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Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife
Disappointed by her inattentive husband/reader, Babs engages in an exuberant display of the physical charms of language to entice an illicit new lover: a man named Gelvin in one sense, but more importantly, the reader of this "essay-novella" which, in the years since its first appearance in 1968 as a supplement to TriQuarterly, has attained the status of a postmodernist classic.
Like Laurence Sterne and Lewis Carroll before him, Gass uses a variety of visual devices: photographs, comic-strip balloons, different typefaces, parallel story lines (sometimes three or four to the page), even coffee stains. As Larry McCaffery has pointed out, "the lonesome lady of the book's title, who is gradually revealed to be lady language herself, creates an elaborate series of devices which she hopes will draw attention to her slighted charms [and] force the reader to confront what she literally is: a physically exciting literary text."
Like Laurence Sterne and Lewis Carroll before him, Gass uses a variety of visual devices: photographs, comic-strip balloons, different typefaces, parallel story lines (sometimes three or four to the page), even coffee stains. As Larry McCaffery has pointed out, "the lonesome lady of the book's title, who is gradually revealed to be lady language herself, creates an elaborate series of devices which she hopes will draw attention to her slighted charms [and] force the reader to confront what she literally is: a physically exciting literary text."
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
William H. Gass
66 books738 followersWilliam Howard Gass was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and former philosophy professor.
Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Warren, Ohio, where he attended local schools. He has described his childhood as an unhappy one, with an abusive, racist father and a passive, alcoholic mother; critics would later cite his characters as having these same qualities.
He attended Wesleyan University, then served as an Ensign in the Navy during World War II, a period he describes as perhaps the worst of his life. He earned his A.B. in philosophy from Kenyon College in 1947, then his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University in 1954, where he studied under Max Black. His dissertation, "A Philosophical Investigation of Metaphor", was based on his training as a philosopher of language. In graduate school Gass read the work of Gertrude Stein, who influenced his writing experiments.
Gass taught at The College of Wooster, Purdue University, and Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a professor of philosophy (1969 - 1978) and the David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities (1979 - 1999). His colleagues there have included the writers Stanley Elkin, Howard Nemerov (1988 Poet Laureate of the United States), and Mona Van Duyn (1992 Poet Laureate). Since 2000, Gass has been the David May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities.
Earning a living for himself and his family from university teaching, Gass began to publish stories that were selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of 1959, 1961, 1962, 1968 and 1980, as well as Two Hundred Years of Great American Short Stories. His first novel, Omensetter's Luck, about life in a small town in Ohio in the 1890s, was published in 1966. Critics praised his linguistic virtuosity, establishing him as an important writer of fiction. In 1968 he published In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, five stories dramatizing the theme of human isolation and the difficulty of love. Three years later Gass wrote Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife, an experimental novella illustrated with photographs and typographical constructs intended to help readers free themselves from the linear conventions of narrative. He has also published several collections of essays, including On Being Blue (1976) and Finding a Form (1996). His latest work of fiction, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas, was published in 1998. His work has also appeared in The Best American Essays collections of 1986, 1992, and 2000.
Gass has cited the anger he felt during his childhood as a major influence on his work, even stating that he writes "to get even." Despite his prolific output, he has said that writing is difficult for him. In fact, his epic novel The Tunnel, published in 1995, took Gass 26 years to compose. An unabridged audio version of The Tunnel was released in 2006, with Gass reading the novel himself.
When writing, Gass typically devotes enormous attention to the construction of sentences, arguing their importance as the basis of his work. His prose has been described as flashy, difficult, edgy, masterful, inventive, and musical. Steven Moore, writing in The Washington Post has called Gass "the finest prose stylist in America." Much of Gass' work is metafictional.
Gass has received many awards and honors, including grants from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1965, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1970. He won the Pushcart Prize awards in 1976, 1983, 1987, and 1992, and in 1994 he received the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literature of the Midwest. He has teaching awards from Purdue University and Washington University; in 1968 the Chicago Tribune Award as One of the Ten Best Teachers in the Big Ten. He was a Getty Foundation Fellow in 1991-1992. He received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997; and the American Book Award for The
Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Warren, Ohio, where he attended local schools. He has described his childhood as an unhappy one, with an abusive, racist father and a passive, alcoholic mother; critics would later cite his characters as having these same qualities.
He attended Wesleyan University, then served as an Ensign in the Navy during World War II, a period he describes as perhaps the worst of his life. He earned his A.B. in philosophy from Kenyon College in 1947, then his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University in 1954, where he studied under Max Black. His dissertation, "A Philosophical Investigation of Metaphor", was based on his training as a philosopher of language. In graduate school Gass read the work of Gertrude Stein, who influenced his writing experiments.
Gass taught at The College of Wooster, Purdue University, and Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a professor of philosophy (1969 - 1978) and the David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities (1979 - 1999). His colleagues there have included the writers Stanley Elkin, Howard Nemerov (1988 Poet Laureate of the United States), and Mona Van Duyn (1992 Poet Laureate). Since 2000, Gass has been the David May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities.
