Donald BarthelmeRezensionen

De las pocas veces que no he podido terminar un libro a la primera. Al segundo intento pude acabarlo (agradezco su brevedad) pero sigue sin gustarme.½

this is another of those books where I feel I'm missing something big. each story consists of like a series of often surreal images, lines of speech or vignettes. for most stories the extent to which each segment fits together is very unclear and they only rarely fit into a coherent whole. Sometimes they do but you're just left going huh and wondering if you're missing something anyway. some of the images and words are good but a lot of them don't bring up any associations or ideas or anything for me. there is also a lot of confusing relatively long descriptions. a few of the stories are good, although not incredibly so. mostly I just feel like I'm reading and understanding the words but nothing more, it's not bringing up any emotions or ideas or anything on a regular basis, it's rarely interesting, just words. it's frustrating because it's not as if I hate it I'm just not feeling anything

and some are good like the new owner which is about how landlords are bad

I love Barthelme's shorter works, but I didn't enjoy this one at all, and and abandoned it after about fifty pages. To me, his writing style, so laden with irony, didn't suit the longer form. Such a constant barrage of irony on so many levels just left me alienated and failing to care. Maybe one day I'll come back to this and see what it has to offer.

This collection is full of experimentation and humor and probably some deep thoughts that I totally missed, and I'm glad it exists for whoever the receptive audience is.

Perhaps one of the most pointless books I've ever read: a short piece of absurdist humour without the humour and with the absurdism being completely inert. Splayed rather than pointed in its motives, Donald Barthelme's The King makes no use of its interesting concept; that of King Arthur and his knights being present in Britain during the Second World War.

It's a struggle to determine what the point was of such a move: we must assume the idea came to Barthelme from the old legend that the Once and Future King will return to aid Britain in its hour of gravest need – and could there be any time of need more appropriate than 1940? However, aside from a few token and desultory name drops of Dunkirk and the Blitz, there's no attempt at all to utilise the World War Two potential, and the Arthurian court are about as relevant and essential to their new wartime setting as Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are to the proper functioning of the original Hamlet. Launcelot and Guinevere aren't dead here, however. Just limp.

It's hard to pin down what the writer was trying to do, if indeed he was trying to do anything. At one point I thought perhaps the anachronism of having King Arthur in the modern age was meant to be a commentary on the purported anachronism of monarchy in the modern age, but this idea was dropped in the text the instant it was raised. As too was the idea – perhaps Barthelme's only good one – of the quest for the Holy Grail being replaced by the quest to develop the first atomic bomb.

These were the only two signposts I could find in the author's inoffensive but empty meander of a book – though not so much signposts as broken twigs indicating that something, who knows what, had passed by. The King is just yet another of those books which seems determined to confirm 'post-modern' as a synonym for 'tedious, self-satisfied noodling'. Sometimes taking a risk on a promising book just doesn't pay off. It happens.

Sheesh, the second collection of Barthelme's stories I have read this year. Either he uses old references that go over my head or he is insane and that goes over my head. I really can't puzzle out most of these stories but I can tell he is very smart.

*Book #131 I have read of the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'½

The first collection I have read from Barthelme, which I always figured influenced probably many of my favorite writers. It seems he was way ahead of his time, but then, since I, as a reader, am so far AFTER Barthelme's time, and a ton of his writing uses specific pop cultural references, a ton of his writing goes right over my head. Also, I can't tell if Barthelme invented absurdist writing or if he was just plain insane. Also, I don't know if it was the times, but his writing now seems hugely sexist whenever a female walks onto the page. meh. My favorites in this collection: Hiding Man and Me & Miss Mandible. Interestingly, this is a rare short story collection that made it onto the '1001 books you must read before you die' list.
**Book #128 I have read from the '1001 books you must read before you die' list

The story is asked in a series of questions. Read by Salman Rushdie as a New Yorker Podcast, I have listed the link and its free to listen.

Amusing story of a teacher and her class experiencing a series of deaths--trees, plants, snakes, sponsored orphans, etc. There really isn't much to it, but it is one of those stories you can read into whatever you want--the meaningless of life, for instance. It does make me want to give Barthelme another try, however. Long ago, I purchased 60 Stories from the late lamented Quality Paperback Book Club, but it did not appeal to me. It's still on my shelf, however....½

I have known artists who work in the realm of word and image collage, but this is the most successful storyline I've seen. It's a beautiful, compelling, dadaist story with a letterpress aesthetic. Not to be missed!

