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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Snow White

Posted by John Holbo on 06/27/07 at 11:43 AM

I’m rereading Donald Barthelme’s Snow White. Last week I reread The King, as well as lots of the short stories. I think the short stories are better. He feels more relaxed, Snow and King are trying too hard. But here’s a line from Snow I think will make a good epigraph for something I’m writing: “You and I, Mr. Quistgard, are not in the same universe of discourse.” Philosophy joke.

What do folks think of Barthelme?

Comments

I’ve been a Barthelme fan since I first read him my freshman year of college. I agree that the stories are stronger than the novels; but *Snow White* is fucking high-larious.

My main problem with Barthelme is that, like the visual artists he saw as his main influences, his work is more about form than about, well, anything. Like Pollock or like Ornette’s *Free Jazz*, the main point of a Barthelme story is to avoid cliche, to avoid literary “riffs” like genre constraints, character types, stable narrators, clear settings, etc. So on the one hand, I’m always wowed by the creative verve of a Barthelme story, the way that, like a great comedian, he takes you in one direction, then jerks you in an unexpected direction, and again, and again. (Sarah Silverman, at her best, has this sort of comic surrealism: “If man can go to the moon, a man with AIDS can go to the moon, and soon, all men with AIDS can go to the moon.")

There is something of the Mannerist in Barthelme, as in so much pomo writing. The figures aren’t careful grotesques in the Faulkner-O’Connor tradition, but more like Ubuian clowns without even the stability of their white paint and red noses. Everything—ideas, narration, character, symbol—is stretched out of proportion, oddly juxtaposed, comically deflated. At times, there is also something of the *New Yorker* cartoonist in the work, especially in his serial stories about musicians trying out for the orchestra, which want to be Kafkan but are more “Talk of the Town"ish.

But at its best, his work has a beating human heart somewhere in it. “The Balloon” is a great example of this. The Barthelme voice—an impersonator who has lost track of his natural timbre—talks and talks to fill in Nothing (which is the title of one of his best stories), much like a Beckett narrator. Cultural logic of late capitalism? Sure. But he’s also the one of the greatest literary jukeboxes we’ve ever had around. If all department stores were like a Barthelme collection, late capitalism would be a fucking ball.

By on 06/27/07 at 05:56 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Hmmm, with your permission, Luther, I think I should swap the text of your comment, which is post-ish, for the text of my post, which is comment-ish.

What you say about Snow: I remember feeling the same way about how great it is. But now, rereading, I’m changing my mind. The stories are still great, but Snow is only so-so.

By John Holbo on 06/27/07 at 09:09 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Especially after 60+40 I particularly recommend The Teachings of Don B.

By nnyhav on 06/27/07 at 10:20 PM | Permanent link to this comment

(+45)

By nnyhav on 06/27/07 at 10:35 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Permission granted. (I had the advantage of having written a sophomore English paper about a Barthelme story. It had no argument. It ws basically like, “Listen to this line! And this one! Isn’t that funny?” There was a sister-paper to it about Ashbery, if I remember correctly.)

By on 06/27/07 at 10:59 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Why not just make Luther Blissett a regular author here? He comments frequently enough, and the number of posts has been declining lately.

By on 06/28/07 at 01:57 PM | Permanent link to this comment

A good one by Barthelme: “The School”. Not necessarily typical. It seems to me more pointed than a lot of his work. Good little philosophy discussion in the end too. The range between dictions - high, middle, low, call them - is nicely done:
http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/bart.html

By Tony Christini on 06/29/07 at 05:04 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Snow White

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