"Qué palabras se pueden utilizar para resumir toda una vida, tan repleta de confusa felicidad interrumpida por aquel dolor absoluto a cámara lenta?"
Ascensión y caída de una familia modelo en los Estados Unidos de los años 70. Pero de esa parte del país de las barras y estrellas más conservador, religioso y campestre. Los Mulvaney son un próspero clan capitaneado por Michael Mulvaney, un empresario local, su mujer Corinne, una loca de las antigüedades, y sus cuatro hijos: el deportista Mike, la animadora Marianne, el intelectual Patrick y el peque de la familia y narrador de la historia, Judd. Todo muy bonito y muy de postal hasta que por un suceso muy desagradable que le pasa a uno de los integrantes, la fantasía cae como un castillo de naipes.
El rechazo de una sociedad mojigata a morir, el abuso, la sed de venganza, el amor incondicional y la autodestrucción se dan cita en este novelón de casi ochocientas páginas muy prolífico, algo tostón a veces pero sin duda una muy buena radiografía de la sociedad norteamericana del momento. Aunque en lo esencial no creo que hayan cambiado mucho.

Okay, I finally GET Joyce Carol Oates

Thanks to Goodreads, I stuck with this novel, one of the prolific Joyce Carol Oates’s best-known and –loved books. (Hey, it’s even Oprah Book Club-approved!) Some people on here said it picked up around the 100-page mark, and – wouldn’t you know it? – they were right.

I’m glad I listened to y’all. It takes a while for the book to find its way. So many character introductions! So many coy digressions! Do we really need to know about all the family nicknames and pets?! But once it gets going, it’s quite gripping, both plot-wise and psychologically.

The past tense in the title hints at the book’s outcome. In some ways it’s about the decline and fall of a once prosperous, well-loved upstate New York family. One event that happens on Valentine’s Day in 1976 affects each of the six Mulvaneys differently, and this book, narrated mostly by the youngest child, Judd, tells the sad, sad story.

I won’t reveal the event, although it’s hinted at early on and it’s easy enough to figure out. But it literally divides the family: from the community (there’s legal action, shunning), and perhaps more tragically, from themselves.

A father denies his favourite child, and the devout mother unquestioningly goes along with it; the other children react by leaving or messing up; careers and ambitions are thwarted; a plan to execute retribution is hatched, further dividing the family; and, as lives are ruined or put on hold and the scars of the past refuse to heal, nobody talks about “it” – the unmentionable “event.”

Oates is working on a large canvas here. There are several biblical and mythical allusions; and much of the book has the inexorable feel of a Greek Tragedy. The idea of Darwinian evolution is also a big theme. And the book can also be read, quite convincingly, as one of those Death of the American Dream novels. When institutions fail people, you're left with the family unit. The book mostly concerns the subtle interworkings of a large family, from the oft-repeated anecdotes that capture a family member’s character to its big secrets.

As one Mulvaney child says about his family late in the book, “It’s like things are in code and the key’s been lost.”

There are lots of passages that ring true if you’re part of a big(gish) family. Consider this:

They say the youngest kid of a family doesn’t remember himself very clearly because he has learned to rely on the memories of others, who are older and thus possess authority. Where his memory conflicts with theirs, it’s discarded as of little worth. What he believes to be his memory is more accurately described as a rag-bin of others’ memories, their overlapping testimonies of things that happened before he was born, mixed in with things that happened after his birth, including him.

Not all the prose is so insightful. This passage, for instance, cries out for tightening and clarity:

There were those times when the telephone rang, and she could not locate a phone amid the clutter. She rushed, she stumbled – for what if it was Michael Sr., her beloved husband of whom she thought, worried obsessively as the mother of an infant if physically parted from the infant thinks and worries obsessively of the infant even when her mind appears to be fully engaged, if not obsessed, with other matters.

I read that last run-on sentence four times before comprehending it. And in the same paragraph (!) we get:

During these mad dashes to the wall phone in the kitchen she hadn’t time to fall but with fantastical grace and dexterity wrenched herself upright in midfall and continued running (dogs whimpering, yapping hysterically in her wake, cats scattering wide-eyed and plume-tailed) before the telephone ceased its querulous ringing – though frequently she was greeted with nothing more than a derisive dial tone, in any case.

Are editors simply too intimidated by JCO’s output to suggest revisions?

The author also has an annoying habit of repeating phrases in italics, supposedly to suggest subconscious thoughts but too often feeling like a lazy shorthand saying, “Look, look, this is significant!”