Donald Barthelme has been a mystery to me. Heard the name, but couldn't connect it to any specific book title. Had an impression he was difficult (like Pynchon or Joyce). But still I filed a mental note of a book titled [The King], which was enthusiastically endorsed on some list or other. I found a used copy and read it immediately.

I'm very glad I did. It is excellent.

The King of the title is Arthur, and in Barthelme's novel—his last; it was published after his death in 1989—he still reigns over England, despite it being 1939. Guinevere is still queen, Launcelot is still the knight in shining armor, still cuckolding his king (but he's no longer alone in that). Arthur's longevity is…hmmmm…a mystery.

"Tell me something," Arthur said. "Why have I lived so long!"
"God's grace, Merlin's magic, adroitness in battle, sturdy red and white corpuscles, a great heart—What can I say?"
"You don't think it's been a bit…protracted? My life?"
"It's run on a few centuries beyond the normal span, that's true. But there are exceptional individuals in all periods of history."

Despite his exceptional life span, despite heading a government that travels on horseback, despite leading a fighting force of "knights" wearing armor and armed with swords and lances, Arthur is in command of the 20th century's conflicts and problems. When disgruntled railway workers weld a locomotive to the rails on the line between Ipswich and Stowmarket (so nothing can move on that line), Arthur personally accesses the situation with his advisors.

"How does one unweld a weld?" Arthur asked. "Chip at it with a crowbar?"
"We could have them take up the track," said Sir Lamorak, "fore and aft of the engine. Then that section could be slid to one side and new rails laid. But you'd have to have a mighty powerful something to move it with."
"They could lay track perpendicular to the existing track and bring in another engine on that track," said Sir Kay, "but it would take donkey's years."
"If Merlin were still in business he could mag-ick it away," said the king. " 'Avaunt!' he'd say, and the thing would be done. I'm afraid I never adequately appreciated Merlin." He paused. "Big bastard, isn't it."
Further inspection of the quite large locomotive.
"I say we blast," said Sir Helin.
"We could have the sappers tunnel beneath it," said Sir Lamorak, "and when the hole is big enough, cut the rails and the engine would fall into the pit. Then we fill in around it and lay new track. What think you?"
"If we could melt it somehow," replied Sir Kay. "Build a sort of furnace sort of thing around it—"
"Jack it up," said Arthur. "Remove the wheels and attached track. Replace wheels. Replace track. Lower engine, and there you have it."
"What a good idea," said Sir Lamorak. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"A perfect solution," Sir Kay said. "One understands, at moments like this, why you are king, sire. Your idea is fifty times better than any of our ideas."

Arthur is capable of unequivocal stands, making them without doubt or indecision.

Launcelot, Arthur, Sir Kay, the Blue Knight, and Sir Roger de Ibadan in conference.
"These three equations, taken together, will enable us to build a bomb more powerful than any the world has ever known," said Sir Roger. "When Launcelot showed me all three, I recognized instantly that they were either alchemical transmutations of the most important kind or the culmination of some Scandinavian work in atomic fission I've been following."
"Or both," said the Blue Knight.
"Or both," Sir Roger agreed. "Either way, it's the Grail you chaps have been seeking. The big boom."

The discussion turns practical. How long will it take to build? How would it be used? "Perhaps a demonstration…Do Essen or Kiel or one of the smaller cities."

"You understand," said Sir Roger, "that once you let go of this, the city is gone. Totally…everything within ten miles or so of the point of impact goes…"
"Isn't that a bit bloodthirsty?"
"That's the business we're in, at the moment."
Arthur took the three slips of paper and tore them to bits.
"We won't do it," he said. "I cannot allow it. It's not the way we wage war…The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon. I have spoken."

Read the book. It's short, it's fun. I have spoken.

Delightfully bonkers. Favourites included “Chablis,” “Bluebeard,” “The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace,” and “The Temptation of St. Anthony.”

Formally interesting, but the intentional shallowness irritated me after a while. When the pieces actually did something, they were wonderful.

What this book has given me, over the past few days of reading, are innumerable scraps of paper: post-it notes, torn rectangles of printer paper, jagged sections of to-go bags. The one nearest me reads:

"I had in mind launching a three-pronged assault but the prongs wandered off seduced by fires and clowns. It was hell there in the furnace of my ambition. It was because, you said, I had read the wrong book. He reversed himself in his last years, you said, in the books no-one would publish. But his students remember, you said."- pg 53

The book does not provide much more context to appreciate that quote. Like most of Barthelme's short stories, the gems in Snow White work in plainspoken absurdity, like David Lynch at his most playful. He plays with the reader as a detached narrator and while it may be a critique born of our time, his lack of sincerity renders the project meaningless beyond an ice cold intellectual engagement.

