“Fox”, by Joyce Carol Oates, translated from English (United States) by Claude Seban and Christine Auché, ed. Philippe Rey, 848 pp., €25, digital €17.
This is the advantage of the writing profession: you can practice it almost without age restrictions, with, when you are in good shape, the freedom that no longer prohibits any subject. Look at the ever-cheerful Joyce Carol Oates. At 87 years old, the great American writer has never been more artistically daring. After six decades of dizzying literary production, today he turns 65e novel. Change is a wonderful book in both senses of the word. A work of rare mastery and timeliness. But also – in the etymological sense of the term: formidoit is “fear” in Latin – a story that conjures dizzying feelings of hardship and worry. Anxiety is rampant, and Oates is enjoying it more than ever.
It is therefore necessary to warn readers, Change not for everyone. We remember Oates’ previous story, it was extraordinary Butcher (ed. Philippe Rey, 2024), in which the author paints an extremely harsh portrait of a deranged gynecologist, a pervert obsessed with the need to destroy the sexual organs of the women he claims to treat. In the Changehe went further in his exploration of crime and chose to explicitly address the themes of child crime and sexual abuse of minors. For some, it is his cold, precise analysis that makes his work seem interesting – and socially useful. For others, they will leave a trying impression, a mixture of disgust and revulsion facing certain scenes that is difficult to bear.
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