Customer Reviews

The Tunnel (American Literature Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

If I were to tell the protagonist from The Tunnel that I had issues with his book, he'd probably just wave me sideways towards the Party for Disappointed People. Get in line, he'd sigh. Life is disappointing.

I liked the conceit of the Party for Disappointed People. I liked many of the one liners. I admired Gass' writing ability. Mostly I admired the project even if I confess that I couldn't like the book.

652 pages of dense (often unreadable) prose with a grotty poorly-endowed main character who has affairs with his students, kills his wife's cat and generally feels sorry for himself. Whoosh. It took me weeks to read, and *nothing* takes me weeks to read. I genuinely tried to follow everything in the book, but I have to confess that my grasp of his German experiences is spotty and I never really got Susu. The clearest and most readable bit was the bitchy backbiting about his colleagues in the department where he teaches. That was at least funny.

Generally, I felt like it tried way too hard to be a huge sprawling classic. I agreed with much of what it said about history and how you approach it-- again, the project is what I admired. Maybe I just couldn't feel too much for a book that seems to reject any ability to feel joy or to be anything except disappointed. I mean I *love* Beckett, but Gass isn't Beckett and I never got the feeling that he earned all that bitterness. Kohler isn't sympathetic either as a hero or as an anti-hero and while I guess that's part of the point, I didn't find that I admired the point.

Maybe I'm just not literary enough. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. Anything is possible. Read it yourself and see.

Loopy work of genius, or insane self-indulgence? I went back and forth in my opinion whilst reading this book, but ultimately, I think the only reasonable answer is "why not both?" Unfortunately, I think we can also add "catastrophic artistic failure" to the list.

On a sentence-by-sentence level, Gass's writing is absolutely dazzling, it's true. That should not be understated, because it's what redeems the book, if you think it's redeemable. One might politely question whether it was actually worth spending thirty years to write, but it's obvious where all that time went. The frequent tyographical tricks are perhaps less groundbreaking than Gass thinks they are, but they're amusing enough, and they certainly don't detract from the work. For a pure aesthete, therefore, this novel--or, perhaps, "novel"--may be just the thing. Furthermore, some of the vignettes, particularly those concerning Kohler's childhood, are fairly arresting. In particular, the section towards the end which tells of his mother's alcohol-related institutionalization is repellant but quite arresting. So while I don't want to understate the things that The Tunnel does well, I cannot help but feel that when examined holistically, things fall apart a bit. A big bit.

Kohler, the narrator, is a repulsive figure. I think few would attempt to argue otherwise. His endless, resentful self-pity--I hate my colleagues; I hate my wife; I hate my parents; I hate my children; I don't get the respect I deserve just because I'm a Nazi sympathizer and possibly also because I abuse my power to seduce my students--is enough, truly, to wear a man down. Even if some of his complaints (not the last one) may have some legitimacy (and given what a wildly unreliable narrator he is, this is by no means certain) his inability to let ANYTHING go, EVER, is not itself a particularly attractive trait. Occasionally a tiny sliver of humanity may slip through, but it is quite overwhelmed by the ever-present darkness.

So why, one might ask, are we subjected to six hundred fifty pages of EVERY SINGLE DAMN THING that goes through this man's head? Is this not a deeply perverse exercise? Gass has stated that the book is meant to serve as "a progessive indictment of the reader;" that he "want[s] to get the reader to say yes to Kohler, although Kohler is a monster. That means that every reader in that moment has admitted to monstrousness." Very well: but does he actually achieve this effect? I'm not trying to sound self-righteous, but I think that I personally must remain unindicted here. The only times it's possible not to object to Kohler is on those uncommon occasions when he's not being objectionable--and that doesn't seem like much of a feat on the author's part. As for Kohler's bitterness, his hated of everything around him, his self-identification with the Nazis: no. No, not at all. His explanations of bigotry and his rationale for the Party of Disappointed People (which is to consist primarily of bigots) are unconvincing. The point that people behave as monsters because of comprehensible socioeconomic disappointments is so obvious as to go unsaid; that doesn't mean that one has to identify with them or accept what they do. It's not a matter of not wanting to be the kind of person to whom this stuff appeals; it's a matter of it simply NOT APPEALING, and I would be a little nervous to meet someone to whom it did. You know what novel succeeded in implicating the reader--or this reader, at any rate--by making him say yes to a monster? Lolita. So it can be done. Gass just hasn't done it.

So what's left? All we really have is pages and pages of an unpleasant individual expounding upon his unpleasant life and his unpleasant philosophy. Yes, there are dirty limericks aplenty--always a plus--but most of them scan quite poorly and/or try to use the same words twice for the rhymes, so even that's a letdown. The book is impressive as a character portrait, granted, but is it really useful or informative or edifying or ANYTHING to force readers to spend so much time with this guy? Is this really the reason why people love the book so? Really? Please, someone kindly tell me: if not that, then what purpose does all of this serve? It's not a rhetorical question; I would be much obliged if somebody would enlighten me. Most of the glowing reviews seem extremely vague on exactly what, in their view, makes this a great book.

Again, I want to emphasize: the writing on display here is amazing, and it's enough to render the book at least somewhat readable. For that reason, and because there's really nothing else like it, it might be worth a go. It's certainly memorable; I hope, however, that, if completed (write faster! You're eighty-four years old!), the legendary Middle C has more to offer the reader than occasional bleak aestheticism.

