I just ordered this, and all I’ve heard is that he’s heavily influenced by Joyce. What kind of journey am I in for?

>>24518476 (OP)
I also got this but am Reading Omensetter's luck first for a more approachable way to start with Gass. It's entrancing and very enjoyable, but I am beginning to wonder if it should be read allegorically? I get that sensation from it but have no idea what such a reading would be

>>24518476 (OP)
Fat man struggles to wipe his ass.

>>24518519
>Reading Omensetter's luck first for a more approachable way to start with Gass
I'd have suggested (his short story collection) In the Heart of the Heart of the Country to someone if they wanted to start on Gass from nothing. Some of the ideas in there show up in the Tunnel.
>if it should be read allegorically
For all it does, there's still a cohesive narrative, and there's more revealed as you go. I'm sure there's lots Gass wrote into it beyond that (I think his dissertation was on metaphor) that I'm not going to try making sense of now, but I don't think you have to force yourself to piece it together just yet. I'd say you should just carry on reading while keeping an eye out. You can always re-read it.

>>24519836
I see, thanks anon. I love short stories, will get that one too.

>>24518476 (OP)
Interesting, I thought his style is more in the vein of Samuel Johnson than James Joyce.

>>24518476 (OP)
FIFY

>>24518519

I thought the middle section with the reverend was more impenetrable than anything in The Tunnel. A great read, though

>>24518476 (OP)
The high water point of everything embarrassing and trite about the post-war bourgeois consensus. A dictionary of poshlost.

>>24522191
You haven't read this book.

>>24518476 (OP)
I just ordered In the Heart of the Heart of the Country to sample some Gass

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

>>24521281
kek

>>24522352
Pedersen kid is great. Everything else is meh

>>24518476 (OP)
The Joyce influence is primarily that Gass wanted to put in the time to write one big book where he labored over every single word and every single nuance until it was perfect no matter how long it took and really this aspect of the novel is influenced by all those authors who did that and who influenced Gass. Overall it is very much a Gass novel and we see far more of him than any of his influences. One of my favorite novels. After you finish it give the audiobook a listen, Gass himself reads it, it is quite good.
>>24518519
Sort of? Omensetter's Luck is not the best intro to Gass since he was still figuring out who he was as a writer with it. The Tunnel is actually the most approachable when it comes understanding who Gass was as a writer since the length offers far repetitions; The Tunnel is life rendered as a series of tunnels both figurative and literal, and through the duration of the novel we explore hundreds of tunnels and we understand Kohler through his fondness of tunnels. This is how Gass works as a writer, you have a central image/idea which he uses to explore what is happening in the work and that image/idea is treated like character, it evolves and grows instead of just being stated or developed. Omensetter's Luck and The Pedersen Kid are outliers in Gass' work, he is figuring out his style with them, he sort of has things figured out but is still too influenced by his ideals of literature and the dogma those ideals imposed on him. Both are great but only offer a glimpse into who he was as a writer.
>>24522352
On Being Blue is a better short sample, or any of his novellas. His style can be difficult to get in short story form, which is part of why so many dislike all but The Pedersen Kid which is almost a traditional short story. I did not really get any of his short stories until I read The Tunnel and I expect the only people who really get them without the help of his later works are those who are really into short stories and the freedom they provide the author.

>William H. GASs
>influenced by Joyce

>>24518519
Just finished reading Omensetter after getting halfway through and then putting in on the back burner for nearly a year. The end made me wish I had kept with it, but now I'm either going to read it again or look into reading The Tunnel.

>>24518476 (OP)
A fellow who is apparently very distressed about something but never explains what

>>24523713
>but never explains what
Might want to work on the comprehension.

>>24522717
I really enjoyed Borges, does that help...?

I would say those are the farthest thing from a traditional short story

>>24525302
It might but your thinking Borges is the furthest you can get from traditional short stories probably cancels out any gains you get from liking Borges. Gass' style is fairly abstract in the short story form, the lack of space for the Gassian use of repetition makes them easy to see as nothing more than banal little observational vignettes. Gass as a writer is also in opposition to writers like Borges who makes his game the point; Gass felt that the writers game should always be subservient to the story, part of why his short stories are easy to reduce to being banal observational vignettes.

Gass' style is best shown in the novella and sort of falls apart in the short story, it mostly works in the novel form but has its limits and this is probably part of why it took him so long to write The Tunnel.

>>24523424
wow i didn't catch that before haha.