Still, I don’t think you read Oates for the line-by-line beauty of her prose.

Late in the novel she gets deep inside the head of the book’s ruined, alcoholic patriarch, and it’s a terrifying, sad and completely convincing section, the best in the book. And when one of the most wounded characters finds herself in a sanctuary for wounded animals who have been given a second chance at life, the symbolism might seem obvious, but after 400 pages it feels earned.

A lesser writer would have offered up sentimentality, cheesy redemption monologues and copious tears. Oates is after something more complex, more textured, and ultimately more real.

We might think we know who the Mulvaneys are, but they can, like humans everywhere, still surprise us.

Ever read a novel that's so good — so GREAT — that you feel as if any words you might have to say about would seem wholly inadequate? That's the way I feel about WE WERE THE MULVANEYS, a novel that is like a heart breaking one micromillimeter at a rime, spreading implacably like a fracturing glacier in the face of global warming, inevitable and horror and impossible to not see.

The Mulvaneys are as all-American as a family can possibly be, framers and tradespeople, leaders in their all-American community, admired across every cross-section of community. Then something just as all-American happens — the Mulvaneys lone girl, Marianne, is raped at a high school party — and the result is a decline and dissolution so sad and ineviable because this happened in the 1970 and polite society had no language, inside the heart or outside of it, to address it. Mike Sr. can't stand to see his daughter not because he blames her but because he can'r avenge her. Corinne, the mother, smiles distractedly and speaks in platitudes and smiles even wider when everybody scatters. Mike Jr. joins the Marines; Patrick escapes to Cornell; Marianne is packed off like a dirty secret to far-flung relatives; and Judd, the youngest, is left to slowly piece together whatever the hell happened, which nobody will discuss.

WE WERE THE MULVANEYS is not a thriller, though the rapist is violently confronted; the damage is done long before that happens, and violence offers nothing resembling catharsis. Instead, it is an uncomfortably close look at how everybody's inability to handle what happens dissolves them like slow-motion acid, setting them adrift on courses of quiet ruin, regardless of where they are and who they're with and what they're doing to pass the time and to make a living, or not quite a living. As the years pass, nothing can fix them — especially not talk, that great American Band-Aid — and all that's left is the specifics of their ruination. It takes a writer of remarkable strength to follow each member of the Mulvaneys into their own heart of darkness without offering any of them easy outs or appearing to marinate in their pain, but Joyce Carol Oates is more than up to the task, and her peeks behind the black curtains of their souls are as compelling as they are crushing.

I'm glad I read WE WERE THE MULVANEYS. I'm not sure I'd ever be strong enough to read it again. So I admire the strength of someone who surely had to do that, over and over and over and over, in the course of creating it. Joyce Carol Oates is an American treasure., No big secret, there; but I think sometimes she gets overlooked as just that because she's so prolific and because she's a woman and she's associated with seminal work from nearly a half-century ago more than she is with equally standout work of more recent vintage. But she is the recording secretary of the American meeting of souls, more than any other author I could name.

Felt like the slow parts could’ve been better paced and the parts that really should’ve slowed down were rushed.

Que habilidad la de Oates para dar vueltas en torno a un mismo tema, como si de una espiral se tratase, sin por ello resultar pesada... Si consigues superar las primeras 50 páginas, un tanto lentas, te irá todo sobre ruedas y seguirás pasando páginas sin mayor problema. Eso sí, la historia es a menudo frustrante, incluyendo algunos personajes... Grandes injusticias y un comportamiento un tanto irracional, todo a partir de uno de esos grandes dramas que caracterizan a esta escritora, en este caso una violación. Perfecto retrato de la hipocresía de otra época y de la sociedad en casi cualquiera...

"Šeimoje nuolat stengiesi išgirsti tai, kas neištariama balsu. Kita vertus, šeimos šurmulys - geriausias būdas pasislėpti."

Gyveno paprasta, draugiška šeima: mama, tėtis, vaikai. Kol nenutinka "tas įvykis". Malveinių šeimoje, net garsiai nekalbama apie tai, gal net negalvojama. Prasideda skiautinis gyvenimas.

Skaičiau ir galvojau, kaip aš nekenčiu vyresniojo Maiklo Malveinio ir motinos Korinos Malveini. Nenoriu jiems ieškoti jokių pateisinimų. Žinau, kad nerasiu ir niekas jų neišgelbės.

Kai vaikai pasirodė esantys stipresni už tėvus...

Warning! Warning! Potential spoilers contained in this rant-filled review!

