In the words of the late Walker Percy, William Gass is a "totally committed, totally uncompromising, and extraordinarily gifted writer." His latest work is a suite of four novellas that explore Mind, Matter, and God.In the title story, God is a writer in a constant state of fumble, Mind is a housewife cum modern-day Cassandra, and Matter is--who else?--the helpless and confused husband of Mind. In "Bed and Breakfast," the concept of salvation is explored through material possessions--a collection of kitsch--as a traveling businessman is slowly swamped by the sheer surfeit of matter in a small...
In the words of the late Walker Percy, William Gass is a "totally committed, totally uncompromising, and extraordinarily gifted writer." His latest wo...
The greatly esteemed essayist, novelist, and philosopher reflects on the art of translation and on rainer maria rilke's duino elegies-and gives us his own translation of Rilke's masterwork.
The greatly esteemed essayist, novelist, and philosopher reflects on the art of translation and on rainer maria rilke's duino elegies-and gives us his...
"Gass's commitment to ideas, concentrated energy and originality shine through on every page. . . . Ezra Pound as a failed modernist; the lives of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein . . . the avant garde . . . the demands of autobiography; the Pulitzer Prize Committee's . . . choices in fiction . . . flecked with fertile insights and a pleasure to read".--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review. A 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award winner.
"Gass's commitment to ideas, concentrated energy and originality shine through on every page. . . . Ezra Pound as a failed modernist; the lives of Nie...
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, "At Swim-Two-Birds" is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing. Hilariously funny and inventive, "At...
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, "At Swim-Two-Birds" is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college stude...
A descriptive and informative guide to more than 100 sites of literary significance in the greater St. Louis area, "Literary St. Louis: A Guide" includes historical and biographical information, maps, literary anecdotes, and photographs. Edited by William H. Gass and Lorin Cuoco, the volume includes selections by T. S. Eliot, Mark Twain, Sara Teasdale, Fannie Hurst, William S. Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin, Thomas Wolfe, and many others who have helped define American literature over the past 150 years. This book is indispensable for understanding the region's rich literary...
A descriptive and informative guide to more than 100 sites of literary significance in the greater St. Louis area, "Literary St. Louis: A Guide" in...
Conversations with William H. Gass captures the imagination and philosophical acumen of one of America's most important aestheticians, critical theorists, fiction writers, and essayists.
From his first major novel, Omensetter's Luck (1966), to his numerous collections of essays and philosophical inquiries, to his controversial novel The Tunnel (1995), Gass (b. 1924) has proved himself a meticulous craftsman. Throughout these interviews, he reveals an aesthetic that combines ideas from sources as disparate as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gertrude Stein,...
Conversations with William H. Gass captures the imagination and philosophical acumen of one of America's most important aestheticians, criti...
In a series of brilliant variations, William Gass presents a man s life futile, comic, anarchic arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms, and tones, with music as both theme and structure. It begins in Graz, Austria, in 1938, when Joseph Skizzen s father pretends to be Jewish and emigrates to avoid the Nazis. In London with his wife and children for the duration of the war, he mysteriously disappears and the rest of the family relocates to a small town in Ohio. Here Joseph Skizzen grows up and leads a resolutely ordinary life, but one that is built on a scaffold of...
In a series of brilliant variations, William Gass presents a man s life futile, comic, anarchic arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhyth...
