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The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays
This overflowing volume of previously uncollected--and utterly uncategorizable--writings by the late Donald Barthelme is a time bomb disguised as a literary last testament. Barthelme gives us an imaginary episode of BATMAN hilariously slowed down to soap-opera speed; an account of a baseball game played by T.S. Eliot and Willem "Big Bill" de Kooning; and an outlandishly illustrated chronicle of a scientific expedition in quest of God. 109 illustrations throughout.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Donald Barthelme
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Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
(1968) apparently collects sometimes surrealistic stories of modern life of American writer Donald Barthelme.
A student at the University of Pennsylvania bore Donald Barthelme. Two years later, in 1933, the family moved to Texas, where father of Barthelme served as a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme later majored in journalism.
In 1951, this still student composed his first articles for the Houston Post. The Army drafted Barthelme, who arrived in Korea on 27 July 1953, the very day, when parties signed the ceasefire, ending the war. He served briefly as the editor of a newspaper of Army before returning to the United States and his job at the Houston Post. Once back, he continued his studies of philosophy at the University of Houston. He continued to take classes until 1957 but never received a degree. He spent much of his free time in “black” jazz clubs of Houston and listened to musical innovators, such as Lionel Hampton and Peck Kelly; this experience influenced him later.
Barthelme, a rebellious son, struggled in his relationship with his demanding father. In later years, they tremendously argued about the kinds of literature that interested Barthelme. His avant-garde father in art and aesthetics in many ways approved not the postmodern and deconstruction schools. The Dead Father and The King , the novels, delineate attitude of Barthelme toward his father as King Arthur and Lancelot, the characters, picture him. From the Roman Catholicism of his especially devout mother, Barthelme independently moved away, but this separation as the distance with his father troubled Barthelme. He ably agreed to strictures of his seemingly much closer mother.
Barthelme went to teach for brief periods at Boston University and at University at Buffalo, and he at the college of the City of New York served as distinguished visiting professor from 1974-1975. He married four times. Helen Barthelme, his second wife, later entitled a biography Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound , published in 2001. With Birgit Barthelme, his third wife and a Dane, he fathered Anne Barthelme, his first child, a daughter. He married Marion Barthelme near the end and fathered Kate Barthelme, his second daughter. Marion and Donald wed until his death from throat cancer. People respect fiction of Frederick Barthelme and Steven Barthelme, brothers of Donald Barthelme and also teachers at The University of Southern Mississippi.
A student at the University of Pennsylvania bore Donald Barthelme. Two years later, in 1933, the family moved to Texas, where father of Barthelme served as a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme later majored in journalism.
In 1951, this still student composed his first articles for the Houston Post. The Army drafted Barthelme, who arrived in Korea on 27 July 1953, the very day, when parties signed the ceasefire, ending the war. He served briefly as the editor of a newspaper of Army before returning to the United States and his job at the Houston Post. Once back, he continued his studies of philosophy at the University of Houston. He continued to take classes until 1957 but never received a degree. He spent much of his free time in “black” jazz clubs of Houston and listened to musical innovators, such as Lionel Hampton and Peck Kelly; this experience influenced him later.
Barthelme, a rebellious son, struggled in his relationship with his demanding father. In later years, they tremendously argued about the kinds of literature that interested Barthelme. His avant-garde father in art and aesthetics in many ways approved not the postmodern and deconstruction schools. The Dead Father and The King , the novels, delineate attitude of Barthelme toward his father as King Arthur and Lancelot, the characters, picture him. From the Roman Catholicism of his especially devout mother, Barthelme independently moved away, but this separation as the distance with his father troubled Barthelme. He ably agreed to strictures of his seemingly much closer mother.
Barthelme went to teach for brief periods at Boston University and at University at Buffalo, and he at the college of the City of New York served as distinguished visiting professor from 1974-1975. He married four times. Helen Barthelme, his second wife, later entitled a biography Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound , published in 2001. With Birgit Barthelme, his third wife and a Dane, he fathered Anne Barthelme, his first child, a daughter. He married Marion Barthelme near the end and fathered Kate Barthelme, his second daughter. Marion and Donald wed until his death from throat cancer. People respect fiction of Frederick Barthelme and Steven Barthelme, brothers of Donald Barthelme and also teachers at The University of Southern Mississippi.
