William frederick kohler, the protagonist of william gass the tunnel, is a loathsome, despicable, misanthropic college professor ranting at his wife, his colleagues, his children and his mistresses. Tunelling with gass was depressing work, but work that rang true at many levels. Professor kohler is the narrator and main character of the tunnel by william h. I think in one sense, the fictions what matters most to me. The trauma of the fallout shelter frenzy as expressed in the tunnel william h. How many times was this draft edited to create in essence a final draft written at the plodding, prodding pace of 22 pages per annum. Gass the tunnel with extended analysis, commentary, and discussion.
One has to respect such care in crafting the tunnel. Gass called his fiction works experimental constructions, and each of his books contains stylistic innovations. William gass magnum opus, thirty years in the making, is an unusual summingup. Gass what follows is an interview that took place at william h. William gass, who died this week, argued that the charge of a writer was not to relate a world but to create onea world of sound, of the melody made when syllables collide. The radical criticism of william gass the new yorker. Sonorous, strange, ugly, beautiful, poetic, abyssal, phallic, anal, fragmented, rich. Like most of gass s essays, it wanders through a jungle of ideas and images, and then suddenly beats a series of clearly marked, though often forking, paths toward a clearing. In the first part of the program, gass read from what he calls the invocation to the muse section of the tunnel, as well as a portion of his. In interviews he sometimes compared metaphor to junk food, which is of course dangerous, but also hard to define. Dec 07, 2017 william gass was at the fore of the postmodern literary movement in the 1960s and 70s. The tunnel is the fourth volume of dorothy richardsons pilgrimage series, which follows the fascinating protagonist miriam henderson. The central figure and nonstop voice of the tunnel is william frederick kohler, a history professor at a major midwestern university.
And its going to be snowing or its going to be raining and who will be waiting by the vacant lot at the corner in the cold wet wind, waiting for the damn dog. Professor kohler is the narrator and main character of the. So this weekend i started auditing william gasss novel the tunnel on mp3, read by the author. William gass can give us a raymond carver character as analyzed by.
The sheer genius of gass book is not merely that he breathes life into such a character, but that he makes him so pruriently fascinating. The tunneldigging william kohler is a university professor, as was gass, with a history and a list of interests quite similar to gasss. Created and curated by stephen schenkenberg, editor and publisher of the ears mouth must move. After 30 years of labor, gass habitations of the word, 1984, etc.
Analysis and discussion of characters in william h. Gasss novel the tunnel, his workinprogress for close to three decades. His critical writings habitations of the word 1985, finding a form 1996, and tests of time 2002 each won the national book critics circle award for criticism. William gass, the tunnel 1995 rambru doc her have iihes sherbet. The metaphorical tunnel doesnt represent an escape route out of anywhere, nor does it represent a method. William gass was at the fore of the postmodern literary movement in the 1960s and 70s. Gass was a professor of philosophy at washington university from 19662000, and director of the international writers center from 1990 until 2000. Gass fiction has been a secret handshake among brainy readers for years. Feb 21, 1995 the tunnel is an authorial conceit on the part of william h gass as well as his protagonist, william f. And sometimes the boundaries are better kept than others. Dec 07, 2017 william gass, a leading experimental writer of the 1960s and 70s who went on to become an awardwinning essayist and translator and an influence on many younger writers, has died at his home in st. I really should write more about this in the near future. The author of a previous novel, a dozen or so stories, and several collections of essays, gass began writing this book in 1966 1966the year the beatles recorded revolver, michelangelo antonioni released blowup, and twiggy was fashions favorite qtip. Mar 22, 20 the tunnel meditates on history, hatred, unhappiness, and, above all, language.