Earning a living for himself and his family from university teaching, Gass began to publish stories that were selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of 1959, 1961, 1962, 1968 and 1980, as well as Two Hundred Years of Great American Short Stories. His first novel, Omensetter's Luck, about life in a small town in Ohio in the 1890s, was published in 1966. Critics praised his linguistic virtuosity, establishing him as an important writer of fiction. In 1968 he published In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, five stories dramatizing the theme of human isolation and the difficulty of love. Three years later Gass wrote Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife, an experimental novella illustrated with photographs and typographical constructs intended to help readers free themselves from the linear conventions of narrative. He has also published several collections of essays, including On Being Blue (1976) and Finding a Form (1996). His latest work of fiction, Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas, was published in 1998. His work has also appeared in The Best American Essays collections of 1986, 1992, and 2000.
Gass has cited the anger he felt during his childhood as a major influence on his work, even stating that he writes "to get even." Despite his prolific output, he has said that writing is difficult for him. In fact, his epic novel The Tunnel, published in 1995, took Gass 26 years to compose. An unabridged audio version of The Tunnel was released in 2006, with Gass reading the novel himself.
When writing, Gass typically devotes enormous attention to the construction of sentences, arguing their importance as the basis of his work. His prose has been described as flashy, difficult, edgy, masterful, inventive, and musical. Steven Moore, writing in The Washington Post has called Gass "the finest prose stylist in America." Much of Gass' work is metafictional.
Gass has received many awards and honors, including grants from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1965, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1970. He won the Pushcart Prize awards in 1976, 1983, 1987, and 1992, and in 1994 he received the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literature of the Midwest. He has teaching awards from Purdue University and Washington University; in 1968 the Chicago Tribune Award as One of the Ten Best Teachers in the Big Ten. He was a Getty Foundation Fellow in 1991-1992. He received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997; and the American Book Award for The
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
September 7, 2020
Reads like an appendix to The Tunnel. For Gass enthusiasts, it represents a departure into more experimentation than is really useful. Plenty of meaning can be drawn out of his alliterative sentences, but untangling the twelve fonts and piecing together the abstruse suggestions takes work. The entertainment value is limited. Luckily, it's short enough and peppered with distracting pictures. A one-of-a-kind, crude, somewhat overwrought novella. The mind as a sexual organ, the body as text, the invasion of literary techniques. Prose poetry. But you have to turn multiple pages to connect the narrative dots due to constant interruptions mid-sentence.
Read
May 20, 2017Ask Professor Gass :: how a word looks, how a word moves and dances, how a word feels, how it smells and tastes like deep Islay malt. Ask too about the sound which those words sing. What a word means? Yes words mean, too, but that is not all. Words are things and they belong to our world in more dimensionality that mere meaning, pointing, indicating. Words live on lips, wriggle in writing upon creamy white pages. Look at them not through them. They are not transparent. They are dense with being.
Gass’s words are described as baroque but we should go further back through art history to the medieval ages and think on their highest artistic achievement, the stained glass windows which gave life to the sepulchers which are their stone cathedrals. Those rosy-glassed windows were not for the eye to go through, but to. The window was for itself; for us it is just itself. The eye lands upon its panes, not yonder upon something not it. Just so does the eye and the ear and the panoply of senses land upon Gass’s words. Through them comes to us a certain light; not a thing enlightened for us, but the light itself. This contortion of things which are not words and are not stained glass is art itself; not to bring things closer to us, but to create for us the very thing we witness. Gass’s words do not mean, or they do not only mean, they are not only signs which might efface themselves, but are the very stuff of how we might imagine imagination imagining ourselves.
Gass’s words are described as baroque but we should go further back through art history to the medieval ages and think on their highest artistic achievement, the stained glass windows which gave life to the sepulchers which are their stone cathedrals. Those rosy-glassed windows were not for the eye to go through, but to. The window was for itself; for us it is just itself. The eye lands upon its panes, not yonder upon something not it. Just so does the eye and the ear and the panoply of senses land upon Gass’s words. Through them comes to us a certain light; not a thing enlightened for us, but the light itself. This contortion of things which are not words and are not stained glass is art itself; not to bring things closer to us, but to create for us the very thing we witness. Gass’s words do not mean, or they do not only mean, they are not only signs which might efface themselves, but are the very stuff of how we might imagine imagination imagining ourselves.
Read
February 16, 2022"…the pre-MZD typographical trickeries are the star of this labyrinthine shit show…"
You can read my full review for free here: https://thecollidescope.com/2022/01/3...
You can read my full review for free here: https://thecollidescope.com/2022/01/3...
December 11, 2011
One of the funniest curios from 60s postmodernism, this typopathic novel has the bitchingest range of stretchy fonts and the craziest kerning of any apparently serious work still in print. An attempt to link “penetrating” a woman’s body to “penetrating” the body of a text, or something like that, it’s more an excuse to splice sexy nude shots of a dusky model with outrageously dated textual effects and high modernist gibberish. All right, William Gass would never accept that explanation, but hey, this was the sexy sixties—surely some of that avant-garde fairydust touched the recent writer of Omensetter’s Luck? Some of the textual effects, thought radical in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, are used here in a more condensed form in this part dense literary novella, part Playboy special. (And yes, they appear to have airbrushed out the model’s navel on the cover, sexist pigs). A fun oddity for formfreaks.
May 25, 2019
Almost exactly like or as a vigorous scromp, it lasts long enough to feel like a labor of love but not so long you wonder if anything or anyone is going to come of it. Among the many many exquisite lines I was pleased to rediscover that of the unforgettable highwayman from Omensetter's Luck, evidently so implacable he painted his way on and on, but the gist of it is that neither in literature nor love is there a clear, wide, straight, well-marked path. The mind, like this work, wanders, is blown, is bored, bored right through, nailed, holy, digressive, suggestive, abandoned, and suddenly finished.
