So, here’s the thing. I read short stories for their diversity. It’s what appeals to me about short stories, the ability to see a writer’s skills widely showcased, to meet an assortment of characters, to fall into a bunch of short snippets.

However, when I bought this book years ago because it was at Pegasus for $1.50*, remaindered, I forgot that one of the reasons I take issue with Oates is that all of her books basically sound the same. I’ve read a couple, and even liked them, but she has a pretty prolific output, and they are all written in basically the same style, with basically the same characters. And that style includes this obnoxious disregard for punctuation which I think is supposed to convey a frenetic urgency, but instead just grates when you’ve read hundreds of pages of it. Maybe if I read one story every few months, I would be way more into this book.

My dislike of this book was only cemented as I was cycling down Franklin Street today and thinking about it, and I reached the intersection of Bush Street, where I had no stop sign, and signaled a left turn, and was promptly almost hit by a woman in a green BMW who was in the process of running the stop sign, and she had the gall to scream at me, the cyclist who clearly had the right of way and was signaling, while the driver stopped on the other side of the street had an expression of horror and disbelief, probably thinking that she had just narrowly missed seeing a rather unpleasant accident.

I steeled myself not to respond, because I didn’t want to “engage,” as they say, but I wanted to lunge off my bike and start beating that idiotic and careless woman’s window in, so that I could drag her out and strangle her with my spare tire. Instead, I glared balefully while I sat, trapped, in the middle of the road, waiting for her to get her rude, gas hogging, reckless ass out of the road, while cars piled up all around to witness the situation.

And that’s how this book made me feel. I felt like I was trapped in the middle of an intersection after a near-accident, forced to sit there feeling humiliated while people piled up all around to peer, and I just wanted her to move, damnit,  so that I could get on with my life.

The question I need to ask myself is why I bothered to re-read this book, given that I have owned it for a few years. I should just get rid of it, because I obviously don’t like it. In fact, maybe I will. Anyone want a copy of Faithless?

*When I was living in Oakland, I had a rule that I would not spend more than $2 for a book, rationalizing that with an abundance of really good used bookstores, there was no excuse for spending more. The goal, I think, was to save money by not spending so much on books, but I compensated for buying cheaper books by buying more of them, so I think things came out about even.

Demographics:

Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates. Published 2001, 386 pages. Fiction.