![]() ![]() The stories in "Haunted" are not nice at all. At one point, she notes that the grotesque might be defined "as the very antithesis of 'nice.' " So true. Oates concludes "Haunted" with an illuminating essay on the nature of the grotesque in fiction. ![]() On the contrary, she maintains such firm control that she forces her stories - and readers - ever forward. Unpleasant Dreams By MICHAEL UPCHURCH HAUNTED Tales of the Grotesque. Oates usually doesn't go so far over the top. There's nothing the least bit funny, though, about a number of other stories in "Haunted," unless you count the unwitting comical excess of "Martyrdom," a parallel tale of a young rat and a beautiful child. ![]() "Like every other young governess in England, Miss Jessel had avidly read her Jane Eyre." Miss Jessel, "in the oblivious days before Peter Quint," gives herself over to daydreams of little Flora and Master. It incorporates Oates' trademark narrative authority and her sly humor. The resulting tale is a worthy prequel/companion piece to James', perhaps even more disturbing in its exploration of evil, desire and madness. Joyce Carol Oates Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and among our greatest chroniclers of the female. It's Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" that she reimagines in this volume's "Accursed Inhabitants of The House of Bly," taking the viewpoint of the original story's two ghosts, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. Oates also has been known to rework other writers' material to her own ends. ![]()
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