We Were the Mulvaneys is probably JCO’s most known novel. I can’t for the life of me understand why. I will be the first to tell you what a JCO enthusiast I am, yet before reading this I had never read a single novel of hers. I had read and loved her short stories as if they were written for my eyes only and I cherished them as such. I still do…more so now after having read this book.

This book is….something.

I guess a lot can be said about a novel that makes you feel such strong emotions on such a varying range. I felt a lot of anger while reading this. So much so that I found myself clenching my hands so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. I was also scowling a lot which is going to age me some day. I find I scowl when I’m concentrating in general so angry scowling on top of normal scowling is not good for me.

This book is about a family- The Mulvaneys. They are a good family; a well-known family in their country home in upstate NY. These family members have names but to be honest with you each one is referred to by about 4 different names and there is such a long introduction to all of them individually that I couldn’t be bothered to actually pay attention to it. There’s a mom, a dad, a few brothers and a sweet darling sister whose innocence is taken from her in one of the worst ways one could ever imagine.

The family reacts to this “situation” in a way that is flat out appalling. Growing up in the family that I did I find this so unacceptable that I almost stopped reading it. In fact, I wanted to drive until I found the Mulvaney farm and go on a rampage that would either result in murder or a severe talking to with this family. Certainly if I had ever been a victim my father would not have ever blamed me, or begrudged me for soiling the family name. Instead he would have done everything in his power to see that there was justice and that I received the help that I needed to cope with what had been done to me. Yes, I feel confident enough in my family to know that he would have done this even in 1970. The time of the event is relevant, yes, but the point is the problem lies with the father. It is a character flaw. Victim blaming is a real thing and it happens every single day.

The fact that Mrs. Mulvaney puts up with her jackass of a husband and his outrageous behavior where he essentially shuns his daughter is so completely baffling to me. Once again this is because of my upbringing. My mother is one of the strongest willed women you could ever meet. I’m fairly certain that if there were a Mama Bear protecting her cub and my mother protecting me and you had to choose between which one to fight you would choose the bear every time. Hell hath no fury like my mother protecting one of her children.

There was a point in this book where I was actually hoping to see a teenager kill another young man. I was literally grinding my teeth in agitation wishing he would pull that trigger and knowing he wouldn’t do it. I don’t normally encourage murder but in this case I felt it justified.

Button, our sweet innocent victim in this story, shows no personal growth because she doesn’t understand that what has been done to her is wrong. She doesn’t seem to get that the initial act that causes all of this is wrong and she doesn’t understand that her father’s reaction is wrong. She just goes about her life thinking this is just the way things are and she never seeks help for the emotional damage that is so evident to the readers.

The end of this story infuriated me more than anything. Why would you ever give that man the satisfaction of going to see him on his death bed? He single-handedly destroyed your family because he was too goddamn proud to face what happened. He outcasts you, moves you away from your family and doesn’t talk to you for what- 20 fucking years?! And you still go crawling to his bedside like a good and obedient little child?! Of course you do because you don’t know any better and it’s making me angry for completely different reasons! I’m mad because you should have been helped! You should have been hugged and loved and told that it was not your fault. And now here I am blaming you for the lack of compassion done to you by your own family.

JCO is kind of known for making you stop and really think about the world and what goes on around you. These things happen in life. There are tragedies. There is death. There is rape. There is cruel behavior. All it takes is one person doing the right thing. I applaud JCO for making me feel these things. It’s a sign of a great writer. HOWEVER, the subject content was just too overwhelming for me to rate it high. It was such a grueling read. I didn’t enjoy this book. It was written fine- of course!-it’s JCO after all. But it affected me too personally for me to ever love this book or to ever recommend it. I feel bad that I selected this book for my group read. (Sorry girls!!) BUT, it did spark some really excellent discussions.

5/5

Kokia skausmingai graži knyga. Viena tų, ilgų, kur kiekvieną veikėją pažįsti iš visokiausių pusių ir galiausiai kiekvieną savaip prisijaukini – netobulą, gal net visai nemielą, bet tiek pat artimą, kiek savos šeimos narys. Ir tiek pat po to, kai kartu 600 puslapių praleidai, mylimą ir saugomą. Jau seniai man nebuvo taip, kad net raidžių per ašaras nematyčiau – jei vietomis tik elegantiškai ritosi, tai į galą jau tiesiog kūkčiojau į megztinio atlapą. Čia tiek nesuvaidinto, tikro skausmo, be dramos vardan dramos, tiek daug buities, kuri patraukia paprastumu – kito autoriaus, ne tokio talentingo rankose, nesunku būtų nusukti į saldumą, susireikšminimą, tačiau šita knyga net neguli prie tų, kurias įprastai reklamuoja kaip „šeimos sagas“ – čia viena tų, kur bus vertinama kaip aukščiausio lygio klasika. Parašyta smulkmeniškai, elegantiškai, su milžiniška atida detalėms ir jausmams, visai jų amplitudei ne tik vienos šeimos, bet vieno miestelio, net vienos šalies kontekste.