Even a reader willing to endure its length and its narrators unrelenting bitterness must overcome its subordination of plot to other concerns. Gass s 1995 novel that took 26 years to write and earned him the american book award of 1996. Jan 29, 2020 so this weekend i started auditing william gasss novel the tunnel on mp3, read by the author. Dec 06, 2017 gass worked for 30 years to complete his second novel, the tunnel 1995, a nearly plotfree exploration of the meanings of history, evil, and narrative. A classic david foster wallace double bind if you will. Rilkes dense and intricate verbal texture has made translation all the more irresistible over the years, and gass, an intellectual eminence cartesian sonata. Its probably best to abandon any preconceptions of what it might mean when you enter either tunnel as a reader. I even gave the book a shot and had to put it down because a month. At this point, gass leaves the room and brings back a work of art, a framed image of the emblem of the party of the disappointed people, from the tunnel, which had some text from middle c layered. William gasss the tunnel is really too big to write about coherently in small chunks. Here he is in 2007 reading from the beast of a book at the village voice bookshop in paris rip. Even a reader willing to endure its length and its narrators unrelenting bitterness must. Omensetters luck, willie masters lonesome wife, the tunnel, and middle c.
Gass and i met at the society for the study of narrative literatures annual conference, in east lansing, on the campus of michigan state university, in april 2002. Here, in chronological order of their deaths, is a selective compendium of literary obituaries from 2017. Dec 10, 2017 new york william gass, a leading experimental writer of the 1960s and 70s who became an awardwinning essayist and translator and an influence on many younger writers, died wednesday at age 93. I write because i hate it is not hard to imagine young gass chafing at the bit that midcentury analytic philosophy had sought to place in his mouth. A genrefree book that is a joy to read, reflecting gass s own joy in reading rilke. Poets, editors, songwriters, teachers, journalists, novelistssome great writers and some undersung ones left us this year. The tunnel excerpt a poetic support of the downtrodden, and a fathers refusal to buy a family dog.
If you desire to hilarious books, lots of novels, tale, jokes, page 121. In the tunnel by william gass, the narrator quotes several limericks page 10, 15, 16, 18. I first discovered the tunnel sitting at my school library during my sophomore year of college and wasnt sure if i was ready to read it because of the novels many complexities, especially when considering the style in which it was written. That mans name was william gass, and i made his textual acquaintance in college, when i studied with that other william g alas the latein name to gass a fraternal twin of sorts trading double s for double da writer with whom he is often conflated, and about whom gass eloquently spoke at the memorial service only a few years ago.
The author of novels such as omensetters luck and the tunnel, he was praised for his ornate. The tunnel is a dark, big book, without the passion of the european pessimists gass is no strindberg, nor, for all the pseudosympathy for or understanding of the nazis, is he a celine. Already in the collections title, we see a hint of gasss greatest philosophical move, and the same one that is there in the tunnels concretization, or perhaps better its soiling, of metaphor. Gass, american writer noted for his experimentation with stylistic devices. Beginning to dig into gasss the tunnel 1 of 2 big other. Cartesian, in loose parlance, generally designates a high level of abstraction, a gutting out of the richness of corporeal reality, as when. It crosses genres including drawing, history, memoir, diary, quotation, encomium, rant, fiction, doggerel, epic invocation, and others and is, by design, a confusion of ideas and modes of thought and means of expression. Gass s the tunnel and wanted to share this analysis of it.
Even a reader willing to endure its length and its narrators unrelenting bitterness must overcome. At a metalevel i found gasss text, and his authorial presence behind his protagonist, useful in the development of empathy and selfanalysis gass excavates that william kohler may tunnel, and it his excavation that redeems, however blackly, kohlers tunnelling. The moral questions posed loom large and gass presents them well but not everyone will want to hear them. Intermediality in world literature, asuncion lopez varela ed. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven volumes of essays, three of which have won national book critics circle award prizes and one of which, a temple of texts 2006, won the truman capote. We and our partners use your information collected through cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience on our site, analyse. Thirty years in the making, william gasss second novel first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, at which time it was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. My mom made the neighbors spitz her pal by poisoning it with the gin she sprinkled on the table scraps. Louis on may 12, 2005, between gass and crystal alberts, at the time a graduate student at washington university in st. According to the books jacket, the tunnel came out in 1995 and was hailed as an indisputable masterpiece that centers around an overweight professor that becomes obsessed with attempting to write an introduction to guilt and. Louis washu, who was working on her dissertation that included an analysis of william gaddis 1922 1998. It crosses genres including drawing, history, memoir, diary, quotation, encomium, rant, fiction, doggerel, epic invocation, and others and is, by design, a confusion of. Gass was born in fargo, north dakota in 1924, and met wittgenstein and nabokov during graduate studies at cornell university where his dissertation, a philosophical investigation of metaphor, was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with language.
