November 24, 2013
This is the first full-length (though it is a novella) work that I've read by Oates. I am familiar, of course, with what has been cited as her most famous work, the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". In fact, I believe that it was assigned to me in not one, but two college literature courses. It's essentially about a teenage girl who is home alone on a Sunday afternoon, who is talked into going along with a smooth-talking guy who, it is assumed, is going to rape and probably kill her. The girl seems to know this, too, yet she doesn't put up too much of a resistance. I've never been completely sure what to make of that story.
Patricide is interesting, even if none of the characters are too likable. The story is told from the perspective of Lou-Lou, the dean of faculty at a small college in New York. She is middle-aged, and may be a virgin (that seemed to be stated, though I wasn't sure if it meant that she was technically a virgin, or if she had never had passionate sex before). This is in contrast to her father, who is essentially the center of her life. Roland Marks is a Nobel Prize-winning writer, a grouch who doesn't treat his grown daughter with much respect. He is infamous for disrespecting women in general; he's been married and divorced five times, has many children, and is known for many sexual affairs on the side.
Lou-Lou has basically dedicated her life to taking care of her father, and when Cameron, a young Ph.D. student, comes into the picture (she's almost half Lou-Lou's age, and she becomes Roland's lover), the dutiful daughter becomes so distracted that it hurts her performance at work. When her father and Cameron are away, she visits his house and imagines him dying, the old stairs leading down to the Hudson River collapsing under his weight. She even cancels an order to have the steps repaired.
It happens the way that Lou-Lou imagines it. Her father does fall, and he does die. And, unexpectedly, Cameron becomes Lou-Lou's business partner, as they dedicate themselves to...what? Preserving Roland's works? Exploiting his legacy for their own profit? Well, Lou-Lou is pretty convinced that Cameron, the young woman, actually loved her father, admired him in the same way that she did herself, and it's implied that the two may begin a sexual relationship.
In some ways, I can understand Lou-Lou's feelings about her father. I mean, I love my dad. I admire him, too. He's not famous, but he's dedicated to his career. He works with kids, as I do, and I think that's very important. He and my mother divorced when I was young, around the same age that Lou-Lou was when her own parents divorced. I have always, mostly, believed that it was for the best, while Lou-Lou expresses some regret, even years later, that her father had abandoned her mother (as she felt much of that abandonment herself). Like Lou-Lou, I am confident that I am my father's favorite child, and that it is a deserved spot. But at the same time, my father treats me with respect. He and I have been on almost equal footing since my parents split; when I was in high school, it was just me and him for a time at home, and the only rules I had to follow were to come home by curfew, and to keep up my grades (though working for him at the Y probably helped him to keep me in line as well). He was always the more supportive of my two parents, and has always been reliable. Like Lou-Lou, there are times when I've been disappointed by him, and times when I've disappointed him, but that's normal for any family.
What I can't understand is Lou-Lou's inability to separate her life from her father's in some way. She never married, never had kids. That's not such a bad thing in itself, but she justifies not taking on more responsibilities in her life, or taking a position at a smaller college rather than advancing her career in academia in order to be closer to him, or to spend more time seeing to his needs. She frequently observes his "helplessness," that she must see to the basic necessities in running the home...as a wife would. It's bad enough that she does all of this, but worse that he's so unappreciative. Roland Marks is a self-important dick, and Lou-Lou basically acknowledges this.
In actual fact, Lou-Lou did not technically commit patricide. She did not act to avoid his death, but really, he knew that the stairs were rotten at his home. He was perfectly capable of acting to have them fixed himself, but he didn't. Lou-Lou even publicly acknowledges her guilt as she mourns with her family, but they reassure her that it wasn't her fault. Still, she had obsessed over it happening that way...it wasn't really a careless accident. She had wished for it, she had kind of planned for it. It wasn't quite murder, but it kind of was. And what was so weird, Lou-Lou didn't feel guilty about it at all, it seems.
An interesting little book. I do appreciate when writers write about the habits of writers in their works. This is something that Stephen King does a lot, and the way that he describes these writers, and the way that they think and create, gives some insight into his own genius. I found Oates's descriptions of Roland Marks to be most fascinating when it described his writing, the controversy that his work generated. Now, Roland was pretty famous; not to the average everyday person, but in certain circles (such as academic ones, as Lou-Lou rolled with), he was well-known, and mostly admired, in spite of the criticism of his anti-feminist themes. It's hard to understand how it would feel to be the child of a famous person, if you haven't really gone through it yourself. Still, I find myself dismissing Lou-Lou as being a whiny Daddy's girl. Hell, her life still revolved around him, even after he was dead. There's only one time she can recall in her life when her father gave her the same kind of admiration that she'd always felt for him, when she'd had a tooth knocked out in a vicious field hockey game in high school. Lou-Lou is a sad woman; family is important, to be sure, but to make anyone (be it a father or mother, or a spouse or lover, or one's own child) the complete center of one's life just isn't right.
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| George Washington Bridge. Lou-Lou had to cross this to get to her father in Upper Nyack. At the beginning of the story, she is stuck in traffic after an accident. Her father acts like her being late, as a result of this, is her fault somehow. He's a dick. |
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| A Victorian-style house in Upper Nyack. I imagine that Roland Marks's house is much like this one. |
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