New Podcast Release: Joyce Carol Oates

The latest episode of "Lives Well Lived," the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, is now available.

It features Joyce Carol Oates, the acclaimed American writer known for her prolific body of work, including novels, short stories, essays, and non-fiction. Her writing deals with themes of identity, celebrity, personal struggle, and sometimes, violence.

Despite Joyce’s success, including numerous awards and critical acclaim, she frequently downplays her achievements and in this interview, questions the importance of living a "well-lived life." She is deeply focused on her work, rather than her personality or her emotions, preferring to explore the external world through her writing rather than dwell on herself.

On Living a Simple Life:

Peter Singer: “How do you pack so much into your life?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “I don't think I work any harder than anyone else. I may have a simpler life. I don't have children, and I'm living alone now... I don't have as many distractions. I live a much simpler life than most people. I think emotionally, I don't have as many distractions.”

On Genius:

Joyce Carol Oats: "A word like “genius” is very intimidating. I wouldn't use that word... I'm really not very interested in myself. I'm interested more in ideas. And when I work on a subject, I'm focused on the subject. I'm not really thinking much about myself. I think my personality is overestimated. We live in a kind of sick celebrity culture. It really should be what people do or what they believe in rather than who they are.”

On the Nature of Self:

Joyce Carol Oats: "I don't think I believe in the personality, the essence of a person, in ways that other people do. We fulfill ourselves in actions and activity and language, but I'm not sure that there was much of an “I” behind it all.”

On Judging Lives:

Kasia de Lazari Radek: “What is important?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “Well, the work is important. If you look at Shakespeare, you can see Shakespeare really loved creating dramatic scenes. He had a great genius. It was very thrilling to enter into a Shakespearean scene. I think he was dramatizing the complexities and ironies and tragedies of life. I'm not sure that he had an overall theme or that he would have wanted to have a judgment on life.”

On Success and Creativity:

Joyce Carol Oats: "The word success, I always think of with quotation marks around it because it can be very confining and suffocating… I don't really know what a life well lived would be. I guess that's the idea of this series. I don't know I lived my life well. I'm not an exemplary person.”

Kasia de Lazari Radek: “But is it because you are not interested in the problem as philosophers always are? Or are you harsh on yourself?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “Well, let's look at Nietzsche. I think Nietzsche is a great philosopher and psychologist and writer, but one would probably not say his life was well lived. I would say that's irrelevant. Was Spinoza's life well lived? He didn't have children. He didn't even have really, a family. He was excommunicated from his family and his community. Is that a life well lived or is that question irrelevant?”

Kasia de Lazari Radek: “So, who is here to judge? Should he or you or I or Peter or Rachel judge our own lives? Or is it something about the outside world and how we are viewed? What we leave after our life is completed?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “Well, I don't know why we have to judge one another. I look at the products of creativity. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe. One of our great American 19th century writers did not by any means live a life well. He had a wretched life and he died quite young. Melville, one of our very greatest writers, leaves behind great work, but he didn't lead his life well.

If you found somebody who led a life really well, that person may not have written anything at all. Or doesn't have a PhD. I mean there are so many different ways of judging. I think the questions are relevant but it would be interesting to discuss the idea behind it.”

On Teaching vs. Writing:

Joyce Carol Oats: "I identify with the students individually and I take their point of view and I look at their work almost as if it's my own. So it's nothing to do with me at all. I'm focusing on the student's work completely. That's why I like to teach. It is very exhilarating and I feel that I'm connecting with people and it's 100% positive, but writing is not like that. Writing is very difficult, so that's a different activity altogether.”

On Her Life as a Failure:

Peter Singer: “So that's one of the issues that's up for debate. Do you actually have to have a happy life to have lived well, or would it be enough to have created work of some kind that, perhaps, lasts or contributes to others?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “No, I'm embarrassed to be on a program like this because I think that much of my life has been a failure. And it's sort of like I’m an imposter.”

Kasia de Lazari Radek: “Have you ever thought, why do you think it is a failure? what would it have to be, for you to judge it as not a failure?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “Well, I don't think about it that much. It's sort of like one day at a time. I have a good deal of frustration with what I'm working on. I keep doing it over and over and over, trying to find the ideal expression. So I'm mostly living in that morass of trying and effort. I'm like a swimmer trying to cross a river in turbulent waters.  If somebody says, Oh, you're living a, your life is well lived. It's almost like a joke. I mean, it's such an effort.”

Kasia de Lazari Radek: “Is it an emotional effort? Is it about emotions? Is it about emotions that you have every day that, that you think it's hard?”

Joyce Carol Oats: “No, it's not emotional. It's trying to do the work. It's trying to do the work.”

On Living in the Present:

Peter Singer: “You must know that you've done so much and so well, yes? I mean, I'm sorry, but it would be a complete misjudgement if you didn't.”

Joyce Carol Oats: “It's really not relevant what past successes the person has had. We live in the present tense. We're living right now. The past is gone. So it seems irrelevant whether our lives have been well lived if we're floundering and drowning right now.”