Joyce Carol Oates, Artist in Residence

An English professor at Indiana University, Bender strives to paint a holistic portrait of Oates as artist, scholar, teacher and critic. Her extensive discussion of Oates's novels (presented in chronological order) traces the development of themes and motifs, explores Oates's penchant for parody, genre and ""revisionism'' and identifies philosophical, psychological and literary influences, among them, Nietzsche, Jung, Dostoevski, Laing, Lewis Carroll and Nabakov. There is a minimal amount of annoying academic jargon (``metafictionist,'' ``intertextual''), but one particularly obnoxious section of the book is cluttered with run-on puns like ``Dostoevski himself may well have influenced this vision of crime and punishment, these notes from the underground.'' Yet Bender brings great enthusiasm to her subject and provides a rewarding look at a great modern writer. (April)