Last year, to couple with my lapping at the Lacanian fold of libido and language, I plundered what bookish booty was at hand without, I think, squandering my time on brazen, irredeemable smut. The literary and high-theoretical explorations of the zone go hand in… … hand, and they both engage the question Zizek put pithily, which I’ll paraphrase: “The radical lesson of psychoanalysis is not that no matter what we are doing, we are thinking of ‘doing it,’ but rather what are we thinking when we are doing it?” Molly Bloom’s answer remains one of the best, but it is not the only one. We get our goo all over language and it gums up our speech. What we say is irremediably sticky, even and especially when it seems to be the last thing on our minds. Dirty talk itself is neither highly interesting nor varied; conversely, disentangling the slippery ins-and-outs of the love of language is untiring, in fact rejuvenating. The former says one thing, hammers away on one point repeatedly; the latter creates enjoyment through the very desire to say something new, to arouse by surprise. (The topic of the trails of jouissance through language is vast, mercurial, and mesmerizing, even if this amateurish solicitation fails to win any newcomers.)
Gass suggests that the endeavors of linguistic and carnal bliss are not exactly analogous but parallel, kindred. There are onanists of the page amuck and all too few authors willing and indulgent enough to get lost and invite you along. Try it, you might like it. It’s no accomplishment if there’s no challenge. In this case, a quickie at any rate, Gass seduces almost too easily. But I’m a sucker for things like this.
Last year, to couple with my lapping at the Lacanian fold of libido and language, I plundered what bookish booty was at hand without, I think, squandering my time on brazen, irredeemable smut. The literary and high-theoretical explorations of the zone go hand in… … hand, and they both engage the question Zizek put pithily, which I’ll paraphrase: “The radical lesson of psychoanalysis is not that no matter what we are doing, we are thinking of ‘doing it,’ but rather what are we thinking when we are doing it?” Molly Bloom’s answer remains one of the best, but it is not the only one. We get our goo all over language and it gums up our speech. What we say is irremediably sticky, even and especially when it seems to be the last thing on our minds. Dirty talk itself is neither highly interesting nor varied; conversely, disentangling the slippery ins-and-outs of the love of language is untiring, in fact rejuvenating. The former says one thing, hammers away on one point repeatedly; the latter creates enjoyment through the very desire to say something new, to arouse by surprise. (The topic of the trails of jouissance through language is vast, mercurial, and mesmerizing, even if this amateurish solicitation fails to win any newcomers.)
Gass suggests that the endeavors of linguistic and carnal bliss are not exactly analogous but parallel, kindred. There are onanists of the page amuck and all too few authors willing and indulgent enough to get lost and invite you along. Try it, you might like it. It’s no accomplishment if there’s no challenge. In this case, a quickie at any rate, Gass seduces almost too easily. But I’m a sucker for things like this.
September 4, 2013
Some beautiful, musical sentences, as always. Some fun and interesting typographical mischief, and some thoughtful musing on the whole text/body conundrum. Also my hardback first edition smelled amazing.
Most importantly of all, however, is the fact that I have now read all of the Genius Gass' fictional output during the last five months. I can confidently say he is one of the true greats, and possibly the most technically proficient creator of prose alive.
How would I rank them, you ask? Thusly:
The Tunnel
Cartesian Sonata
Omensetter's luck
Heart of the heart of the country
Middle c
Willie
And ne're a one would fall below a four-star love-in.
Most importantly of all, however, is the fact that I have now read all of the Genius Gass' fictional output during the last five months. I can confidently say he is one of the true greats, and possibly the most technically proficient creator of prose alive.
How would I rank them, you ask? Thusly:
The Tunnel
Cartesian Sonata
Omensetter's luck
Heart of the heart of the country
Middle c
Willie
And ne're a one would fall below a four-star love-in.
July 2, 2015
Imagination Imagining Itself Imagine
Dear me...yes, Professor...oh, you're still here...I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A NOVEL...well, you're the head of department...I think you'll like it...will it sell?...THE MAN OF IMAGINATION IS GENERALLY A MAN OF HIS TIME...you're the poet-professor...it's experimental and expansive...is it better than your poetry?...I AM A PRO...this is not poetry...poetry, what's that?...very amusing...LET ME WARN YOU, LET ME INSIST...the words which speak, they are the body of the speaker...she felt the terror of terminology...analyse your reluctance...WHAT'S SHE LOOK LIKE?...our girl, the fat girl...could you love me?...I could love your big tits...IT WAS A HOLLOW VICTORY...I wash my undies in the toilet...perhaps there's nothing open where you are...I am naturally impatient and you drive me mad...CATAFALQUE...I used to write the scripts myself...you the world, and I the language...is that snow love?...REHEARSE THIS CAREFULLY...I'm not human like you...wherever I am, I'm lonely...I'm an image...I TOOK MY CLOTHES OFF ON THE STAGE...I am that lady language chose to make her playhouse of...a cliche of course...I lie here naked, on my back...WHAT SHOULD I CALL YOU, HUNTRESS?...let us have a language worthy of our world...rich and well-born nouns...sluttish verbs...THE PENIS IS THE VERY INSTRUMENT AND EMBLEM OF THE IMAGINATION...metaphor must be its god...believe me, pity me...what are you reading dear?...HERE BE DRAGONS...there is in every act of imagination a disdain of utility...facts do not move me...ever wonder why they call saliva the sweet wine of love...YOU'VE BEEN HAD, FROM START TO FINISH...I knew a fellow once, entirely imaginary...he lives...now that I've got you alone down here, amongst the footnotes...YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO ART - RETURN TO LIFE.