I'm tired of postmodernism.

Snow White can barely sustain itself as a novel and I still prefer Barthelme's short stories, where lessons on writing and narrative are in abundance.

What this book has given me, over the past few days of reading, are innumerable scraps of paper: post-it notes, torn rectangles of printer paper, jagged sections of to-go bags. The one nearest me reads:

"I had in mind launching a three-pronged assault but the prongs wandered off seduced by fires and clowns. It was hell there in the furnace of my ambition. It was because, you said, I had read the wrong book. He reversed himself in his last years, you said, in the books no-one would publish. But his students remember, you said."- pg 53

The book does not provide much more context to appreciate that quote. Like most of Barthelme's short stories, the gems in Snow White work in plainspoken absurdity, like David Lynch at his most playful. He plays with the reader as a detached narrator and while it may be a critique born of our time, his lack of sincerity renders the project meaningless beyond an ice cold intellectual engagement.

I'm tired of postmodernism.

Snow White can barely sustain itself as a novel and I still prefer Barthelme's short stories, where lessons on writing and narrative are in abundance.

Barthelme is subversive poignancy, using the absurd to get past your defenses without softening it in the least. The blurry effect of a highly educated man on hard liquor.

I feel incredibly lucky to have found two such amazing writers within the span of a few months: George Saunders and now Donald Barthelme. Barthelme is an American Borges with a wry sense of humor and his stories are fantastic.

The older I get the more I realize that by reading Barthelme at 15 years old without actually understanding him, but for whatever reason continuing to read him steadily for the next decade, he has become a pretty prominent influence; my understanding of Barthelme is almost exactly parallel to my understanding of serious fiction in general.

Barthelme’s erudite deadpan absurdity is a balm for jangled nerves in trying times, for, as Ramona says in the title story here—

…we are locked in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor. To describe it takes many hundreds of thousands of words. Our muck is only part of a much greater muck—the nation-state—which is itself the creation of that muck of mucks, human consciousness. Of course all these things also have a touch of sublimity—as when Moonbelly sings, for example, or all the lights go out. What a happy time that was, when all the electricity went away! If only we could re-create that paradise!

Barthelme fiddled with literary short forms, and treated the space between eccentric juxtapositions as a primary object. The weaker bits here include a Q & A format, amusing but forgettable (“The Explanation”), a barely clever trifle (“The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend”) and an unreadable cut-up bit (“Bone Bubbles”). All shortcomings are erased, however, by “At the Tolstoy Museum,” with those illustrations. Barthelme was both cerebral and wacky.

Most of the best pieces here (as good as any experimental short fiction anywhere) can be found in the collection Sixty Stories, but the cheap paper and pulpy feel give the $2.25 Pocket Books edition a stealthy talismanic quality,

…causing faint alteration in the status quo, behind your back, at various points along the periphery of community life, together with other enterprises not dissimilar in tone, such as producing films that have special qualities, or attributes, such as a film where the second half of it is a holy mystery, and girls and women are not permitted to see it, or writing novels in which the final chapter is a plastic bag filled with water, which you can touch, but not drink: in this way, or ways, the underground mental life of the collectivity is botched, or denied, or turned into something else never imagined by the planners… (“Sentence”)

I think this may have been a Jessamyn West recommendation. Experimental short stories written in the late 60s. The first one was heavy and boring but the next one about the falling dog, I read to myself out loud and it was fun. Some of the stories were interesting, but most just kind of weird - enumerations, odd drawings, one single sentence. (July 14, 2005)

I openly admit my tastes tends to be a bit quirky, even oddball, which probably accounts for the fact that I really, really, really enjoyed two stories in this collection, two stories not given so much as a mention in other reviews, at least the ones I’ve read on this thread. And what, you may ask, are those two Donald Barthelme stories? Answer: Chablis and The New Owner. And I really, really, really had a blast doing the write-up of each of these yummy chocolate snappers. After sampling as per below, you might even consider picking up the entire box of forty:



CHABLIS
Domestic Impasse: Our first-person narrator lets it be known quite emphatically he is happy remaining a husband and father (he has an almost 2-year-old baby girl), rather than becoming a husband, father and dog-owner. But, damn, his wife says not only does she want a dog but now the baby wants a dog. Sidebar: One way to read this Barthelme shorty is as Raymond Carver parody.