The premise of the Tunnel is quite intriguing. It is is book that deceives, that doesn't even show you the truth obliquely, as Emily Dickinson put it, but instead gives you its mutilated remains and asks you to play coroner. It is a difficult read, and requires that you suspend your expectations for coherence, succinctness, logical narrative flow, and even consistency in font and formatting. In exchange, you get plugged into the raw static of a tortured mind. Is it innovative? Definitely. Is it successful? Sometimes.

Having several times emerged, soul intact, out the other end of author Gass's novel--I have read the book thrice over--nothing could be clearer than that his tunnel DOES have a beginning, as it likewise is posessed of an end. Its source is the foetidly teeming cesspool of its author's aesthetically blissful, honorably loathsome mind. Its terminus--having looped its way in non-linear transit, two steps forward, one back--the catchbasin of its reader's. Kafka's abyss, Melville's whale, Joyce's Dublin, Faulkner's Yoknapatawha, Lowry's volcano, Pynchon's movie theater, now Gass's tunnel. This is a vastly uplifting, profoundly entertaining work of art, a tour de force performance, as are all Gassian works, that succeeds in being innovative and instructive at once. Does it require "close" reading? Is it subject to multiple interpretations? Is it an exercise in form over content? Perhaps. What it requires moreso is the reader's willingness to experience its text as an act of music, as it is one of architecture. Gass typically is taken to task for "playing God" with his readers, for demanding THEIR surrender to HIS art. In fact, that is precisely what he does, and it is that alchemical quality that renders his work so divine. It is not everyday, after all, that a writer can so miraculously convert dross to gold. That "The Tunnel," more's the pity, is not for everyone, is scarcely its author's fault. We have a habit, as readers, of looking our best gifthorses in the mouth, and this novel, the writer's masterwork, is nothing if not a gift. He is a national treasure, William Howard Gass, and each of his sentences is a gesture of generosity. At last, however hateful, "The Tunnel" is that rarest of creations, a thing of sublime and subterranean beauty, one that cuts with unflinching grace and honesty against the grain of its own self-created ground. Those who fail to recognize this are no more deserving of blame than are the tone-deaf for having tin ears, but they are, perhaps, owed our condolences. Is life a tunnel? A tunnel life? Might both be true? Dig into this novel, delve, dredge, quarry, excavate. The answer awaits.

William Frederick Kohler, the protagonist of William Gass' "The Tunnel," is a loathsome, despicable, misanthropic college professor ranting at his wife, his colleagues, his children and his mistresses. The sheer genius of Gass' book is not merely that he breathes life into such a character, but that he makes him so pruriently fascinating. Gass took nearly 30 years to complete this book; the elegance and rhythm of the prose demonstrate his skilled craftsmanship throughout its nearly 700 pages. I can't wait to read it again.

This novel is utterly compelling, and once you accept the unstoppable nature of Gass's prose, you will be hooked on his unhinged and distressed language. As well as a complex character study, this book is about space, vacuums, the presence that absence leaves behind, and hence the very substance of the tunnel and not simply the dirt that surrounds it. This is as much a work of linguistic theory as it is a work of fiction, and will inhabit your life as an obsession.

Consider that William Gass created this masterpiece over roughly the same time frame it takes to pay off the average mortgage -- 652 pages in 30 years. One has to respect such care in crafting The Tunnel. How many times was this draft edited to create in essence a final draft written at the plodding, prodding pace of 22 pages per annum? Gass took more time crafting The Tunnel than Joyce did Ulysses. And it shows. The syntax is not of this world. His use of metaphor is off the charts in its creativity. There are worlds, even galaxies, in his words. The writing is sheer poetry in places -- a pure joy to read. He is honest, pithy, probing, penetrating and very often hilarious in his Notes from Underground. Like Proust I recommend that you read Gass slowly to revel in the world in his every well-placed word. There is unquestionable genius in this work as evident as the genius of William Gaddis or Joyce or Proust. Gass and Gaddis redeem the contemporary American novel and Dalkey Archive should be congratulated for its devotion to publishing American masters whom America has not yet properly recognized as such. I really can't say enough in praise of this substantive literary novel, which is profoundly wise and brilliantly crafted and even luminous as a literary legacy sure to render Gass prominent, permanent billing among the American masters of the late 20th century. Savor the writing of William Gass: real genius resides underground in The Tunnel.

As my first introduction to Gass, I found The Tunnel to be slightly daunting, but as the story kept unfolding, I found myself being more and more enraptured by the novel. The wordplay, the asides, I could not restrain myself from continuing to read the novel. The novel never moved slow since aspects of Kohler were being developed over the whole thing.

A short summary: This is a book about a history professor who just finished writing a massive book on Hitler, save the introduction. The book revolves goes through his character and life as he sits in anguish attempting to write the introduction.

The setup may seem uninteresting, but it is far more interesting than you could ever imagine. The development of Kohler and all the people around him by Gass is phenomenal and looking at the faults of Kohler and his character are astonishing. A+ book, everyone should read it, if for no other than to learn more about themselves.

One of the most daring, original works of literature I've read, if not THE most. The Tunnel's prose is massively rich, challenging and rewarding on numerous levels, making multiple future re-reads necessary and eagerly anticipated. I'm in awe of Gass's mind. He's one of the masters.

In more than one sense. Virtually every second German word and phrase in this otherwise excellent novel is either misspelled or has the wrong grammatical gender. It's Nibelungenlied, the song of the Nibelungen, not Nibelungenleid, which means something else alltogether. And it's Das Klassenzimmer, not Der. But maybe Koehler is a hack, and this is Gass's way of pointing that out. There's nothing wrong about the English, though. You'd have to read Pynchon to find prose equally elegant.