The Review of Contemporary Fiction

A Reader's Guide to Twentieth Century Writers by Peter Parker
John O'Brien

Peter Parker, ed., Frank Kermode, consulting ed. A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth Century Writers. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. 825 pp. $35.00.

This kind of guide never particularly succeeds, omitting writers who should be included, including ones who shouldn’t, giving simplistic overviews of the works, entries never long enough and yet––given what is usually said––also thankfully short. This guide provides us with all of these problems and more (including a binding so cheap that it broke the first time I opened the book). The Brits are usually the worst at such creations, and the team of Parker and Kermode do not fail to live up to this reputation. So, some examples of the omissions: on the British side, though B. S. Johnson is at last included (for years the British did not want to lay claim to one of their most interesting writers, no doubt because he did not tell stories), Alan Burns and Aidan Higgins are not. On the American side, Neil Simon is included, as well as such luminaries as Erica Jong, Anne Rice, and Chaim Potok, but Gilbert Sorrentino, Paul Metcalf (whose complete works are now being published by Coffee House Press), William Eastlake, Edward Dahlberg, and Rikki Ducornet are not (the method for inclusion with the Americans was apparently arrived at by virtue of the publisher––large commercial house is good, but small publisher is bad, unless one has achieved a certain notoriety, such as Charles Bukowski). Among the Canadians, Douglas Glover, the most interesting of contemporary Canadian novelists, is excluded. Rather than excusing himself for the obvious omissions and strange inclusions, Parker defends his choices on the basis of having his volume represent authors who have an appeal to the general reader (William Gaddis and John Barth are included––no comment necessary), and says that “a very few writers have had to be excluded (none of them of great significance).” I love editors whose stupidity rises to the level of allowing them to make such statements. One final note: Harry Mathews is included, which is strange in view of those who are not, but the key to his inclusion may lie in the fact that the critic, in a very short entry, twice mentions that Mathews came from wealth and must himself be wealthy. True or not, would that Parker have explained that some writers achieved inclusion on the basis of economic background––if he had, the volume might make more sense or might even be more interesting. Oxford should consider a future volume entitled “Wealthy Writers of the Twentieth Century.” [John O’Brien]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction A Reader's Guide to Twentieth Century Writers by Peter Parker John O'Brien Peter Parker, ed., Frank Kermode, consulting ed. A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth Century Writers. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. 825 pp. $35.00. This kind of guide never particularly succeeds, omitting writers who should be included, including ones who shouldn’t, giving simplistic overviews of the works, entries never long enough and yet––given what is usually said––also thankfully short. This guide provides us with all of these problems and more (including a binding so cheap that it broke the first time I opened the book). The Brits are usually the worst at such creations, and the team of Parker and Kermode do not fail to live up to this reputation. So, some examples of the omissions: on the British side, though B. S. Johnson is at last included (for years the British did not want to lay claim to one of their most interesting writers, no doubt because he did not tell stories), Alan Burns and Aidan Higgins are not. On the American side, Neil Simon is included, as well as such luminaries as Erica Jong, Anne Rice, and Chaim Potok, but Gilbert Sorrentino, Paul Metcalf (whose complete works are now being published by Coffee House Press), William Eastlake, Edward Dahlberg, and Rikki Ducornet are not (the method for inclusion with the Americans was apparently arrived at by virtue of the publisher––large commercial house is good, but small publisher is bad, unless one has achieved a certain notoriety, such as Charles Bukowski). Among the Canadians, Douglas Glover, the most interesting of contemporary Canadian novelists, is excluded. Rather than excusing himself for the obvious omissions and strange inclusions, Parker defends his choices on the basis of having his volume represent authors who have an appeal to the general reader (William Gaddis and John Barth are included––no comment necessary), and says that “a very few writers have had to be excluded (none of them of great significance).” I love editors whose stupidity rises to the level of allowing them to make such statements. One final note: Harry Mathews is included, which is strange in view of those who are not, but the key to his inclusion may lie in the fact that the critic, in a very short entry, twice mentions that Mathews came from wealth and must himself be wealthy. True or not, would that Parker have explained that some writers achieved inclusion on the basis of economic background––if he had, the volume might make more sense or might even be more interesting. Oxford should consider a future volume entitled “Wealthy Writers of the Twentieth Century.” [John O’Brien]

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