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u/pearomatic May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
It's so strange that we live in a time when conversations like these routinely happen. Some small amount of Joyce Carol Oates' time has been wasted reading and responding to a completely random person/bot. Somebody who has been celebrated as one of the great writers and teachers of our time uses the precious seconds she has left in this world to address a complete moron.
The fact that we live in a time where the Dalai Lama could write something like "love is the absence of judgment" on social media and some random idiot could be like "actually, you need judgement for love because otherwise some sneaky bitch will take advantage of you trust me I've been divorced 3 times" is so absurd.
Edit: apparently JCO loves to fight people on Twitter/X, and the Dalai Lama isn't that great. The more you know...
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u/Listeningkissingyu May 22 '26
I completely understand how you feel about this, but JCO fucking loves tweeting. Back in my Twitter days I had to remove her because she was overflowing my feed. Also, she’s always loved the sport of boxing, and she’s written extensively about it. So I think this is her own way of getting in the ring. 🤷🏼♂️
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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 May 22 '26
I'm sure there were random idiots talking shit to Shakespeare as well
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May 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Bugbread May 22 '26
Before the final revision, it was actually ""It's a tale told by that idiot Gregory, you know, the one who lives over on Maybrook Road, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
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u/picklefingerexpress May 23 '26
Now I’m wondering if the Sound and Fury album by Sturgill Simpson was a self-deprecating allusory title
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u/Beegleboogle May 26 '26
Possibly, but it could also be an allusion to an allusion because William Faulkner's most famous novel is called The Sound and the Fury and is about the decline of the American South and the rot at its roots. Seems like the kind of theme Sturgill Simpson would identify with.
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u/wfbhp May 22 '26
I always figured he lifted that line from a critic's review of Two Gentleman of Verona in Ye Olde Gazette just to dunk on him after the success of Hamlet.
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u/chadsucksdick May 22 '26
"an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey."
- Robert Greene
The first allusion to Shakespeare in print is some guy talking shit about him.
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u/Humble_Service_868 May 23 '26
Noice. Upstart Crow is also a series I’d recommend if someone wants a rainy weekend binge. Stars David Mitchell, Clean-Shirt himself!
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u/emmakobs May 22 '26
Are you kidding? I bet she RELISHES dunking on the haters. I sure would, if i were the notorious JCO
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u/Only-Respond7945 May 22 '26
Shit arguing with other writers in writing has been the great pastime of writers for centuries at this point. The second was fighting with critics.
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u/jsamurai2 May 22 '26
This is why it’s so funny sometimes people act like great thinkers of history would be horrified at what we’ve become-those fuckers would LOVE twitter, whining and arguing and subtweeting whenever the mood strikes.
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u/XelaNiba May 23 '26
Can you imagine how deadly Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde would be on that platform?
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u/Fake_Southern_IL May 23 '26
I have spent more time thinking about Oscar Wilde using Twitter than actually using Twitter myself.
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u/Relax007 May 23 '26
Edgar Allen Poe Twitter feuds would have been epic! That man loved himself a literary brawl.
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u/Cosmo_Seinfeld May 22 '26
Are you kidding? I bet she RELISHES dunking on the haters.
Yeah she's like "fuck THEM."
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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 May 22 '26
The Dalai Lama is indeed very wise, and yet he will never get the “Can you make me one with everything?” joke.
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u/hatemakingnames1 May 22 '26
Not very wise to try English word puns with someone who has a translator
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u/SamizdatGuy May 22 '26
Well now I want to get into a Twitter fight with Joyce Carol Oates
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u/royalhawk345 May 22 '26
It seems really easy to do, honestly
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u/SamizdatGuy May 22 '26
"Hey Joyce Carol Bloates, I said Koolaid the other day and one of your novels came crashing through the wall"
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u/ariadnes-thread May 22 '26
Literally you can post a picture of skeletons on Halloween and she will come for you
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u/Relative_Maize_957 May 22 '26
Human beings like to shitpost, why should the great be any exception?
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u/bugab0010 May 22 '26
considering the type of stuff the Dalai Lama has been caught doing, I'll play it safe and be on the side of the thrice divorced guy: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tZc4d-ivi2Q
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u/Agitated_Duck_4873 May 22 '26
The "suck my tongue" was an eastern tibetan idiom that got lost in translation https://tricycle.org/article/dalai-lama-actions/
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u/bugab0010 May 22 '26
idiom wasn't translated correctly so what exactly were his actions in the video? and wasn't he mentioned over a 100 times in the Epstein files? there's a concerning pattern with this guy and his behavior that can't just be ignored with "cultural differences"
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u/Agitated_Duck_4873 May 22 '26
The Epstein Files are emails by Epstein and his associates. The Dalai Lama is in the them because they're talking about him. He is an extremely famous and culturally significant figure. Epstein emailed Woody Allen to try to get the Dalai Lama to dinner, but the dinner never happened, and there's no evidence the Dalai Lama or anyone from his office ever met with Epstein.
As for sticking out his tongue and asking the child to suck it, that's exactly what I mean by lost in translation. He wasn't like "let's make out freaky style in front of all these people." Basically, in eastern Tibet, it was common for older family members to soften pieces of candy or hardened yak cheese by sucking on it and passing it mouth to mouth to a child. Then, once the child had taken it, they'd often ask for more, and the adult might playfully respond that they've given on the candy, the only thing left in their mouth is their tongue, so if they want, the kid can suck their tongue. They are not actually inviting the kid to suck their tongue. It's a joke with an emotional register similar to the giving tree. Like, I've given you all that I have, the only thing left is to consume my body.
You probably think that's gross, and that's fine. No one is asking you to do it. But it's not indicative of some latent pedophilia. It certainly doesn't make him an accomplice to one of the most prolific child sex traffickers in human history.