An author's experiment might sometimes suffice as a reader's proof.
Dear me...yes, Professor...oh, you're still here...I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A NOVEL...well, you're the head of department...I think you'll like it...will it sell?...THE MAN OF IMAGINATION IS GENERALLY A MAN OF HIS TIME...you're the poet-professor...it's experimental and expansive...is it better than your poetry?...I AM A PRO...this is not poetry...poetry, what's that?...very amusing...LET ME WARN YOU, LET ME INSIST...the words which speak, they are the body of the speaker...she felt the terror of terminology...analyse your reluctance...WHAT'S SHE LOOK LIKE?...our girl, the fat girl...could you love me?...I could love your big tits...IT WAS A HOLLOW VICTORY...I wash my undies in the toilet...perhaps there's nothing open where you are...I am naturally impatient and you drive me mad...CATAFALQUE...I used to write the scripts myself...you the world, and I the language...is that snow love?...REHEARSE THIS CAREFULLY...I'm not human like you...wherever I am, I'm lonely...I'm an image...I TOOK MY CLOTHES OFF ON THE STAGE...I am that lady language chose to make her playhouse of...a cliche of course...I lie here naked, on my back...WHAT SHOULD I CALL YOU, HUNTRESS?...let us have a language worthy of our world...rich and well-born nouns...sluttish verbs...THE PENIS IS THE VERY INSTRUMENT AND EMBLEM OF THE IMAGINATION...metaphor must be its god...believe me, pity me...what are you reading dear?...HERE BE DRAGONS...there is in every act of imagination a disdain of utility...facts do not move me...ever wonder why they call saliva the sweet wine of love...YOU'VE BEEN HAD, FROM START TO FINISH...I knew a fellow once, entirely imaginary...he lives...now that I've got you alone down here, amongst the footnotes...YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO ART - RETURN TO LIFE.
An author's experiment might sometimes suffice as a reader's proof.
April 12, 2019
So, yes, this is going to be full of spoilers. But who cares? I’m writing for me. And trying to approximate Gass’ hate.
What does he hate? That writing is a vulnerability? A display? That writing is like baring one’s soul, like baring one’s body? For people to drool? For people to judge?
Yes, so the main conceit is somewhat disappointing. And maybe histrionic. That the reader and the text (because that’s all that remains of the author) are parallel to a man and woman in copulation. That a reader’s own expectations, patience, attitudes and abilities are constituents of the enjoyment of the act (of reading).
So, obviously this fails because, heteronormativity (and many, many other extensions that go flaccid under scrutiny) but if you can avoid the gag reflex, there’s something that can come out of a charitable read=“Metaphor must be its god now gods are metaphors.” (61)
Perhaps the title is missing a comma after Willie, perhaps a ? at the end? An apostrophic danger is reading masters as a verb.
Is Willie Gass married to language? Is the language that he loves lonely and under-appreciated? Does he no longer love it, but is simply committed because of a vow he once swore? Is his wife exposed and looking for new lovers? If so, our metaphor points up consent, but in a way that undermines its importance by making it absurd.
The airbrushing of the belly button on the front cover suggests that the work is not born until the reader has interacted, which explains why the torso reappears on the final page with a coffee blotch highlighting the contrast, an indicator of birth and previous blood-lashed dependence. That makes ole Willie Gass both the lascivious husband AND the mother of the nude model, the image, the particular arrangement of language. Does that make the reader the umbilical cord or a midwife? I dunno man, it was, like, the 60’s man.
Regardless, we are implicated from start to finish, from cover to cover, forced to reflect on our own attractions or repulsions.
What a piece of work.
What does he hate? That writing is a vulnerability? A display? That writing is like baring one’s soul, like baring one’s body? For people to drool? For people to judge?
Yes, so the main conceit is somewhat disappointing. And maybe histrionic. That the reader and the text (because that’s all that remains of the author) are parallel to a man and woman in copulation. That a reader’s own expectations, patience, attitudes and abilities are constituents of the enjoyment of the act (of reading).
So, obviously this fails because, heteronormativity (and many, many other extensions that go flaccid under scrutiny) but if you can avoid the gag reflex, there’s something that can come out of a charitable read=“Metaphor must be its god now gods are metaphors.” (61)
Perhaps the title is missing a comma after Willie, perhaps a ? at the end? An apostrophic danger is reading masters as a verb.
Is Willie Gass married to language? Is the language that he loves lonely and under-appreciated? Does he no longer love it, but is simply committed because of a vow he once swore? Is his wife exposed and looking for new lovers? If so, our metaphor points up consent, but in a way that undermines its importance by making it absurd.
The airbrushing of the belly button on the front cover suggests that the work is not born until the reader has interacted, which explains why the torso reappears on the final page with a coffee blotch highlighting the contrast, an indicator of birth and previous blood-lashed dependence. That makes ole Willie Gass both the lascivious husband AND the mother of the nude model, the image, the particular arrangement of language. Does that make the reader the umbilical cord or a midwife? I dunno man, it was, like, the 60’s man.