Bah, Bah, Black Sheep: His wife tells him the kind of dog the baby wants is a Carin terrier since a Carin terrier is a good Presbyterian just like herself and the baby. Meanwhile, he reflects: “I didn’t go to church because I was the black sheep. There were five children in my family and the males rotated the position of black sheep among us, the oldest one being the black sheep for a while while he was in his DWI period or whatever and then getting grayer as he maybe got a job or was in the service and then finally becoming a white sheep when he got married and had a grandchild. My sister was never a black sheep because she was a girl.” Stark, mostly staccato sentences and deadpan narrative voice – oh yeah, Donald Barthelme, you sly Texas dog, clicking into that Raymond Carver rhythm.

Baby, Baby: Although he told his wife a baby was too expensive, those women will wear a man down, even if it takes years, and this is exactly what happened to him. So, he hangs around and hugs the baby named Joanna, every chance he gets. But when Joanna watches television she just looks dumb and forgets you’re there. Oh, Joanna - welcome to Carver country, even parody Carver country, where you sit around all day watching television. In another few years you’ll have a chance to partake of that other Carver country preoccupation – heavy drinking.

Dog, Redux: Back on the dog. We sense our narrator on the cusp of a little Carver country male rage when he reflects how he can see himself walking all over their subdivision hunting down his damn runaway terrier, a little brown dog named Michael, a possibly rabid dog, a dog that might even have bitten someone in the subdivision. “It’s enough to make you think about divorce.” Sounds like our male narrator needs to have a serious talk with his wife before things really get out of hand.

Self-Examination: He finally reaches the point of critical self-appraisal, wondering why he himself isn’t a more natural person like his wife wants him to be. He sits in his second-floor den at his desk at five-thirty in the morning, looking out the window at the joggers, worrying, worrying about Joanna jamming a kitchen knife into an electric socket or worrying about Joanna eating her crayons, all the time smoking and drinking Gallo Chablis. Ha! Gallo Chablis – at least Donald Barthelme lets his narrator drink a glass of Chablis instead of beer. Now that’s a step up! Maybe our narrator is even a regular reader of the New Yorker.

Congratulations: His memory travels back to a time when he was the family black sheep, when he was driving his friend’s Buick and swerved into a cornfield to avoid a head-on collision. Well that was one time when he did something right for a change. He pats himself on the back and goes to check on the baby. The story ends here on an upbeat (one of the advantages of drinking Chablis instead of beer, perhaps?), a real honest-to-goodness escape from the usual fare in Carver country.



THE NEW OWNER
Not-So-Good Vibrations: “When he came to look at the building, with a real estate man hissing and oozing beside him, we lowered the blinds, muted or extinguished lights, threw newspapers and dirty clothes on the floor in piles, burned rubber bands in ashtrays, and played Buxtehude on the hi-fi – shaking organ chords whose vibrations made the plaster falling from the ceiling fall faster.” So begins the dreaded nightmare come true for any long-standing apartment renter: the new landlord is the landlord from hell.

Immediate Changes: Oh, no, little rent bills start appearing in the mailboxes, the rent goes up and the heat goes down. Bicycles must be removed from the halls; shopping carts must be removed from the halls. Sure, you’ve lived in your apartment for decades with your friends and neighbors, everything going along smoothly, but guess what – you can be replaced tomorrow; actually, it would be better all round (at least according to the new landlord) if you moved out. Oh, Donald Barthelme, you have touched on one very raw nerve here.

The Old Super: Your old super is great; he takes out the garbage, keeps the halls mopped and fixes all the things needing fixing. Now he’s a goner. Was that him arguing with the new landlord at 10:00 last night? So it goes. Now you have a new super you never see – garbage piles up, halls are a mess and because the new landlord stopped the extermination service, the roaches begin taking over. No doubt about it – the new landlord wants you out.

Giving and Taking: The new landlord gives you and your neighbors a new month-to-month lease. He places a clear plastic cover, locked, over the thermostat. He holds a manila folder with new floor plans for your apartment building (no, that’s quite not accurate; you quickly revise your last thought to ‘his apartment building’). You are still young and working but how about Levon and Priscilla, the old couple upstairs? Lots of fear and trembling, to be sure.

Not-So-Well Wishes: I suspect nearly everybody reading these words can relate with the narrator’s sentiments, “The new owner stands on the roof, where the tomato plants are, owning the roof. May a good wind blow him to hell.”

Coda: For me, this story of an evil landlord is the bare bones many other writers could use to write their own ten to twenty page stories. Donald Barthelme captures some real magic by compressing the drama into less than three pages. No wonder William H. Gass said he set the ground for an entire genre of flash fiction.

Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) - American author of some of the most charming, curious, quizzical, probing short stories every written.

Alienation, absurdity and the reality of death, themes central to the existential imagination, receive powerful expression in two unforgettable French classics: Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Wall and Albert Camus’ The Stranger. Readers have come to expect such serious, penetrating works are part of the rich European literary tradition.

But, we may ask, how will these stark twentieth century existential themes translate when exported to America, the land of Daffy Duck, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Gomer Pyle? Turns out, we are provided a clear answer with Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, the title story in this Donald Barthelme collection about a young man sentenced to death, American-style.

The narrator tells us in so many words and with home-spun informality how it all started back when some of his group began threatening Colby due to the way he kept carrying on. But, dang, Colby didn’t stop; now he really did it – he went too far. So the group decided to hang him. Colby complained that, although, sure, he went too far, he didn’t deserve to be hanged, since everybody goes too far now and again. They all ignored Colby’s bellyaching and asked what music he would like played the day of his hanging. Colby said he’d take his own sweet time and think it over. Oh, no - they had to know fast since the conductor, Howard, had to find some musicians so he could start rehearsals. Thus begins this short tale of existential absurdity with a decidedly down-home, rustic American twist, including a hefty dose of Barthelme signature humor.

In honor of the years Donald Barthelme spent living and teaching in the state of Texas, let’s give our narrator a good ol’ boy Texas name: Buck. Well, Buck goes on to inform us how Colby initially picked out his music, Ives’s Fourth Symphony, but Howard rejected Colby’s choice, claiming such music would require a huge orchestra and chorus as well as weeks of rehearsals, all of which was nothing but a delay tactic.

Another serious issue, so Buck tells us, was the printed invitations: “What if one of them fell into the hands of the authorities? Hanging Colby was doubtless against the law, and if the authorities learned in advance what the plan was they would very likely come in and try to mess everything up.” Such a revealer of the Americans mindset, particularly in the Wild West and in states like Texas: people want to do what they want to do and detest even the thought of possible government interference. To avoid having any of those pesky government agencies sticking a meddling nose into their business, Buck and his gang come up with a perfect solution: “We decided to refer to the event as “An Event Involving Mr. Colby Williams.” A handsome script was selected from a catalogue and we picked a cream-colored paper.”

Next on the agenda is the question of liquor. Actually, since this is rural America or Texas or the Wild West, the question isn’t if liquor will be served but what liquor will be served. Colby thought drinks would be nice but he was concerned about the expense, to which Buck and the gang pipe up to let Colby know they are all his dear friends and he shouldn’t worry his head about the expense. Ah, friendship! And then Colby asks if he can have a drink. The answer from his dear friends is instant and unanimous -- they all exclaim: “Certainly!” Ah, dear friendship, Texas-style!

Buck and his group are down to the nitty-gritty details, things like the gibbet and its construction, including the mechanics of the gibbet’s trap door, what type of wood, how will the gibbet look out in the countryside? Now these American buckaroos can really get their emotional juices flowing since they are talking mechanical engineering rather than bothering themselves about what it means to end the life of a fellow human.

Reflecting on the tradition of the Wild West and the fact that they will be hanging Colby in the balmy month of June, Buck suggests a nice looking tree, say an oak, rather than a gibbet. The gang put the choice of gibbet or tree to Colby; Colby, in turn, asks if they aren't being a little Draconian! Draconian - such a big word, Colby – if for no other reason than using such a big word among your dear friends, you deserve to be dancing on the end of a rope!

The black humor of this flash fiction turns even blacker. Read the story itself, either in this collection, in the Penguin edition of Donald Barthelme’s Forty Stories or via this link:
http://jessamyn.com/barth/colby.html

A string of memorable postmodern, metafictional quick reads straight from the outrageous imagination of Donald Barthelme. Many of these tales I love, but none more than The Balloon, a story with such special beauty it clearly deserves its own write-up. Here goes:

Postmodern: Lyrical and light, as light as a very large feather this Barthelme’s short-short begins with a narrator telling us he engineered a balloon expanding twenty city blocks north to south over buildings, from Fourteenth Street all the way up to Central Park. With such a whimsical happening, we are a world away from Hemingway’s old man sitting in the shadow of a café. In an interview, Donald Barthelme recounts when he first began writing, he wrote Hemingway-like stories but could see his efforts were awful and how his writer's voice needed to develop in a radically different direction.

