William H. Gass Critical Essay | Critical Review by Merle Rubin

Critical Review by Merle Rubin

SOURCE: “Notes From a Postmodern ‘Underground Man,’” in The Christian Science Monitor, March 6, 1995, p. 13.

In the following review, Rubin offers unfavorable assessment of The Tunnel.

William H. Gass's first novel, Omensetter's Luck, was published in 1966. The Tunnel, his second full-length novel, has been more than 30 years in the works, we are told, which would place its beginnings at least three years before the publication of his first book.

In the interim, Gass has produced a modest yet considerable body of short fiction and essays that have established him as one of the more innovative and intellectually challenging writers of this era. His essays approach a variety of subjects—the art of fiction to the emotions evoked by the color blue—from expected angles, while his fiction—always experimental—bears the stamp of a serious mind at play.

The narrator and hero of The Tunnel is William Frederick Kohler, a...
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