulare pensieri, è una funzione della dissociazione, della distanza. Non puoi utilizzare la memoria finchè non ti sei allontanato dalla fonte della memoria.”
E’ solo allora, che alla rabbia e al dispiacere, può subentrare una sorta di malinconica tenerezza per quello che un tempo era stato.
In questo la famiglia dei Mulvaney può porsi come “una famiglia americana” e oltre.
Di certo sarebbe stato meglio non averla proprio, una famiglia, piuttosto che averla avuta come quella dei Mulvaney, tutta chiacchiere e apparenza, e nel momento del bisogno e del sostegno, sticazzi.
Forse è per questo, che a questa lunga saga familiare, ho preferito la Oates del romanzo breve Acqua nera.

Šeimos sagos yra visiškas gėris. Dar didesniu gėriu jos tampa tada, kai būna tokios kaip ši. Tamsios, klampios, narstančios šeimos narių santykius po kaulelį ir neriančios į tamsiausias sielos gelmes. Istorija sukasi aplink vieną tragiškai skaudų įvykį, apie kurį nenoriai kalbama ne tik miestelyje, bet ir pačių Malveinių namuose. Tik niekas nesupranta, kaip tai paveiks šeimos narių likimus. Rašytoja tragišką šeimos likimą pateikia kaip pamoką. Apie stiprybę, apie naivumą, nuo kurio net šiek tiek pykina, apie viltį, meilę ir ryšį. Bet kokia viso kaina? Kodėl norint atrasti savyje tam tikrus jausmus, reikia išgyventi tragediją? 

Veikėjai čia tampa savi, nors jų gal ir nelabai mėgsti, bet supranti, kad jie juk negali būti tobuli ir nušlifuoti. Jie turi būti tikri, savi ir liūdesį keliantys, kad sulipdytų visą Malveinių paveikslą. Ir kalbu ne tik apie šeimos narius, nes atrodė, kad čia kiekvienas veikėjas tampa svarbiu, lyg dėlionės detalė, be kurios nebūtų visos visumos. Ir taip, nors visuma čia tamsi ir skausminga, autorė kupina detalumo, jausmingumo ir daugiasluoksniškumo. Kur kiekvienas žodis ir kiekviena paslaptis paslėpta tarp eilučių čia itin reikšminga.

Puiki knyga mėgstantiems šeimos istorijas, kurios paliečia iki pirštų galiukų ir neleidžia pamiršti. Nors ir pasakoja apie dalykus, kurių nelinki patirti, negali atsigrožėti viskuo nuo romano pradžios iki pabaigos, o kur dar tobulai šiai knygai išverstas tekstas. Rekomenduoju!

This is the third and last of this author's novels on my shelves and I don't think I will bother to seek out more. Although this is written in a much more readable style than the two in the Gothic quintet which I have recently read, it suffers from some of the same faults, being a bit too verbose and tending to go over trivia that are not really required to 'get' the family situation before it is irrevocably ruined.

The story is told in part by the youngest child of the Mulvaney family, Judd, and partly by an omniscient narrator. The Mulvaneys consist of parents and four children, three boys and one girl, who live on a ramshackle farm out of town, which isn't a serious farming endeavour as most of the land is on long leases to other farmers, or has been previously sold off. The family's wealth comes from a successful roofing business. They live a fairly idyllic life with lots of animals, including horses for the children to ride. The father is a handsome and popular businessman, while the mother is scatty, but a good homemaker and organiser of the children's lives. The eldest son shows some signs of possibly going off the rails, the middle son is extremely bright and seems to have a future mapped out as a scientist, and the baby of the family, Judd is more an amalgam of the rest (but tells the reader quite early on that he eventually becomes a successful newspaper editor). The daughter is good, kind, adored and popular at school, and her name, Marianne, is perhaps a clue that she is really an all-round Mary Sue rather than a real person.

