It begins to look as though Joyce Carol Oates's own life may be lived on the edge of impossibility. And thereby, furthermore, may hang a tale. Considered by itself, apart from her other writing, this book is both attractive and annoying. If communal belief in God has diminished so that, as writers, we can no longer presume upon it, then a redefinition of God in terms of the furthest reaches of man's hallucinations can provide us with a new basis for tragedy. She does not want to argue with or to overturn anyone else's idea of tragedy, only to redraw some of the lines of magnetic force.
Men hallucinate, and when they do the abyss can open.
What is attractive, then, about this book is that it is a book, it has an idea. It does this by riding its idea like a triumphal car through the works and authors it discusses, by saving the idea even at the possible expense of its subjects. But in her discussion of individual works she moves about arbitrarily, never letting the work's form dictate her own. The great comic moments in Antony's dying scene are precisely what Oates should be pointing to because they are superb examples of her point, but they seem wonderful as they emerge from the scenes preceding. So when Oates goes to the scene via another route, she misses the point, a fine opportunity, and abuses the scene in the bargain.