The Wheel of Love and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates was a finalist for the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was called "Quite simply, one of the finest collections of short stories ever written by an American” – you find a few thousand reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other lists, plus other thousands of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Wheel of Love and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates was a finalist for the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was called "Quite simply, one of the finest collections of short stories ever written by an American” – you find a few thousand reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other lists, plus other thousands of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

 

8 out of 10

 

Black Water https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/black-water-by-carol-oates-this-book.html by Joyce Carol Oates is one of the best books I have read, in fact, I should amend that just to admit that this is just an opinion, like everything else on these pages, when I am not quoting, it is what I feel about something

 

If we look at The Greatest Books of All Time site, then Black Water is ‘near the bottom’, anyway at ten thousand or there abouts, which must say a lot about how that compilation and my own preferences match, we have Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates at 721 – places change in time – and I wanted to read that, still do

 

-          Expect it is more than one thousand pages long

 

You have here another look at the first stories in The Wheel of Love collection https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-wheel-of-love-and-other-stories-by.html quite a few of the tales have conflicts within families, between parents and children, mostly, at least this is my feeling about it

In one of the last stories I remember, the daughter has a clash with her mother, the latter was not doing anything when at home – to help – but once she is committed, she wants to support the others, something her offspring is not happy about, furthermore, the parent accuses the child of attempted violence

 

It is a case of mental disease, and I am afraid that I see the world as mad and therefore I must refer to If by Rudyard Kipling https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/if-by-rudyard-kipling-one-of-most.html and the comedian who has a different take on the famous poem, the opposite of what the author had in mind, presumably

‘If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you’ then you should have your head examined, this is what the comedian says more or less, however, I see derangement in the acts of the leader of the (once) free world, and some of it around me, those who support Orange Julius…

 

On a more personal level – spoiler alert: it looks as if all I wanted to say about the ‘topic’ is above, so no need for you to continue, that is if anybody is still busy around here, most of the reviews are one line long, and even so, why bother with what amateurs have to say, instead of reading the great work itself – I have issues here

The man in the White House, well, what is left of it, for he has been busy demolishing there, not just figuratively, is mad, and it is not just my unprofessional, biased view: an expert was talking about those cognitive tests the fool keeps upboosting that he ‘has aced’, the fact that they are repeated has a reason…

 

Indeed, I would say that his acts, words proof beyond reasonable doubt that there is something seriously wrong there, catastrophically wrong actually, seeing that this is the fellow with nuclear button access, and what he has been doing is terrifying, what the other side says is that he has been elected, except this does not make the problem smaller, it is a giant time bomb

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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