Well-Constructed Fragments: This giant balloon is mostly muted grays and browns contrasted with walnut and soft yellows giving the surface a rough, forgotten quality and anchored by sliding weights on the inside. In his own creative writing, Barthelme was not so much influenced by other writers as by Abstract Expressionist painters like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning and Dadaist Collage Artists like Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp.

Mark Rothko - Work in Gray and Brown
If I squint, I can even see one of the Rothko colors turning into Barthelme's balloon!

Metafictional Meaning: “There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the “meaning” of the balloon; this subsided because we have learned not to insist on meaning, and they are rarely even looked for now, except in cases involving the simplest, safest phenomenon.” In many ways, this letting go of the search for hidden meaning is the shared fate of those Abstract Expressionist paintings. However, perhaps ironically, the search for the meaning in works of fiction, both modern and postmodern, continues apace, including meaning in Donald Barthelme’s short fiction.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what is the purpose?: Such is the prime question forever posed in America, land of the pragmatist, the land where the only things really worth anybody’s time are those which have a useful function and, even better, make money. Thus, initially, the apparent purposelessness of the balloon proved vexing for all the hardheaded city officers and municipal officials. Sure, kids can run, jump, slide and bounce on the thing but why the hell is it there in the first place?! But since the balloon could be neither removed nor destroyed (the officials tried secretly at night) and a public warmth arose for the balloon from the ordinary citizen, the balloon became a city landmark.

Balloon Takes Center Stage: Of course, occupying such a prominent position in the city, people began using various aspects of the balloon in many different ways: civic pride, sheer visual pleasure, enrich their metaphors, metaphysical speculation and, most frequently, as a point of reference to locate themselves, for example: “I’ll be at that place where it dips down into Forty-seventh Street almost to the sidewalk, near the Alamo Chile House.”

Quote from Jacques Derrida’s “The Truth of Painting”: “Aesthetic judgment must properly bear upon intrinsic beauty, not on finery and surrounds. Hence one must know – this is a fundamental presupposition, presupposing what is fundamental – how to determine the intrinsic – what is framed – and know what one is excluding as frame and outside-the-frame.” And since the balloon is certainly a work of art, what would Jacques have to say about this public artwork stretching over half of mid-town Manhattan, a balloon with no hard edges, where what is inside or outside-the-frame is not clearly limited or defined?


French Deconstructionist Philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy chimes in: “Construction and deconstruction are closely interconnected with one another. What is constructed according to a logic of ends and means is deconstructed when it comes into contact with the outermost edge.” Well, turns out, the outermost edge for the balloon happened after twenty-two days: the flexible, undefined, mostly unlimited balloon became depleted fabric, trucked away to be stored in West Virginia, awaiting some other time when it can make its return to be reconstructed to deconstruct all the hard edges of city life.

Again, this little short-short is but one of an entire list of imaginative snappers in this collection. Please treat yourself to some metafictional fun and postmodern brain teasing by picking up this collection of Donald Barthelme. I mean, have you ever encountered better story titles than See the Moon?, The Dolt, Game, The Indian Uprising, The Police Band, The Picture History of War or Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning?

Ticket for a Gallery Exhibition - cherished prize in the art world

Collection of postmodern short stories from the 1960s and 1970s penned by that master of the genre, American author Donald Barthelme. Some short non-fiction satire is also included. Of course, I enjoyed a number of pieces more than others but one short zapper really hit home for me, most likely since I have been interested in art and aesthetics for a number of years. Reading Letters To The Editor I imagine myself sitting in a whaling boat watching lampoon-harpooner Daggoo-Barthelme hurling lampoon-harpoons at the whales of the art world. Ready, aim, let her soar, Daggoo-Donald! Here is a list of needle-sharp zingers from the hand on our intrepid harpooning author:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Controversy: Nicolai Pont, editor of Shock Art magazine admits a raw, tender nerve has been hit when his international art journal published an article on an exhibit by American artist Doug LeDuff featuring an original series of asterisks. Editor Pont announces Stock Art will accept only one more letter on the controversy before the subject is closed forever. Shock Art - love that name for the magazine and the mindset of the people who run it, being shocked when an article they print about art actually shocks.

Art Theft: Bernardo Brown of Galerie Z accuses LaDuff of shamelessly copying the asterisks of Gianbello Bruno, a fellow Italian, an artist his Galerie Z represents. Bernardo points to a 1978 Paris exposition where artist Bruno incorporated a series of asterisks into his work. Sure, the American claims he has been painting asterisks since 1975 but, Bernando Brown asks: Where are these asterisks? Where is the proof? One of my favorite Barthelme lampoons here is the name of the American Artist Doug LeDuff. Doug is a common enough American name, but what about that LeDuff? Sounds like the artist or his agent committed some genuine art theft to conquer the European art market, combining the names of two famous, influential French artists – Le Corbusier and Jean Dubuffet.