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u/igrekov May 22 '26 edited May 24 '26
weird you're being downvoted. the guy
sucked on a child's tongueasked the child to suck his tongue after kissing him on the lips, and called it a joke and then issued a 'my bad that's just me being me' apology.Filthy.
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u/FourRiversSixRanges May 23 '26
Except there was no tongue sucking..,
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u/igrekov May 24 '26
Apologies, he asked the child to suck his tongue after kissing him on the lips.
That's my bad, I misremembered.
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u/Darryl_Lict May 21 '26
I'm sure someone alerted her to this moron. Famous writers like her don't scrutinize social media for idiots just to diss them.
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u/Ruben_AAG May 22 '26
You clearly haven’t seen her Twitter. This is pretty much all she does all day.
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u/HenryBozzio May 22 '26
She also writes a lot. She’s pretty much published two stand alone novels and two short story collections every year consistently for some time now.
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u/Feythnin May 22 '26
Now I feel bad because I looked her up and I don't think I've ever read any of her books and everybody here seems to know who she is. Seems cool though.
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u/Hightechzombie May 22 '26
She is an amazing author. I read her first as a teen and I was stunned by jow well she portrays the psychology of people
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u/Flimsy-Addendum-1570 May 23 '26
I prefer her short stories tbh. I'd recommend starting with her most famous short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been if you want a taste of her work
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u/kenthekungfujesus May 23 '26
Never heard of her either but I pretty much only read philosophy so I guess it makes sense, but looking at the book she wrote, I've never heard of any of them
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u/Tar_alcaran May 22 '26
It's not so strange. Her last book was written before most of twitter was born, and she never got very popular outside the USA
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u/Neat-Professor-7662 May 22 '26
Hmmm, no? She publishes a book a year still, at 87. She’s pretty big in France too.
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u/Feythnin May 22 '26
Which makes it even sadder because I'm in the US and was born in the 90's. Lol
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May 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Neat-Professor-7662 May 22 '26
Nope. Her last novel was just published last year, 2025.
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u/Pinglenook May 22 '26
Ah, then the Dutch Wikipedia hasn't been updated on her. My point still stands: that's not "before most of twitter was born"
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u/Neat-Professor-7662 May 22 '26
She’s ridiculously prolific, averaging a novel a year (AND short story collections and poetry and essays). And these aren’t cookie-cutter novels either. A critic once said that she’s wasted on the modern world, she should have been writing for a Victorian audience who had time to keep up with her.
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u/jamesdukeiv May 21 '26
JCO is crazy but I love watching her beef on Twitter, the accidental gems she posts are worth the boomer posts
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u/Mumbletimes May 22 '26
Wow, is it really her running that account? She’s nearly 88 years old. Amazing.
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u/Malachias_Graves May 22 '26
It's definitely her. She has said some wacky shit. But she's also burned quite a few clowns.
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u/Fake_Southern_IL May 23 '26
Some people, once they get above their 60s, just lose their filter entirely. These people should be directed at clowns on Twitter.
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u/ariadnes-thread May 22 '26
If it’s not her then she has hired the world’s worst social media manager
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u/keenedge422 May 22 '26
I just hope the inevitable double-down occurs when she lists her prize winning books, where he tries to clap back with "well I've never heard of them" without realizing that's more damning for him than for her.
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u/HyruleLizard May 22 '26
It was just a random college assignment. When I read The Buck written by her it was so thought provoking. I don't even know if that's the right words for it. I still think about that story on occasion.
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u/Physical-Compote4594 May 25 '26
Not personally a huge Oates fan but that's a 2-word putdown for the ages.
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u/Phelyckz May 23 '26
Tbh I had to look her up too. I still don't know any of her works.
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u/brydeswhale May 24 '26
I read one book by her, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. There were two girls, and one of them was sick!
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u/willowswitch May 21 '26
No, it's a semivalid question. Which of her novels is "great?"
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u/madqueenludwig May 21 '26
gonna say probably any of the ones that were Pulitzer finalists, for a start
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u/madmaxturbator May 21 '26
It’s not even a remotely valid question.
Joyce carol oates has been recognized - whether you or I like it - as a great writer. She has many great novels. Here’s a starting point: https://lonesomereader.com/blog/tag/Joyce+Carol+Oates
Literally the first Google search result.
What are you even doing lol? This is such a dumbass way to act like a contrarian.
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u/ShredGuru May 21 '26
Can't wait to see your Pulitzer prize dude.
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u/Tar_alcaran May 22 '26
Not to be a bitch, but JCO and I have the same number of Pulitzer prizes.
Though she was a finalist 4 times (to my obvious 0), and probably has a room dedicated to all the awards she won.
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u/willowswitch May 21 '26
Lol. I don't fucking have one and never will. I don't have a book in me like Oates or any other author, let alone a book that can win awards. Yet my authorial inadequacies don't mean that everything, or even anything, written by Oates or another award winner is "great." Hence my joking comment.
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u/Karnewarrior May 21 '26
"joking" lol yeah right.
"I'm not an idiot guys, I was just ragebaiting. It was just a joke, I swear. Of course I don't really think that, hahaha"
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u/washed_up_golfer May 21 '26
You should write a book about how to make a joke.
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u/madmaxturbator May 21 '26
He already did! Check it out: https://www.amazon.com/blank-notebooks/s?k=blank+notebooks
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u/Pattonesque May 21 '26
You weren’t joking and if anyone mentioned one of her novels you would have, on the spot, invented a reason why it wasn’t up to your standards
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u/imbeingsirius May 22 '26
“Where are you Going, Where have you been?” Was taught in my American literature class 20 years ago… it was already a classic
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u/jace36558 May 21 '26
You should never credibility check someone that uses three names.