A Temple of Texts

November 7, 2005
Gass loves words. His prose is extravagant, lush, sometimes overly florid (as when he talks of Flann O'Brien's death on "the first Fools' Day of April, 1966"), and in this new collection, his words have a tendency to get in the way of his subject matter. Which is a shame, because Gass, a novelist and award-winning critic, writes about books and authors often ignored by mainstream readers: Rabelais, Robert Burton, Elias Canetti. Then again, Gass doesn't write for the mainstream. He is the strangest of academic amalgams: a self-professed lover of the avant-garde as represented by Gertrude Stein, Flann O'Brien and Robert Coover, while at the same time he extols the virtues of what he calls "the classics." His definition of classic is, to be sure, expansive, but he applies an old-fashioned standard to all literature, declaring the need for those classics as the basis for a varied literary diet. Despite the occasional gem, such as a touching, if rambling, tribute to William Gaddis, the essays often devolve into little more than a brief synopsis of plot. This volume is appropriately titled, because Gass approaches his subjects reverently, but as in a temple, the service depends as much on the ritual of devotion as on innovation in thought.

December 1, 2005
Essayist, novelist, and literary critic Gass ("Tests of Time"), three-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, here offers 25 essays on the art of writing. Regardless of his subjects, which range from luminaries such as Rainer Maria Rilke to relatively obscure authors like Flann O'Brien, Gass writes with spellbinding passion. In -Fifty Literary Pillars, - he identifies those works that have had the most profound impact on him, often revealing more about himself than about the works he is discussing. He is a man who loves the written word both for what it says and for how it sounds; books that to some might be challenging or confusing sing to him. In -A Defense of the Book, - Gass articulates the importance of books and libraries to a free society. No one who reads -The Sentence Seeks Its Form - will likely ever read or write a sentence again without appreciating its glorious power. Gass shares his lifelong love affair with books as well as his insights into the nature of humankind, religion, and art in a work that is likely to earn him his fourth NBCC Award. Recommended for academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 10/1/05.]" -Anthony Pucci, Notre Dame H.S., Elmira, NY"

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2006
Each collection of essays by Gass is an event, and this gathering of 25 vital and virtuoso inquiries into the pleasures and value of literature is, as the title suggests, at once exalted and sheltering. In " Tests of Time" (2002), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Gass focused on the state of the writer in our war-torn world. Here he celebrates the book. Gass cannily explicates texts sacred in the realms of religion and literature, building a "temple of texts" out of "Fifty Literary Pillars," a provocative array of writers that includes Samuel Beckett, who "writes equally well in two languages: Nitty and Gritty." (For Gass, wit always accompanies wonderment.) A more serene and syntactically gifted critic than his fellow literary giant, Harold Bloom, Gass offers exquisite and clarion readings of Erasmus, Gertrude Stein, Stanley Elkin, and many underappreciated writers. Unmatched in the intensity of his comprehension and the elegance of his analysis, Gass constructs erudite and spirited essays that readers will add to their temples of texts, especially "Influence," a brilliant riff on shades of meaning, and "A Defense of the Book," incisive testimony to the ongoing significance of books and libraries. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)