Regardless, we are implicated from start to finish, from cover to cover, forced to reflect on our own attractions or repulsions.
What a piece of work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2020
More power to anyone who enjoys reading annoying books, but this is why I don't read postmodernism by men anymore. Mercifully short.
March 7, 2013
This novella was composed as an experiment. Therefore, it has some moments of brilliance mixed in with a lot of flailing. I read this along with the Dalkey Archive casebook (minus the Tristam Shandy comparison material, which I haven’t read), and I found that material useful for helping me interpret what Gass was trying to get at. In final analysis, I found myself enjoying the photos of the dusky model rather more than the sections with four narratives blaring on the page at once. Does that make me a heel? Likely. Does it make me a shallow reader? Probably. Was it worth the time and effort to read this short Postmodernist outburst? Definitely.
August 3, 2017
"Do not drink rainwater directly after copulation, because the beverage weakens the kidneys."
That was an interesting read. Flippity flippity, back and forth, back and forth. *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Gass sure knows how to use words to make pretty sentences
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************I liked it.
Coffee stains and boobs.
That was an interesting read. Flippity flippity, back and forth, back and forth. *********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Gass sure knows how to use words to make pretty sentences
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************I liked it.
Coffee stains and boobs.
December 26, 2015
Review #23 of "Year of the Review All Read Books"
My first impression was finding on Goodreads that it was listed as 62 pages and thinking there was no way it was even that long. But it was because I physically counted the pages, pictures included, and I did this because there's no page count on the bottom of the page. There's a line in the book in which Babs equates her age with the number of pages in the book--but would that have been for the original TriQuarterly printing, or for this one? Or is it one of those neat little writing tricks that still works no matter the different enumerations of pages.
Now then what's the point? the point is that you'll never be able to take me seriously: nymph, drawled, pussywillow, clientle, Frank.
The book is a work of jazz. The main thrust is obvious, the parallels of a woman and a book being shared among multiple men and readers, but the large majority of the text is an author exercising in digressions ranging in the visual text itself, the musicality and rhythm of the language, to lingo-philosophical meditations and about a dozen other tricks.
Much of the reading is pleasurable in the same manner of Joyce of Ulysses. But compared to that mammoth, this is a quick fling, befittingly so. For such a conceptual novel, Gass on many occasions has a great gift for sensory experience: describing physical bodies, fat folds, flatulence, even one image of a "lifetime of shit in a bath tub."
The book is both a progenitor of the Danielewskis and DFWs as much as it was an echo or spirit dressing itself in the corpse of Joyce. And yet praising this beautiful prose and fancy literary techniques is like praising the body of the whore, shouldn't I be striving to praise something deeper? Or is it even possible with how little time she gives me despite the fact that she bemoans my leaving--sorry Babs you could have gone on longer, I probably would have paid more too. I've found that the book works a little too well as the whore, because it was fun while it lasted, but I did not fall in love. Maybe there wasn't enough there, maybe it was a practiced art on the whore's behalf, or maybe I just have different standards, but hey, I can at least knock this one off my bucket list.
My first impression was finding on Goodreads that it was listed as 62 pages and thinking there was no way it was even that long. But it was because I physically counted the pages, pictures included, and I did this because there's no page count on the bottom of the page. There's a line in the book in which Babs equates her age with the number of pages in the book--but would that have been for the original TriQuarterly printing, or for this one? Or is it one of those neat little writing tricks that still works no matter the different enumerations of pages.
Now then what's the point? the point is that you'll never be able to take me seriously: nymph, drawled, pussywillow, clientle, Frank.
The book is a work of jazz. The main thrust is obvious, the parallels of a woman and a book being shared among multiple men and readers, but the large majority of the text is an author exercising in digressions ranging in the visual text itself, the musicality and rhythm of the language, to lingo-philosophical meditations and about a dozen other tricks.
Much of the reading is pleasurable in the same manner of Joyce of Ulysses. But compared to that mammoth, this is a quick fling, befittingly so. For such a conceptual novel, Gass on many occasions has a great gift for sensory experience: describing physical bodies, fat folds, flatulence, even one image of a "lifetime of shit in a bath tub."
The book is both a progenitor of the Danielewskis and DFWs as much as it was an echo or spirit dressing itself in the corpse of Joyce. And yet praising this beautiful prose and fancy literary techniques is like praising the body of the whore, shouldn't I be striving to praise something deeper? Or is it even possible with how little time she gives me despite the fact that she bemoans my leaving--sorry Babs you could have gone on longer, I probably would have paid more too. I've found that the book works a little too well as the whore, because it was fun while it lasted, but I did not fall in love. Maybe there wasn't enough there, maybe it was a practiced art on the whore's behalf, or maybe I just have different standards, but hey, I can at least knock this one off my bucket list.
April 3, 2020
It says in the summary that this book is a "homage to the pleasures of language". Well, to me it was not.
It is a playful play with fonts, the positioning of the text on the page, and graphics. The footnotes are more interesting than everything above them.
The process of reading was more absorbing than the text itself.
However, Gass certainly has a sentiment to my beloved Gertrude Stein, and there is a mention of her in one of the footnotes: "...this is what is called a literary - a Steinian - stutter...". Like-like.
