The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Into the Tunnel: Readings of Gass's Novels by Steven G. Kellmann and Irving Malin
Steve Tomasula

Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin, eds. Into the Tunnel: Readings of Gass’s Novel. Univ. of Delaware Press, 1998. 172 pp. $35.00.

Into the Tunnel makes no attempt to be the ultimate word on William Gass’s novel The Tunnel. Rather, the goal of editors is to initiate discussion about one of the most baroque and philosophical novels of the century.
There are no Cliff-Notesque outlines or dense, ism-oriented critique in this freewheeling collection (only half the pieces are footnoted). Indeed, James McCourt persuasively ends his argument by simply quoting a passage and asking, “Is there a writer now alive who could top that?” The essays are reactions by very good readers who independently take up with varying degrees of rigor and humor what they find of interest in the novel. Like conversations at a smart party, twelve essays and an interview with Gass circulate around their and their guest-of-honor’s concerns: themes of hate as a home-grown product; history as a narrative that creates events; The Tunnel’s critical reception; the identification of a loathsome narrator with its author; Gass’s formal pyrotechnics, and others. Accordingly there is some overlap as well as contradiction: lively discussion that echoes the seriousness and fun of Gass’s “crime and pun,” as one contributor puts it.
Among the collection’s highlights, Donald J. Greiner articulates well the novel’s overarching themes as part of his discussion of its historicism. Rebecca Goldstein takes up the morality of its aesthetics. Arthur Saltzman also compellingly limns Gass’s philosophy in his plotless novel which draws readers through its 400,000 words by force of eloquence. Paul Maliszewski, in the collection’s major piece, examines Gass’s focus on language as the basis for his characterization, plotless construction, and importance; as it unfolds, the essay itself becomes a philosophical act, a critique of naive realism. [Steve Tomasula]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Into the Tunnel: Readings of Gass's Novels by Steven G. Kellmann and Irving Malin Steve Tomasula Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin, eds. Into the Tunnel: Readings of Gass’s Novel. Univ. of Delaware Press, 1998. 172 pp. $35.00. Into the Tunnel makes no attempt to be the ultimate word on William Gass’s novel The Tunnel. Rather, the goal of editors is to initiate discussion about one of the most baroque and philosophical novels of the century. There are no Cliff-Notesque outlines or dense, ism-oriented critique in this freewheeling collection (only half the pieces are footnoted). Indeed, James McCourt persuasively ends his argument by simply quoting a passage and asking, “Is there a writer now alive who could top that?” The essays are reactions by very good readers who independently take up with varying degrees of rigor and humor what they find of interest in the novel. Like conversations at a smart party, twelve essays and an interview with Gass circulate around their and their guest-of-honor’s concerns: themes of hate as a home-grown product; history as a narrative that creates events; The Tunnel’s critical reception; the identification of a loathsome narrator with its author; Gass’s formal pyrotechnics, and others. Accordingly there is some overlap as well as contradiction: lively discussion that echoes the seriousness and fun of Gass’s “crime and pun,” as one contributor puts it. Among the collection’s highlights, Donald J. Greiner articulates well the novel’s overarching themes as part of his discussion of its historicism. Rebecca Goldstein takes up the morality of its aesthetics. Arthur Saltzman also compellingly limns Gass’s philosophy in his plotless novel which draws readers through its 400,000 words by force of eloquence. Paul Maliszewski, in the collection’s major piece, examines Gass’s focus on language as the basis for his characterization, plotless construction, and importance; as it unfolds, the essay itself becomes a philosophical act, a critique of naive realism. [Steve Tomasula]

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