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March 30, 2021Barthelme as an author of the past
The consensus on Barthelme is that he launched the postmodern short-story form in the US. A thoughtful review by James Wolcott ("Bookforum," February / March 2008, pp. 9-10), sums it up:
"Today, I would hazard... the track marks of Barthelme's suave, subversive cunning are to be found less in postmodern fiction -- although David Foster Wallace's dense foliage of footnotes suggests a Barthelmean undergrowth and George Saunders's arcade surrealism has a runaway-nephew quality -- than in the conscientiously oddball, studiedly offhand, hiply recherché, mock-anachronistic formalism of 'McSweeney's,' 'The Believer,' 'The Crier,' and related organs of articulate mumblecore."
The current generation of young MFA writing program candidates still see the "McSweeney's" option as one of their main goals. So in that sense, Barthelme remains a ubiquitous influence. (George Saunders's essay on Barthelme, in "The Brain-Dead Megaphone," is the best thing written on Barthelme, if you're looking for a guide.)
Barthelme is part of the history of postwar American writing. But is he someone to read now? Here I was struck by just how much of it has lost its shine. There are hilarious pieces, and at times the wit is as sharp as it seemed in the 1970s. But Barthelme's liberal politics are as predictable as his quips are surprising. His absurdism has always been a safe version of real absurdism. If you're interested in surrealist or absurdist shock, read Raymond Roussel, or Daniil Kharms (who has also been praised by Saunders, in the "New York Times Book Review.") As Wolcott points out, the entire New Fiction movement was subjected to a typically devastating critique by Gore Vidal ("American Plastic: The Matter of Fiction") back in 1976; Vidal thought the movement, including Pynchon, was contrived and derivative of French experimental fiction. I'd rather trace it to Russian and central European absurdist literature and surrealism, but the significance is the same: Barthelme is watered-down, domesticated, playful, harmless absurdism. Never too angry, seldom directly polemic, never despairing. (That would be gauche, and it would dispense with the multiple layers of irony that are necessary to project authenticity while studiously avoiding it.)
After a few days reading Barthelme, the happiness of seeing plodding seriousness exploded continuously and brilliantly in my face when I least expect it (but really not-so-secretly expecting it all along) pales into a memory of that happiness, which I now mistrust and even regret, and I find I want some real pain or a laugh that doesn't come with a small grimace acknowledging the writer's artifice and the reader's complicity.
The consensus on Barthelme is that he launched the postmodern short-story form in the US. A thoughtful review by James Wolcott ("Bookforum," February / March 2008, pp. 9-10), sums it up:
"Today, I would hazard... the track marks of Barthelme's suave, subversive cunning are to be found less in postmodern fiction -- although David Foster Wallace's dense foliage of footnotes suggests a Barthelmean undergrowth and George Saunders's arcade surrealism has a runaway-nephew quality -- than in the conscientiously oddball, studiedly offhand, hiply recherché, mock-anachronistic formalism of 'McSweeney's,' 'The Believer,' 'The Crier,' and related organs of articulate mumblecore."
The current generation of young MFA writing program candidates still see the "McSweeney's" option as one of their main goals. So in that sense, Barthelme remains a ubiquitous influence. (George Saunders's essay on Barthelme, in "The Brain-Dead Megaphone," is the best thing written on Barthelme, if you're looking for a guide.)
Barthelme is part of the history of postwar American writing. But is he someone to read now? Here I was struck by just how much of it has lost its shine. There are hilarious pieces, and at times the wit is as sharp as it seemed in the 1970s. But Barthelme's liberal politics are as predictable as his quips are surprising. His absurdism has always been a safe version of real absurdism. If you're interested in surrealist or absurdist shock, read Raymond Roussel, or Daniil Kharms (who has also been praised by Saunders, in the "New York Times Book Review.") As Wolcott points out, the entire New Fiction movement was subjected to a typically devastating critique by Gore Vidal ("American Plastic: The Matter of Fiction") back in 1976; Vidal thought the movement, including Pynchon, was contrived and derivative of French experimental fiction. I'd rather trace it to Russian and central European absurdist literature and surrealism, but the significance is the same: Barthelme is watered-down, domesticated, playful, harmless absurdism. Never too angry, seldom directly polemic, never despairing. (That would be gauche, and it would dispense with the multiple layers of irony that are necessary to project authenticity while studiously avoiding it.)