It is a playful play with fonts, the positioning of the text on the page, and graphics. The footnotes are more interesting than everything above them.
The process of reading was more absorbing than the text itself.
However, Gass certainly has a sentiment to my beloved Gertrude Stein, and there is a mention of her in one of the footnotes: "...this is what is called a literary - a Steinian - stutter...". Like-like.
April 18, 2011
I'm not sure I would have liked this book so much had I a later edition. Ordering from the internet, I got a copy from the New York Public Library on 53rd Street. The hardcover initially cost $3.95 and late fees were 10 cents a day. Only one person ever checked it out, and this was September 4, 1979, eight years after it was published. This radical version consists of both newspaper-quality paper and heavy stock glossy paper, sandwiched between black lightweight cardstock. The effect suggests a handmade book-arts project. I've seen the paperback and the photos aren't nearly as cool--the contrast is turned up just enough that a lot of the detail ws lost. The nudes in the 1971 are full of the kind of detail that make the models human--wrinkles, shadows, skin tones despite black and white. If all this doesn't convince you, consider the image on the cover. The old version depicts a woman sucking her tummy in, but a small pot of fat and a semieven bellybutton. The newer version--OH MY FUCKING GOD--they actually Photoshopped her bellybutton out in order to make the woman less fat. Not only is this a blatantly offensive design choice (suggesting women need to be less fat to sell a book), but it betrays the nature of the book.
The nature of the book: Without William Gass, Poe's brother might not have sold his insane little tome. As you turn the pages, you'll see all kinsd of fonts, as well as signs that most oftend resonate with the text but not always. You'll see interrupted voices, changing voices, differing tones. You'll see pages manipulated using a photocopy machine to achieve curve, increasing or decreasing font size for effect, an occasional callout that only sometimes and only vaguely explain the text (if at all)--callouts like, "I salute you, with great affection and regard, for the last time," aside the main body text, "The Germans had to slav the stack out with a bulgar serb of croat they had hungarian a pole--back and forth, up an ddown, round and round, over and over--until there wasn't a bit of greece roumanian." This dissonance is charming, but preferable in small doses rather than in one great cover-to-cover read. Bits of more coherent text give the reader a break, but this is the kind of book you have to chew on for a while and get used to slowly. Like when you travel to another country and you get used to the food slowly, apathetically at first, then with deepening affection. One day you're back in your country, thinking, Wish I had some of that strange lovely food.
The nature of the book: Without William Gass, Poe's brother might not have sold his insane little tome. As you turn the pages, you'll see all kinsd of fonts, as well as signs that most oftend resonate with the text but not always. You'll see interrupted voices, changing voices, differing tones. You'll see pages manipulated using a photocopy machine to achieve curve, increasing or decreasing font size for effect, an occasional callout that only sometimes and only vaguely explain the text (if at all)--callouts like, "I salute you, with great affection and regard, for the last time," aside the main body text, "The Germans had to slav the stack out with a bulgar serb of croat they had hungarian a pole--back and forth, up an ddown, round and round, over and over--until there wasn't a bit of greece roumanian." This dissonance is charming, but preferable in small doses rather than in one great cover-to-cover read. Bits of more coherent text give the reader a break, but this is the kind of book you have to chew on for a while and get used to slowly. Like when you travel to another country and you get used to the food slowly, apathetically at first, then with deepening affection. One day you're back in your country, thinking, Wish I had some of that strange lovely food.
April 24, 2010
Well, what can you say about this? Gass intended this "novel" to be a statement/manifesto. Once you get past the wife/text parallelism, which is very witty, it feels as if Gass' potential were wasted. There's some funny parts, some cute fragments, but as a whole it just isn't all that enthralling. Still, it's a peculiar enough read for those interested on fiction wankery. It's good to see Gass' concept of metaphor assaulting the reader in such a way (honestly, if I knew nothing of the author I'd probably think this to be half-assed), and there's a slight reminiscense of Barthes' "Pleasure of Text" (written after this was published), but on a whole it's evident Gass is attempting an experiment and mostly failing at it. For instance, the attempts to create a paralel between sounds and music, or, at least, between utterances of words; or those based on visuals, remain dubious. So, overall, I think Gass achieves a genuine height in displaying how penetrating a vagina is close to reading a book, but that's about it. And let's not try to put into practice a feminist perspective - that could turn out to be catastrophic.
Here's a quote from the author himself (extracted from his Paris Review interview), explaining what's wrong about this book: "Too many of my ideas turned out to be only ideas -- situations where the reader says, 'Oh yeah, I get the idea', but that's all there is to get, the idea. I don't give a shit for ideas -- which in fiction represent inadequately embodied projects -- I care only for affective effects."
Here's a quote from the author himself (extracted from his Paris Review interview), explaining what's wrong about this book: "Too many of my ideas turned out to be only ideas -- situations where the reader says, 'Oh yeah, I get the idea', but that's all there is to get, the idea. I don't give a shit for ideas -- which in fiction represent inadequately embodied projects -- I care only for affective effects."
September 18, 2016
A literary version of Magritte's "Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe" or "The Treachery Of Images" about how a painting of a pipe is not an actual pipe, but a painting of the sign/symbol of a pipe. Here Gass conflates a text about a woman and her sexuality with the artefact of a book and the fact that you the reader are reading a text about a woman and her body, but such a body doesn't actually exist (except in your mind).