Malveiniai aprėpia daugiau nei tik tuos šešis žmones, besidalinančius vienu stogu, o po to jau nebent vienu skausmu, viena pavarde – Oates perteikia to meto politinį, socialinį, net teisinį paveikslą. Detalių tirštame tekste ypač daug slypi ir tarp eilučių - per vieną skaitymą visko nesugaudysi. Retai kada taip nutinka, kad ilga knyga man neprailgsta. Bet čia tiesiog leidausi nešama istorijos, skaitant iki tobulumo nugludintą Oates tekstą, elegantiškai ir skoningai išverstą Ievos Sidaravičiūtės. Iki tol dviems skaitytoms JCO knygoms turėjau priekaištų, o prieš šitą tiesiog lenkiu galvą. Viskuo iki smulkmenų patikėjau, visus veikėjus savaip pamilau ir tikrai prie šitos knygos dar sugrįšiu – truputį mazochistiškai, truputį pavydžiai, puikiai suvokiant, kad kai kuriems – kalbu ir apie autorę, ir apie vertėją – buvo drebtelėta tiek talento.

(Tres estrellas que no significan que me haya gustado la novela, sino tan solo mi reconocimiento a la capacidad de Joyce Carol Oates como narradora.)

Siempre me estrello con Joyce Carol Oates. Y lo he hecho varias veces sencillamente porque los temas sobre los que escribe me parecen muy sustanciosos, pero luego no me gusta cómo los aborda ni cómo los resuelve. He de reconocer que es una gran narradora, no me habría tragado casi ochocientas páginas de novela si no hubieran mantenido mi interés (y lo han hecho de manera sostenida y a ratos adictiva). No obstante, siempre tengo la sensación de que JCO y yo vemos las cosas desde perspectivas distintas y, a ratos, opuestas. No es nada cómodo leer una novela de ese modo. Con este libro me he mantenido en un constante estado de cabreo, en primer lugar por la horrible reacción de todo el mundo hacia la violación de Marianne Mulvaney. Pero también porque no sé adónde quiere ir a parar JCO con la cadena de acontecimientos y la luz concreta bajo la que la muestra, con las ocasiones en que pone el foco en Marianne y de qué manera particular lo hace, y muy en especial con el happy ending que le da a la historia. Me cuesta creer que eligiendo los temas que elige y la manera en que los trata no haya un mensaje detrás. Quiero decir que cuando hablas de temas como la violación o el abuso sexual, la manera en que lo hagas se convierte, quieras o no, en un juicio moral. Por eso no puedo sencillamente tragarme esas casi ochocientas páginas de retrato de familia disfuncional y que todo acabe en una reunión familiar donde todo es amor y no ya reconciliación, sino básicamente «aquí no ha pasado nada».

¿Volveré a picar con alguna de las chotopotocientas novelas de Joyce Carol Oates? Probablemente, y seguro que con la que está basada en la vida de Jeffrey Dahmer. Y ¿volveré a cabrearme de nuevo? Se aceptan apuestas...

The American family novel often goes as follows: first, depict a family that seems to be happy and functional; second, demonstrate how illusory this really is as hypocrisy and dysfunction are exposed, often tearing the family completely apart; and third, bring the family or at least some remnant of the family back together again for a rather upbeat ending. The assumption seems to be that however awful families might be, they are in the end our only sure refuge, a refuge that is only found after going through a good stretch of hell. The French family novel is quite different from this, a subject for another time. Joyce Carol Oates' novel "We Were the Mulvaneys" generally follows the typical American pattern, but it is redeemed somewhat by being so extreme that almost must be understood as darkly comic satire. After all, the Mulvaneys are not just happy but almost absurdly so--they virtually wallow in joy at one another's presence, although the reader sometimes can't see why! And when the fall comes, it is equally extreme. The Mulvaney daughter, the joy of her father, is date-raped, for which her father can never forgive her and which turns him into an alcoholic brute (from sweet guy to alcoholic brute . . . I guess that happens sometimes). A variety of other extreme things occur, which I will not describe so as to avoid a spoiler alert. No alert is necessary for the end of the story since it is, after all, an American family novel. Now, this all sounds bad, but I confess to being born an American and finding myself sometimes almost teary-eyed at the very sentimentality about families that I rather deplore. Moreover, Joyce Carol Oates writes well, and I really do think some of this novel is tongue-in-cheek. Gee, I could hardly it down, even as it wove its way through the predictable pattern.

