Alex

In spite of what others told me of their own reactions after reading The bell jar, I didn't find this book depressing. It didn't get to me in that way. A bit sad, perhaps, but also very hopefull. This girl slowly slides away from life, and then slowly slides back again. I can't be depressed by that.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates' Rape: A love story though, it made me cry. In public. On the commuter train. Twice. A thirtyfive-year old woman gets gang-raped in a boat house while her twelve-year old daughter is hiding under a canoe. And then: a whole town that points at her, calling her a hooker, a cunt, saying she had it coming, blaming her for that five young men have to stand on trial. 

A thin novel, just 154 pages, but every line was like a shot in the head, a bullet that ricocheted in my brain. I was sickened, sad and sorry. Sickened with the world that is not unfamiliar with this uncomprehensible cruelty, sickened with everyone who has ever turned their faces away when they saw something they did not want to know about, sickened with myself who lives my pretty, protected life each day as if the pain of assault victims is something that only exsist in novels. 

It's such a great novel, about the ugliness of mankind, and about the love and tenderness of mankind, about decline and about recovery.  A love story, in a way. A great love story.

I read it through in a day, and now: going back to comics for a few days, to rest my battered brain. This sickens me too, all I have to do is read a comic to make the bad things go away.



/Alex



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