Everything starts to become unravelled in 1976, when a terrible event happens to a particular child, following a school prom, and no justice is obtained, apart from some rough justice metered out much later by one of the other siblings. The father reacts very badly, ostracising the afflicted child. He becomes a pariah in the district with a failing business as he crawls into the bottle and racks up debts. The mother enables this blaming of the child - who internalises it as their fault - and organises for said child to be packed off to a distant relation, and to commence the process of dropping out of college without qualifications and being economically exploited. The mother often has little awareness of what is happening to that child or even how to make contact. Being in the 1970s, this is only possible via letter/postcard or telephone. Meanwhile, the eldest child joins the army and another of the siblings drops out from a promising future career, due to anger and disgust at the parents. The youngest has to put up with the increasingly dysfunctional home life as first the land and most of the animals are sold off, and finally the family home itself goes, against a background of occasional wife beating.

Although I appreciate that the child caught up in the initial disaster is damaged and has no support whatsoever from anyone, the fact that they have imbued the mother's uncritical Christianity and blame themselves as a result, does become hard to take at times. It is also clear that the mother is more upset about a kitten run over by the father at one point than the welfare of this child. Symbolically, it is only the arrival of that child at a refuge for injured animals, which triggers off the healing process. Rather implausibly, the story then jumps a few years to where they end up forgiving the father on his death bed, and then a happy ending five years later, with most of the children having partners and families of their own - something that comes across as rather rushed.

On the plus side, the story is well written if rather unnecessarily verbose in places, and a page turner in others, but on the negative side there was a lot concerning the attitude of the parents that I really disliked. So on the whole am rating this at 3 starts.

I really needed Joyce Carol Oates to give me a break on this one. I was still reeling from the horrible experience I had of accidentally reading part of "Zombie" but I was prepared to try to forgive her. But even though no one in this book gave anyone else an ice-pick lobotomy, it was entirely devoid of any heart, hope, or mercy. I just don't need this in my life - there's nothing about this book stylistically that elevates it above its oppressively miserable story.

DNF a 250.

Mi dispiace, ci ho provato, ma non ci sono riuscita.
E' indubbio che Oates sia una scrittrice eccezionale, ma non mi trovo in sintonia con il suo stile di narrazione.
Un capitolo interessante, quello dopo estremamente noioso. Così tutto il tempo e nel capitolo interessante comunque almeno due o tre pagine delle quali si poteva fare a meno.
E' stata una forzatura questa lettura. Pur essendo arrivata al punto dove questo "famigerato incidente" viene rivelato, ero totalmente indifferente e disinteressata a sapere le sorti di questa famiglia.

Mi sa che io e la Oates non siamo fatte l'una per l'altra.

Sometimes, when reviewing a book, it's easier to explain the experience you had while reading it - so that's what I'm going to do with "We Were the Mulvaneys".
This is a family saga that spans over several years. At first, the dense language made me feel like there was a ditch between me and the story. I had to get used to the prose, and I did so surprisingly fast; however, I still noticed the dense language every time I picked up the book, and if I was tired and just wanted to read to relax, I had to convince myself to keep on reading.
Which means that while I was reading this novel, I didn't think that I was reading a 5-star book. That IS the case, however, now that I look back on it. Because "We Were the Mulvaneys" is simply too epic a tragic family story to not be a 5-star read. It's one of those books that I know will stay with me for months to come; especially because of the members of this family...
Rarely have I come across a set of characters that I was so engaged in as I was with the Mulvaneys. Michael Sr., Corinne, Mike Jr., Patrick, Marianne, Judd - their names are tattooed to my brain and I feel like I'm now part of their family because I've been following them so well. Especially Corinne turned into one of those fictional personnages that is and will rest very close to my heart. Furthermore, the long years that we get to follow them come with engaging anecdotes - and when those anecdotes are referenced back to several hundred pages later, you get the feeling that this is a JOURNEY (with capital letters) you've been on - I liked that feeling.
This is my review of "We Were the Mulvaneys". I haven't touched at all upon the plot; only on my feelings. I hope you can use this in some ways, because sometimes what you remember from a book is how you felt while you were reading it - not much of the actual plot itself (which I do remember vividly as well, but I want for YOU to experience it for yourself). Good luck, and say hi to the Mulvaneys from me when you encounter them!