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.
Una riflessione veritiera, nodo centrale della storia, che mi ha colpito per la sua semplicità e profondità.
Una famiglia americana non è il primo romanzo che leggo, dell'autrice, perché l'anno scorso avevo letto Zombie nel quale lei si cala in modo eccellente nella testa di un serial killer ispirato a Jeffrey Dahmer.
Tuttavia i romanzi familiari hanno un posto nelle mie preferenze, e questo ha fatto una degna entrata nei migliori mai letti. Il motivo dipende dalla ricchezza di particolari che Joyce Carol Oates mette insieme. E' una scrittrice scrupolosa, che sicuramente non lascia nulla al caso, e che porge a piene mani ai suoi lettori un mondo in cui affondare. Questa ricchezza fatta di nomi, soprannomi, abitudini, una mitologia familiare, ricordi, è alla base del romanzo familiare e ne definisce la natura.
La storia però è quello che è perché si intreccia con l'America e tutta la sua ipocrisia e finzione. L'autrice sembra conoscerla perfettamente, ed è proprio questo che rende bellissimo il romanzo.
La famiglia rappresentata infatti è la tipica famiglia americana perfetta, da favola. Quattro figli, due genitori, gatti, cani, una profusione di animali, cene, sdolcinatezze di ogni tipo. Tutto comunica una impressione di fermezza. Tutto sembra così saldo. L'amore, la vicinanza tra i parenti sembra perfettamente saldo, e proprio per questo crolla all'improvviso dopo un evento terribile accaduto all'unica figlia femmina. La ragazza, stuprata, deciderà, per scrupolo verso i propri ricordi, per un eccesso di religiosità forse bigotta, di non denunciare lo stupratore e tacere. Il segreto, rimasto tra le pareti domestiche come una bomba, e non curato, esploderà.
Su questo, oltre che sull'ipocrisia americana, si basa il romanzo. Il segreto. Ognuno dei familiari lo gestisce in modo diverso. Il padre di famiglia se ne lascia disintegrare; la madre preferisce voltarsi da un'altra parte e, addirittura, mandar via la figlia. Davanti ad un segreto così terribile, che non si può gestire, ci si volta nella direzione opposta.
E' proprio l'ostracismo della vittima ad avermi colpita più di ogni altra cosa, nel libro.
La ragazza viene abbandonata alle cure di una zia poco amorevole, e lontana da casa. Più avanti sentiremo una riflessione sull'atteggiamento della madre, la quale non si preoccupava della vita di sua figlia, ne di quella degli altri suoi figli lontani, come una gatta che ha perduto i suoi gattini nel mondo. Ed in un certo senso le stava bene così.
Praticamente questa madre preferisce separarsi dalla figlia, per dare al marito modo di non vederla e quindi non avere sotto gli occhi il continuo ricordo di ciò che è accaduto e non ha saputo affrontare. Un esempio di ipocrisia perfetto, che l'autrice mostra crudelmente.
Spoiler
Anche il finale del libro, che concede addirittura un happy ending, mi ha sorpreso. Immaginavo un finale che avesse coerenza con la disgregazione operata in centinaia di pagine di romanzo. Invece la famiglia si ritrova. A questo punto mi sono chiesta: l'amore familiare è solo aspettare?
Aspettare ognuno per se, cercando di sopravvivere, e poi riavvicinarsi come se niente fosse? Certi affetti fanno lunghi giri e poi ritornano, potrebbe essere vero. L'enorme ipocrisia di questa famiglia è una chiave di lettura dell'America, e così ho interpretato il romanzo.

1976. A Valentine's Day dance that goes terribly wrong. Starts with a ripped dress that ends up ripping the Mulvaney family apart.

While the writing was beautiful, and tragic all wrapped together, I found this one hard to get through and harder to pick up and finish. The book was so depressing and just seemed to keep spiraling further and further downward. I was so angry with the way that this seemingly perfect, all- American family handled the situation that tears them apart.

It wasn't until the very end that the shining only redeeming factor shone through, and I was left satisfied with the ending. The characters were all well developed, and I found that for the most part I did enjoy the children's characters. The parents- Corinne and Michael Mulvaney Sr were ones that I wanted to punch at times.