Customer Reviews

Pricksongs & Descants: Fictions

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Somehow, over the years, Robert Coover has been denied the status he deserves as one of America's most original and celebrated satirists of all things red white & blue. Although almost 40 years old now, this collection of short stories still displays Coover's protean talents at their most kaleidoscopic, despite the fact these works came early in his long career.

In each of his stories, Coover takes iconic items of 20th Century American culture and holds them up to fun-house mirrors. Sometimes the Coover-modified images reveal a dark underbelly to myth, sometimes they are manically funny and sometimes they're simply warped -- but at all times, they move at breakneck speed and the wordcraft is nonpareil.

While one by no means has to be a student of American iconography to appreciate these stories, the greater one's understanding of suburban mythology he or she brings to the party, the more he or she will take away.

Coover's complex, yet extremely approachable writing gives readers the choice at what level they wish to read his work. They can be read as biting commentary on America's social mores or -- even better -- as a dazzling, runaway roller coaster ride taken for no other reason than the unadulterated joy of it. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee...........

Coover's name is typically mentioned alongside postmodern / metafiction masters like Barth, Barthelme, Borges and Calvino (one heck of a law firm, there), and Pricksongs & Descants is usually cited as his breakthrough book. While I agree that he's certainly exploring similar terrain, and that P&D definitely has some innovative, standout moments, I don't think Coover's work here is of quite the same caliber.

For one thing, it's often not a lot of fun to read. Most of the stories in this volume have at least some basis is fairytale, fable, myth or fantasy, which Coover then twists and extrudes through a sort of probability engine, revealing myriad possible outcomes. The sections of his nonlinear stories seem a bit like slices from a 'choose your own adventure' book, and combined with his penchant for dark, psychosexual drama, the result is occasionally intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying.

With Coover, there's a feeling that cleverness is paramount. As William H. Gass observed in a largely enthusiastic 1969 review, "this is a book of virtuoso exercises: alert, self-conscious, instructional and show-off. Look at me, look at me, look at me now..." With its tricks and twists, the book practically fawns for admiration, though while controlled and technically accomplished, Coover's writing seems to lack a lot of genuine heart or generosity of spirit. This was a well that often drained me as a reader, rather than filling me up.

That being said, Coover's 'shuffled deck' technique reaches its apotheosis in "The Babysitter," a remarkable story that explodes the latent psychosexual tensions of suburban life with stunning ingenuity, what Gass called "a remarkable fugue -- the stock fears and wishes, desires and dangers of our time done into Bach." Though much of P&D failed to mean much for me, this story was a revelation. Whether you decide to go in for the whole book or not, read "The Babysitter." Twice.