Notes on The Man Without A Shadow

Well, we did it again Joyce.  You wrote a novel and I loved it.

I love the list of novels before this novel begins.  In the time it takes me to type it, you will probably have published another.

With Suddering Fall (1964)
A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967)
Expensive People (1968)
them (1969)
Wonderland (1971)
Do with Me What You Will (1973)
The Assassins (1975)
Childwold (1976)
Son of the Morning (1978)
Unholy Loves (1979)
Bellefleur (1980)
Angel of Light (1981)
A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982)
Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984)
Solstice (1985)
Marya: A Life (1986)
You Must Remember This (1987)
American Appetites (1989)
Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990)
Black Water (1992)
Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993)
What I Lived For (1994)
Zombie (1995)
We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
Man Crazy (1997)
My Heart Laid Bare (1998)
Broke Heart Blues (1999)
Blonde (2000)
Middle Age: A Romance (2001)
I'll Take You There (2002)
The Tattooed Girl (2003)
The Falls (2004)
Missing Mom (2005)
Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007)
My Sister, My Love (2008)
Little Bird of Heaven (2009)
Mudwoman (2012)
The Accursed (2013)
Carthage (2014)
The Sacrifice (2015)


I'm glad I didn't find a list with everything she's written because I don't want to do that much typing.  There are novels under other names and there are other books that aren't novels.  There are littler books, and books of poetry and articles including literary criticism and books of short stories. 

I like the picture of the author and the shiny cover paper it's printed on.

How does she do it? 

I can't say I love every book.  I don't even know for sure which ones I have read.  But I can say that there is a really good chance I'll like the book, and if I don't like it- like The Accursed; I still find things to recommend it.

For one thing, I don't like italics.  The use of them in The Accursed was just too much for me.  I wonder if this is something that bothers many people or if it's rare.  But it's true.  If I see a page of italics, I cringe.  Here there weren't as many.  And there weren't pages of all caps either.  But this is such a minor point- or should be, I think.

The book has so much to say that resonates with me and isn't that what defines a masterpiece?  It's something that resonates? 

There is the couple, no longer young yet looking for love- it seems.  There is the academic success story, outstanding in her field who has won everything except a Pulitzer... oops, I mean a Nobel Prize.  There is a phrase new to me that I love "undergraduate speech" to describe the steps one takes to stay in the line around authority and not overstep.  There's a new word to me, pros·o·pag·no·sia- which is the fascinating failure to recognize faces.

And then there is humor.  I don't know if many people find humor in her writing but I think anything well told has humor in it.  It makes me say "No!" as if I'm watching something actually happening, not sitting in Chipotle reading in the corner.  The only outright joke I caught was the mention that the amnesiac has memorized all the dialogue to a silent film- but of course it does have dialogue, it's just not spoken.  

I noticed references to a dragonfly, MLK being a Republican, and dream imagery being inaccurate but indisputable in dream logic.  (You know, when it's your friend and you know it but upon awakening you realize that person in the dream looks nothing like your friend.)  

Here's a great quote:

p. 41

It isn't enough to be brilliant, if you're a woman.  You must be demonstrably more brilliant than your male rivals- your "brilliance" is your masculine attribute.  And so, to balance this, you must be suitably feminine- which isn't to say emotionally unstable, volatile, "soft" in any way, only just quiet, watchful, quick to absorb information, nonoppositional, self-effacing.


Elihu sounded familiar and I see from a quick search that Prince Elihu is one of the characters in my favorite JCO novel, My Heart Laid Bare.

Trying to live in the present, I was confronted with a character that does that.  There are distinct limitations.  Yet, he isn't the unhappiest of the people in the book.  It's not a book about happiness, I don't think.  But it certainly brings up issues of balance and authority and self-determination.  I know how Elihu feels, not knowing when he's hungry and when he's not.  We're all products of suggestion.  If we think we haven't eaten enough, of course we'll want more.  But what is 'enough'?  Does it have quotes or italics and isn't it a judgement call?

Hosea 4

So I will punish them for their ways And repay them for their deeds. 10They will eat, but not have enough; They will play the harlot, but not increase, Because they have stopped giving heed to the LORD. 11Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding.…

 Still contemplating Arnold Ehret's Mucusless Diet I think we're all stuffing in whatever we can and wondering why we're still hungry.  "Hungry" is a judgement call.  Let's make that judgement.  We do have enough.  We do eat enough.  We  are enough.


The book was great.  I thank the best living author in the world for her contribution to my reading schedule and I look forward to what she has to offer in the future.  Would it seem obscene for me to mention that underneath her bed or stuffed behind a loose brick in her office one might find 420 additional manuscripts?  The output is amazing, but don't be misled.  The content is what is amazing.

I actually saw in print where JCO denied not going through her work and editing it, like most writers do.  She told the haters that of course she does that.  She doesn't just write first drafts.  I don't care.  It's good.  Whoever writes like this, and how they get there, and who they are and what they look like isn't nearly as important as the prose: It stands on its own.