Gallery Opening - Where art and party time come together

A Proud Heritage: Galerie Z is in Milan and Bernardo plays his trump card, since, after all, he is from the land that graced us with the Italian Renaissance and all those great Italian masters, the greatest artists the world has ever seen. “Of course the fully American attitude of the partisans of LeDuff, that there is nothing except America, is evident here in the apparently fair evaluation of the protagonists which is in fact deeply biased in the direction of their native land.” Bernardo curtly dismisses the evidence LeDuff painted six pointed asterisks as opposed to the five pointed ones of Bruno; he also dismisses the fact that LeDuff predated Bruno in superimposing one asterisk on another. Bruno’s tacit accusation: Americans are untalented, moneygrubbing bunglers, coarse hicks incapable of the barest shred of artistic originality, forever crudely copying and mimicking refined, highly accomplished European artists. (Of course, Bruno might be correct on this point, at least generally, but there is always that rare exception!)

Rome Chimes In: Pino Vitt smiles at the entire LeDufff-Galerie Z controversy asking: What do these bloody Americans really want after they come to Europe, are installed in the most sumptuous hotels yet still find reasons to complain about everything? Those childish, no talent Yanks made rich by our stupid bourgeois fly back home to figure out more ways to dupe and despoil our gullible bourgeois. “Doug LeDuff is a pig and a child, but so are his enemies.” What is so great about this letter is Pino adds nothing to the subject at hand but rather takes the opportunity to slam the whole art scene – artist, supporters, detractors; if you are out there as part of the art scene, you’re fodder for Pino’s slam. Maybe Pino Vitt is still smarting from the humiliating loss Rome suffered at the hands of Milan in the latest soccer match. Or, perhaps, he envisions himself as a great Roman general put in the position of being required to put down the barbarians on Rome’s borders. Or, perhaps Pino is an unrecognized artist producing paintings or sculptures or installations unacceptable to the art world.

Düsseldorf Chimes In: Hugo Timme points out to the faculty of the LeDuff-Galerie Z debate that LeDuff’s art is so much bad wallpaper but Shock Art Magazine was irresponsible accepting for publication a Galerie Z ad defaming LeDuff. Hugo goes on to enlighten all by proclaiming that LeDuff and Bruno have both impersonated the accomplishments of the 1938 Magdeburg Handwerker. Ah, a German historian to the rescue. And love his referring to those contributors to the debate as “faculty” then skewering their ideas.

Artists Chime In: The members of an artist’s group in Basel, Switzerland let it be known they are unfaltering supporters of the immense American master, Doug LeDuff. This is an international crowd with first names of Gianni, Michel, Zin and Erik. And it isn’t an accident they are in Basel, the cradle of modern avant-garde art going back to the early years of the twentieth century. And, of course, having their names listed one under another, manifesto-like, adds weight to their support.

Photo of a group of artists - could be 1966 or 2016. Some things never change.

Rotteerdam Chimes In: Madga Baum is outraged that the galleries, critics and collectors bickering in this LeBuff debate have ignored the artist Elaine Grasso, who has been working in the field of parentheses. Oh, those damn men and the male dominated art world overlooking a real artist just because she’s a woman!

Athens Chimes in: G. Philios lets everyone know their debate is complexly misguided since the asterisk is from the Greek asteriskos (or small star) and has served a very specific function going all the way back to Greek mythology. G. Philios ends by making a specific plea to the editors to publish his letter so people will know he set the record straight.

An Art Critic Chimes In: Yes, Shock Art Magazine consulted Titus Toselli Dolla in Palermo, a highly respected art critic, to contribute a letter on the subject. As part of his letter, Titus denounces LeDuff, “The brutality of the American rape of the world’s exhibition spaces and organs of art-information has distanciated his senses.” Love Titus and his slicing comment about Americans immediately following his claim of maintaining a critical distance from all passions surrounding the debate. And true to form, Titus peppers his writing with words like “distanciated.” Very much in keeping with art criticism – vocabulary as a weapon to keep the uninitiated outsider out.

The new frontier of Postmodern Paraguay requires a fearless explorer to not only sport a safari hat, beard, custom-fit jacket and fashionable scarf but also be well-versed in the latest postmodern writings of Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, David Foster Wallace and, of course, Donald Barthelme. Those Spanish speaking natives damn well better be ready.

