Reviews

Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates

pbraue13's review against another edition

5.0

A sprawling and often times fun Gothic novel about the several members and generations of the Bellefleur family who is cooky and wild. I loved this book and it was so gorgeously written with very "purple prose". From the wonderful opening paragraph when a small cat wanders into the Bellefleur castle I was hooked. The novel is split into 80 short chapters which could be read as 80 little short stories that interweave and connect with one another which made the more detailed passages way easier to read than some of Oates' other work (which is why I think I prefer her short stories). This is the first in Oates' "Gothic Quartet" and I would recommend it to any fans of the gothic (I.e. "Wuthering heights", "Dracula", etc.). 5/5 from me!

kate56's review against another edition

4.0

Bellefleur, the mansion, is Bellefleur the family, is Bellefleur the story: a sprawling, fantastical caricature of an American dream/ nightmare; characters and settings stretched to their own hyperbole bringing their darknesses into the light; a pervasive meanness and decay that disturbs; and yet an attraction that grabs a reader and pulls her through the myriad of seemingly disconnected bits to a comprehensive whole, but leaves her wondering…

stinalotta's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No

3.75

anitaw16's review against another edition

1.0

This story of an eccentric family seems to circle around and around and never go anywhere. I was unable to finish it.

bennyandthejets420's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Pretty great triple-decker Gothic family novel. Sexy, dark, mysterious, and tortured. Really like how the Gothic elements are frequently juxtaposed with a "realist" explanation, suggesting that it is the Gothic by which the Bellefleurs see themselves and it is the Gothic by which the Bellefleurs explain their racial and class differences. I thought the theme of time was as fully developed as it could be and the book doesn't really change it's third person omniscient register at all throughout the books almost 600 pages. Still, I had a nice time with it and it comes across at times like a moody and existential version of Arrested Development. Bromwell and Vernon were my favorites of the family. 

drlark's review

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

4.5

 4.5 *s for the amazing scope and writing of this massive American family saga. I read JCO back in college, though I can't remember what of hers I read. She came to speak at my school, too, and I remember liking the way she wrote dark characters and events. And I still do. Bellefleur is the juiciest of gothic novels, with a broad cast of characters who are utterly engaging and repugnant. Rich people behaving badly in a run-down castle in the mountains, thinking they are the heroes. There's a blood feud. There's a psychic baby. Maybe some ghosts. Possible vampirism. Definitely murder. We follow the Bellefleur family across 150 or so years of American history as they rule (or try to) over the land and people they bought up back in the 1820s. The story wanders backwards and forwards in time, but it never feels too long. JCO does a fantastic job evoking the wilds of upstate NY, and the covetousness of the American Dream. I was totally hooked.

I'm not rounding up to 5 *s because I don't know that it totally came together for me the way I was hoping at the end, but that may just be because I missed a few of the pieces. And if there was any significance to all the biblical names, it was lost on me. Also, basically every woman the men of the family were attracted to was described as childlike with "high hard breasts," and I think this was supposed to be deliberately gross but I was never sure. A wonderful read, though, and now I need more Joyce Carol Oates on my tbr. 

emilyjia5080's review

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

sleightoffeet's review against another edition

1.0

At 100 pages, I gave up.

With all the wonderful reviews, I fear there is something wrong with me, but I have no idea what in the world is going on! This story meanders between people of mulitple generations both alive and dead and sometimes you think she is talking about a person and it's an animal, but a paragraph later it seems definitely like a person.

Don't even get me started on the family tree. A Hundred Years of Solitude was so much easier to follow, and in that book, everyone had the same name! I would reference the family tree in the beginning and would still be shaking my head.

I tried. I usually like to get 50% through before throwing in the towel, but I just couldn't. Could someone please explain to me what I'm missing?

gorecki's review

2.0

Chaos. What started as an enjoyable book, ended as a crazy mix of 500 characters, 50 different stories, and unexplained paranormal and psychic activity. Oates is an incredibly inventive and imaginative writer, that’s a fact, but this book surpassed my patience. Hero after hero, story after story, she takes us deep into the family tree of the aristocratic inhabitants of the Bellefleur castle. In this book you have everything. A medium, a vampire, a shapeshifter, enchanted objects, a man going into a room only to disappear completely, a hermit looking for God’s face in the wilderness, some people with strong political beliefs, and I’m sure I’m leaving out a dozen more - it’s all fascinating until the moment you reach page 900 and realise it will never add up to anything and it will never make any sense. Not to mention the writing is too detailed and full of side stories and clarifications, half of which could have been omitted.
Even though I enjoyed some of the stories and found them very captivating, my impatience to finish reading it and the felling of “unfinishedness” kind of ruined this book for me.

haileyybean's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25