Paul Michael Garrison<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Four of the six pieces in Eyes: Novellas and Stories<\/em> were originally published in Conjunctions<\/em>, a journal of experimentalist writing, and readers familiar with the work of William H. Gass will find that this collection exhibits some of his trademarks: off-kilter psychological complexity, narrative-eschewing storytelling, and (in \u201cThe Toy Chest\u201d) a bit of play with typography. A new reader may be tempted to retread the opening of one of these complex pieces to make connections, but clarity in this case comes from moving forward, not back.<\/p>\n In the opening novellas, Gass\u2019 streams of consciousness flow into pools composed, not of water, but of molasses\u2014dense yet rich and with a tang. The long rambling sentences of \u201cIn Camera\u201d take on a poetic air; Mr. Gab\u2019s rhapsodies over his black-and-white prints become pieces of monochromatic imagism. Richness comes also in Gass\u2019 sharp, telling descriptions. And the tang\u2014it\u2019s in the humor that rises again and again, yet unexpected and thus sly in prose of such weight. Often, it takes the form of verbal play\u2014flippant alliteration and diction, turning words and expressions in upon themselves, but some of the funniest moments in \u201cIn Camera\u201d come from the grotesque characterizations of the central characters and their interplay.<\/p>\n The tang in \u201cCharity\u201d is more often bitter than comedic. The white-hot animosity that seethes through Gass\u2019 early collection In the Heart of the Heart of the Country<\/em> surfaces in the misanthropic protagonist Hardy, who has no regard for anyone except his mistress\u2014and her, he admits, he\u2019d willingly trade for a secretary. \u201cCharity\u201d opens with a filmic montage in which everything seems to happen at once: Hardy is simultaneously a corporate lawyer sifting through donations letters, a high-schooler roped into classroom charity, and a submissive lover servicing his mistress. Hardy\u2019s memory-within-memory examines charity, in every possible form, as extortion, in which the beggar and giver are equally culpable.<\/p>\n This characteristic animosity exists between the protagonists of \u201cIn Camera,\u201d Mr. Gab and his assistant Stu (short for Stupid), but it is tempered not only by the story\u2019s touches of humor but also by a begrudging and belated tenderness between the two. Not so in \u201cThe Toy Chest,\u201d the collection\u2019s new and final story, a disturbing m\u00e9lange of sexual exploration, childhood toys, violence, and familial dysfunction, all through the lens of faulty stream-of-consciousness typing (both are faulty, the typing and the consciousness).<\/p>\n In the middle of the book, we see through clearer eyes, which aren\u2019t even human. \u201cDon\u2019t Even Try It, Sam\u201d dishes out a social critique of Casablanca<\/em> in the guise of a Hollywood confessional, only the crusty, old narrator is the studio piano played in Rick\u2019s bar. Gass\u2019s sense of play expands in this and the following story, \u201cSoliloquy for an Empty Chair,\u201d to include inanimate narrators as the collection\u2019s most gregarious characters. It\u2019s as if we\u2019re given an excerpt from The Hidden Lives of Inanimate Objects<\/em>, and the point of view is as refreshing as it is wry. For instance, folding chairs don\u2019t care about what gender or ethnicity you are, just how much you weigh.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a hazy sense of period throughout the collection. Elements like the sexualized bondage of secretaries, elaborate shaving routines, and numerous references to detectives as \u201cdicks\u201d evoke a sense of yesteryear, much as one would feel stepping into Mr. Gab\u2019s dusty shop of black-and-white photographic prints, whereas references to the 1990s, AIDS, and computer technology bring us closer to the present. Like the piano in \u201cDon\u2019t Even Try, Sam,\u201d we straddle two eras.<\/p>\n As a collection, the pieces in Eyes<\/em> provide an ebb and flow between experiment and story, between sharpness and humor and even pathos. Their variance in style and approach speak of a writer who is not content to write just one thing but is reaching for the next.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Eyes: Novellas and Stories<\/em><\/p>\n William H. Gass<\/p>\n Alfred A. Knopf<\/p>\n Release date 15 Oct. 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Paul Michael Garrison Four of the six pieces in Eyes: Novellas and Stories were originally published in Conjunctions, a journal of experimentalist writing, and readers familiar with the work of William H. Gass will find that this collection exhibits some of his trademarks: off-kilter psychological complexity, narrative-eschewing storytelling, and (in \u201cThe Toy Chest\u201d) a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":540,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-written-by"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/540"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/nightowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}