Nifty collection of short surreal postmodern blasters by the master of the genre. I will focus on my favorite as per below:

Paraguay
This Barthelme snapper is told in fourteen specifically labeled brief chapters. In keeping with the adventurous nature of the story and for the purposes of my review, below are a batch of my own markers as we follow our bold, gusty pathfinder roaming among the uncharted vistas of postmodern, postcolonial New Paraguay.

Stranger in a Strange Land: “At the summit there is a cairn on which each man threw a stone, and here it is customary to give payment to the coolies. I paid each man his agreed-upon wage, and alone, began the descent.” Not on a map, not in South America, our narrator had better be alert as he embarks solo into a country never before glimpsed by such a lover of the fresh and the new. Although we are very much rooted in the world of the postmodern, he still refers to his workers as “coolies” – such a racist, colonial term. Some things die hard, if they ever die at all.

Anima: What is an adventure to an exotic land without the appearance of a beautiful exotic woman? Sure enough, the first person he meets is “a dark girl wrapped in a red shawl.” Along the lines of coolie, right out of those sexist colonial days, he refers to her not as a young lady or a woman but as a “girl.” And, turns out, not only is this woman, Jean Mueller by name, exotic in looks but she is also highly cultured. After leading him back to her large modern house and showing him his room complete with desk, bookcases and fireplace (he is the guest of both Jean Mueller and her husband, Herko Mueller) the narrator tells us she plays a sonata by the composer Bibblemann on the piano. Sidebar: There is no such composer with the name Bibblemann. Probably the narrator misunderstood the name she gave him (Liebermann, maybe?), which is not surprising since this American appears a tad uncultured. This fact foreshadows a role reversal: in many respects, the civilization of the natives is much more culturally sophisticated and technically advanced than the explorer's.

Comedy at Room Temperature: We learn there are adjustments the inhabitants of Paraguay make in response to modest changes in weather and a few other oddities then something quite striking: Herko Mueller, who is, by the way, fond of zipper suits in brilliant colors: yellow, green, violet, is by profession an arbiter of comedy, something like an umpire, where members of the audience are given a set of rules and the rules constitute the comedy. What comes to mind for me is competitive team improv comedy. Anyway, Herko goes on, “Our comedies seek to reach the imagination. When you are looking at something, you cannot imagine it.” So, perhaps there is a good bit of miming peppered in with the improvisation. Or, maybe the men and women of Paraguay are quite advanced philosophically, keenly aware of the nuances of phenomenology and the philosophy of perception. Judging from this scant bit of information, their comedy sounds quite intriguing, certainly more captivating than the usual TV game shows we have north of the border.

Collateral Damage: A government error causing the death of a number of men and women sounds like it could have been from a Chernobyl-like radioactive fallout. The narrator’s and also Herko Mueller’s words to explain the event are unsettling, as if they are using language to cover-up an avoidable tragedy, similar to when the military refers to the death of innocent civilians as “collateral damage.” When you hear someone say, “An error has been made” watch out, someone or some institution doesn’t want to accept responsibility. Although Paraguay strikes me as very postmodern, there is that lingering noisome bureaucracy.

Art of the Comrade: Unsettling also is our explorer’s description of postmodern Paraguay art, with words like “rationalization process”, “quality control”, “central and regional art dumps” smacking of a kind of Marxist or government control. And the art process includes things like translation into symbolic logic (whatever the hell that means!), minimization and being run through heavy rollers. The final result? Two are mentioned: Sheet Art and Bulk Art. And what you may ask will such art look like? For me, at least in terms of the feeling tone of what is described, two artists come to mind: David Judd and Richard Serra.


David Judd Sculpture


Richard Serra Sculpture

Hot Spots: Our bold gallant continues on, reporting on a number of other postmodern Paraguay innovations, things that would remind us of tanning salons, white wall space, softening of language with blocks of silences, health patches, and a form of justice (or injustice) as in “There are crimes but people chosen at random are punished for them. Everyone is liable for everything.” This last point underscores how Barthelme's Paraguay might be a great place to visit briefly, but I wouldn't want to life there. Not to mention not wanting my art run through those heavy rollers.


There are enough creative ideas and themes of futuristic civilizations in this Barthelme eight-page short story to keep dozens of science fiction writers going for several years. I will conclude with what I imagine a New Paraguay apartment building and a New Paraguay garden might look like. Here they are:

Moshe Safdie's Habitat in Montreal