By being fleeter and more seductively plotted than the tunnel, his 20 novel middle c managed to top it as a savage exploration of moral failure. This particular novel finds miriam firmly ensconced within london, where she works as an assistant to a dentist. Prizewinning authorcritic william gass, 93, experimental. It was also a finalist for the penfaulkner award the tunnel is the work of william frederick kohler, a professor of history at an unnamed university in the american midwest. Critics universally adored the tunnel, his 1995 opus, even though it was nearly impossible to read. Jul 23, 2019 the tunneldigging william kohler is a university professor, as was gass, with a history and a list of interests quite similar to gasss. Gass s the tunnel, whatever its virtues, is not an inviting book. Gass is not quite as well known as many of his literary contemporaries, but he shouldnt be ignored. Thirty years in the making, william gasss second novel first appeared. The tunnel is the most beautiful, most complex, most disturbing. While writing the introduction to his magnum opus, a moral history of hitlers germany, a middleaged historian finds himself writing instead a history of the historian himself and secretly digging a tunnel out of his own basement. In the tunnel by william gass, professor kohler is trying to. Published books middle c in progress cartesian sonata and other novellas 1998. Consider that william gass created this masterpiece over roughly the same time frame it takes to pay off the average mortgage 652 pages in 30 years.
Powered by create your own unique website with customizable templates. To go to an american or english bookstore and leaf through any of the many different translations of rainer maria rilkes duino elegies that are available is among the most depressing experiences one can have. At a metalevel i found gasss text, and his authorial presence behind his protagonist, useful in the development of empathy and selfanalysis gass excavates that william kohler may tunnel, and it his excavation that redeems, however blackly, kohlers. William howard gass july 30, 1924 december 6, 2017 was an american novelist, shortstory writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. A website exploring this esteemed american writers work and his readers reactions. New york william gass, a leading experimental writer of the 1960s and 70s who went on to become an awardwinning essayist and translator and an. Please send any questions, comments, or content this way. The tunnel conceitthe tunnel is an authorial conceit on the part of william h gass as well as his protagonist, william f. Gass, himself, reads his universally acclaimed novel in its entirety.
As with some earlier interviews i have posted here, this comes from a box of tapes in my basement, dating from a time when i did a weekly radio interview show. Gasss the tunnel and wanted to share this analysis of it. My analysis william gass s the tunnel, now a work in progress for more than twenty years, provides an interesting and exemplary case of postmodernity in literature, and of the features of postmodern fiction in particular. In the bookbound alcove off the bare room where he writes when at home, william gass gave this interview in july of 1976. Formatted as an mp3, the reading fits on three cds. Tunnel william h gass the tunnel william h gass if you ally craving such a referred the tunnel william h gass ebook that will allow you worth, acquire the categorically best seller from us currently from several preferred authors. He has received 37 awards, served on 22 committees, juried the national book awards three times, and been elected to the. Semiautobiographical, with an ornate use of language, penis obsessed, full of stupid limericks about horny nuns. From a simple narrative idea gass creates a complicated internal odyssey. Joseph skizzen of the novel middle c is an isolated music professor who specializes in arnold schoenberg, the composer whose twelvetone system gass. Gasss the tunnel, whatever its virtues, is not an inviting book. Kohlers introduction to his major work on world war ii, guilt and innocence in hitlers germany, the. New york william gass, a leading experimental writer of the 1960s and 70s who went on to become an awardwinning essayist and translator and an influence on many younger writers, died. The story of a middle aged professor who, upon completion of his massive historical study, guilt and innocence in hitlers.
William gass teaching at washington university, 1974. Gasss 1995 novel that took 26 years to write and earned him the american book award of 1996. Sitting in cutoffs and tshirt, sipping on a bottle of ballantine ale, gass, at age fiftythre. Gass has been sitting on the tunnel for quite a while, and i do mean sitting.