It starts off with really interesting and evocative imagery but then as it goes on, with up to 4 different narratives on a page it runs out of juice a bit and loses that fifth star for me. Very 60s, has it dated in our current century? I don't think it has, though some will not enjoy its experimentalism.
It starts off with really interesting and evocative imagery but then as it goes on, with up to 4 different narratives on a page it runs out of juice a bit and loses that fifth star for me. Very 60s, has it dated in our current century? I don't think it has, though some will not enjoy its experimentalism.
March 29, 2015
Het plezier van de taal getransponeerd op een vrouwenlichaam: de tekst wordt het naar liefde verlangende lijf van Willy Masters eenzame eega, die op haar beurt de oneindig duistere geheimen van de vrouwelijke geest aan haar sluwe minnaar probeert diets te maken door met taal te spelen en hem ingenieuze Molly Bloom-achtige interieure monologen naar het hoofd te slingeren. Bij momenten verbluffend, soms duizelingwekkend, steeds speels. Indertijd controversiële klassieker van het Amerikaanse postmodernisme, gelardeerd met paginagrote naaktfoto's en gezet in een visueel erg rijke typografie.
June 26, 2016
Nice typography and interesting interrupted storytelling but come-on give me something to hold on to. Brilliant call to arms for language lovers on the last page - plenty of 60s bile and spit.
August 15, 2017
Reading Gass is like walking straight out of high school algebra into graduate calculus: if the calculus was taught by your future wife.
April 19, 2018
Published during the height of the metafiction craze (1968), Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife is like many such metafictional texts: clever, less deep than the author thinks, and over-praised. The premise of the text is the supposed stream of consciousness of the wife, who could be an Angela, or an Olga, or have some other name. The text is a kind of update of the Penelope chapter of Joyce's Ulysses in which the wife's free flow of ideas ranges across several domains of thought while she is possibly masturbating, and if not then certainly thinking about sex. The updating arrives in several different ways. One is the husband, who is only sometimes Willie Masters, is not the gentle buffoon that Leopold Bloom is, but is possibly cruel or indifferent, but certainly not loving. An additional update is that the wife may be a serial adulterer and certainly imagines herself so, but she could also be a prostitute, and at the very least is encouraged by her husband in her extramarital activities. However, Gass is not leaving the story at the level of stream of consciousness. He wants the reader to know that this technique is just that - a technique, a mere artistry. Gass does this by drawing repeated equivalencies between the wife-character and the book. Is Willie Masters' lonesome wife the character or the book she is in? Willie, of course, is short for William and the author is ostensible "master" of the text, so is the novel the author's "real" wife? Gass further borrows from and extends Joyce's techniques by using multiple typefaces and literary genres within the same story. The extension is that Gass brings these strands together on the same page, so that competing elements of the text spill across and interfere with each other, forcing the reader to choose what to read when and how to fit it into the visual puzzle that these competing fragments form. The reader is to understand that the book is not just the imaginary world encoded in the words, but the object housing those words, a thing manufactured, to be treated tactilely, as one perhaps touches a lover. Throughout runs the drumbeat insistence - this is just art. "You've been had from start to finish" the book says late in the story, and near the very end the reader is warned off the danger of "falling into art." Thus, this novel perfectly exemplifies the antagonistic relationship that artistic writers of the twentieth century so often took toward the readers of their works. The reader is to be treated as an enemy. The reader is made out as a fool for believing that he/she could derive anything so mundane as "meaning" from a story. The reader's pitiable demands on the author for realism, relevance, even artistic integrity are derided and belittled. The reader, according to the writer, abuses the wife/book with the demands that she perform like a hooker or a player in a cheap burlesque. But, were readers of artistic fiction at the very least ever as naïve as Gass and other academic metafictionists make them out to be? Did such readers ever really mistake art for reality? Better metafictions, such as those by Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, invite readers to play the game of fiction rather than brusquely shove the reader away. Thus, this novel is indeed clever in its puzzle-piece connections of semantics, teleology, and phenomenology, but the effort is devoted to making a point that isn't really one.
July 3, 2023
“I am. Back now, of course, composing myself again, full of liberty, creation, and my claw. Now then what's the point? The point is that you'll never be able to take me seriously: nymph, crawdad, pussywillow, clientle, Frank. Remember when Frank was a fine name? It's just the same with me. In language, there's no imagination without music, because music is the movement of imagination. But who can take imagination seriously when it binds its words with threads of feeling like spiders fill their webs with flies. Not alone because they eat them. You'll never be able to take me seriously, and that's proper, because, well, I'm different, aren't I? . . . because, well, I'm different aren't I? . . . Because, well, I'm different, aren't I? Like a funny foreigner, I wash my undies in the toilet. My wife's name is not Hortense, not possibly. I have bah for the hinge of my knee, lar for my ear lobe, lemon for the lashes of my smoothly sawn eyes. I make none of the regular connections. I tune myself to inner appetites and down-below designs. Facts do not move me. Often I ignore them. Logic is like Lapland. Alone, I never go there. Say. I feel a breeze through my kidneys. It doesn't reach you? Perhaps there's nothing open where you are.”
