In Wild Nights! Joyce Carol Oates riffs on the deaths of Hemingway, Emily Dickinson and others. Her take on the Great Dead Authors speaks powerfully to current debates about the use of real people in fiction.
1. I own you, Emily Dickinson
My favourite character is EDickinsonRepliLuxe, a robotic mannequin ‘animated’ with the soul of the American poet. Oates’ brilliant device for focalising the destructive energies of the fame industry, this mannequin is bought by a couple who hope that Emily Dickinson’s presence will banish the ‘torpor’ of their suburban home. But she and her genius are elusive, and in their rage to own and know her completely—in all senses of that word—the couple freak the poet right out. The wife is over-friendly and the husband so excited by the power of possession that he attempts mannequin-rape:
‘In a rage the husband tore at these [undergarments], he was owed this, he had a right to this, he’d paid for this, under U.S. law this model of EDickinsonRepliLuxe was his possession and he was legally blameless in anything he might do with her […] she was his to dispose of as he wished.’
Other RepliLuxe models for purchase include Freud, van Gogh, and Babe Ruth. Unsurprisingly, most are wrecked by their owners, one way or another, within their first year of purchase ... MORE at Victoria University Press
1. I own you, Emily Dickinson
My favourite character is EDickinsonRepliLuxe, a robotic mannequin ‘animated’ with the soul of the American poet. Oates’ brilliant device for focalising the destructive energies of the fame industry, this mannequin is bought by a couple who hope that Emily Dickinson’s presence will banish the ‘torpor’ of their suburban home. But she and her genius are elusive, and in their rage to own and know her completely—in all senses of that word—the couple freak the poet right out. The wife is over-friendly and the husband so excited by the power of possession that he attempts mannequin-rape:
‘In a rage the husband tore at these [undergarments], he was owed this, he had a right to this, he’d paid for this, under U.S. law this model of EDickinsonRepliLuxe was his possession and he was legally blameless in anything he might do with her […] she was his to dispose of as he wished.’
Other RepliLuxe models for purchase include Freud, van Gogh, and Babe Ruth. Unsurprisingly, most are wrecked by their owners, one way or another, within their first year of purchase ... MORE at Victoria University Press
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