- -
“When a letter comes, if you will follow me, there is no author fastened to it like the stamp; the words which speak, they are the body of the speaker. It's just the same with me. These words are all I am. Believe me. Pity me. Not even the Dane is any more than that. Oh, I'm the girl upon this couch, all right, you needn't fear; the one who's waltzed you through these pages, clothed and bare, who's hated you for her humili-ations, sought your love, just as the striptease dancer does, soliciting male eyes for cash and feeling the light against her like a swelling organ. Could you love me? Love me then . . . then love me . . . Yes. I know. I can't command it. Yet I should love, if ever you would let me, like a laser, burning through all foolish ceremonials of modesty and custom, cutting pieties of price and parentage, inheritance and privilege, away like stale sweet cake to sick a dog.”
- -
“When a letter comes, if you will follow me, there is no author fastened to it like the stamp; the words which speak, they are the body of the speaker. It's just the same with me. These words are all I am. Believe me. Pity me. Not even the Dane is any more than that. Oh, I'm the girl upon this couch, all right, you needn't fear; the one who's waltzed you through these pages, clothed and bare, who's hated you for her humili-ations, sought your love, just as the striptease dancer does, soliciting male eyes for cash and feeling the light against her like a swelling organ. Could you love me? Love me then . . . then love me . . . Yes. I know. I can't command it. Yet I should love, if ever you would let me, like a laser, burning through all foolish ceremonials of modesty and custom, cutting pieties of price and parentage, inheritance and privilege, away like stale sweet cake to sick a dog.”
March 20, 2024
On one level this is Gass providing a cheeky linguistic version of what he thinks making love to a woman is like, but on another level this is Gass imagining himself as a woman -- him as writer, and therefore the language itself, and therefore (because this is how he conceptualizes it, I suppose) woman. He teases, he mystifies, he seduces, he mocks and humiliates, and he abstrusely beckons for the adoration of the reader, the masculine, the penetrator, the interpreter. Gass, just like in The Tunnel, does those things like naming a character after himself, bamboozling the reader for the fun of it, posing obstacles and challenges to force the audience to prove their respect for the text. He is being cheeky -- he must not be taken at face value.
On another another level, this is a post-modern funhouse of aesthetic pleasures. The colored pages, multitudes of fonts, coffee rings, softcore photography, etc. This absolutely must be read in its original publication form. I'm dazzled by the display, and how integral it is to the piece, and wish even more that The Tunnel could have been actualized in the similar way that Gass originally envisioned it.
On another another level, this is a post-modern funhouse of aesthetic pleasures. The colored pages, multitudes of fonts, coffee rings, softcore photography, etc. This absolutely must be read in its original publication form. I'm dazzled by the display, and how integral it is to the piece, and wish even more that The Tunnel could have been actualized in the similar way that Gass originally envisioned it.
October 4, 2020
This is a wildly inventive formal experiment. Its content is of variable quality, thus it's not a perfect work. But it is partly meant to exasperate and bore while titillating. It is meant to mix up our thoughts and feelings. The most interesting question this book provokes is how to read it: with care as literature? Flipped through for lewd pictures as one would a Playboy? Does one read it as a collage, with mood and tone the most important features? Or should one match the dozen or so different fonts to one another and read them as sets, frequently flipping back and forth? All these make us aware of: A. The book as a physical object, B. The book as an idealist form, and C. Our act or interpreting (or refusing to do so/resting in uncertainty). Above all this is an exploration of the book, conjoined with a crude sexual metaphor (we penetrate a woman and a text and must take care to her/its particularities to experience her/it on her/its own terms, or we take our own shallow, premature pleasures at the expense of caring of her/its own agency).
November 18, 2019
цікавий експеримент - оголені фото оповідачки+божевільна гра зі шрифтами+декілька оповідей на сторінці+плями від кавової чашки+цілковито ніякий текст, головна мета якого, вочевидь, передати стадії жіночого збудження. у першому виданні навіть колір сторінок був відповідний: сині, зелені, червоні та 7 глянцево-білих - так Ґесс уявляв собі оргазм. шкода, що Ґесс так і недоуявив нормальний художній текст.
June 4, 2022
If you happen to already be in a library for some good reason and this just happens to be on a shelf that you don't have to walk too far to get to, plus you have a free 15 minutes with which nothing pressing is demanding your attention - then go ahead, there is nothing better to do, attempt to make sense of this "art" (follow the likewise typography). Not much to admire and the ancient b&w nudie pics are horrible.
Rant aside - go read everything else by Gass immediately.
Rant aside - go read everything else by Gass immediately.
February 20, 2024
No one can imagine- simply- merely; one must imagine within words or paint or metal, communicating genes or multiplying numbers. Imagination is its medium realized. You are your body- you do not choose the feet you walk in- and the poet is his language. He sees his world, and words form in his eyes just like the streams and trees there. He feels everything verbally. Objects, passions, actions…
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June 21, 2023Such a tiny book. Such a large puzzle. There is much to unpack and piece together. I will have to wait to rate this when I put together the fonts and the passages and read it in the more connected manner. Gass, as always, fills the pages with beautiful sentences and thoughts.
Read
January 10, 2024hard to really gather thoughts on this since its only sort of a comprehensive book? what i will say is that there are some beautiful sentences sprawled out and tucked away among these incomprehensibly strewn paragraphs
February 5, 2018
Gass, the genius, goes so far further than himself linguistically that he returns to a somewhat fundamentally, well, 'base,' base.
January 13, 2019
It's like House of Leaves in a way except stupid.
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