After a few days reading Barthelme, the happiness of seeing plodding seriousness exploded continuously and brilliantly in my face when I least expect it (but really not-so-secretly expecting it all along) pales into a memory of that happiness, which I now mistrust and even regret, and I find I want some real pain or a laugh that doesn't come with a small grimace acknowledging the writer's artifice and the reader's complicity.
March 10, 2015
Algunos de los relatos de Barthelme son simple y llanamente extraordinarios. Parece que se ría de todo, de todos, con una imaginación que raya en la locura. Es raro, raro de narices en muchas ocasiones, y eso quizá pueda molestar a aquellos lectores que nunca esperan nada cuando se encuentran con un libro entre las manos. Si algo tiene Barthelme, y en este compendio de textos uno se da perfecta cuenta, es que hace de la escritura un juego. Me he reído bastante, como en sus relatos 'El salto', 'Algunos llevábamos mucho tiempo amenazando a nuestro amigo Golby o 'Lánguido, en pleno verano'. También he pensado si estaba en su sano juicio al escribir 'Rayos' o 'La esmeralda'. Hace buena crítica de la sociedad, de las religiones, de la avaricia, de lo que es el periodismo (de ayer y de hoy)... Y todo ello, insisto, jugando. Hace lo que quiere con el estilo. Cada relato es completamente distinto, su estructura, su tono, su lenguaje.
April 30, 2012
This is a curious, uneven, posthumous collection that includes Barthelme's signed and unsigned letters to The New Yorker, recipes, short-short stories, photo/illustration collage stories, variations of stories that appeared in Guilty Pleasures and Overnight to Many Distant Cities, and plays that were never produced. Barthelme newcomers ought to begin with either aforementioned book, because the works here run the gamut from treasures to dreck. What's worthy is wonderful, though, and this book was a true refuge during my last few weeks of graduate school. Below are a list of the pieces I loved (including "L'Lapse", a scathing, spot-on rip on Antonioni's film "L'Eclisse", which is one of my favorite films) and the usual glut of excerpts.
The good stuff:
Languishing, half-deep in summer . . .
The Palace
The Joker's Greatest Triumph
At last, it is time . . .
Games Are the Enemies of Beauty, Truth, and Sleep, Amanda Said
The Angry Young Man
Speaking of the human body . . .
L'Lapse
Bunny Image, Loss of: The Case of Bitsy S.
The Photographs
Monumental Folly
The bits that clicked:
Languishing, half-deep in summer, soul-sick and under-friended, I decided to find love.
But I put my melancholy aside and went vigorously about the business of getting connected. I got myself connected to Southwestern Bell, and Entex, and the Light Company, and cable TV, long lines binding me once again into the community.
I set out to sail Buffalo Bayou on a four-by-eight sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood powered by eight mighty Weed Eaters and I saw many strange and wonderful things. I saw an egret and then another egret and a turtle and a refrigerator without a door on it and a heron and a possum and an upside-down '52 Pontiac.
These fine homemade recipes work! Use them with furious enthusiasm.
I am, at the moment, feeling very jolly. Hey hey, I say. It is remarkable how well human affairs can be managed, with care.
"A lovely new song," he says. "Kiss her now, while she's young. Kiss her now, while she's yours."
The moon rocks were as good as a meaningful and emotionally rewarding seduction that you had not expected.
In Bicentennial America yesterday is terrific. Instead of yearning forwardly, which makes more sense in terms of the possible, we yearn backwardly, and who cares for "sense" anyhow?
* * * * *
BLOOMSBURY: A girl I knew once. Slightly. For a space. (Pause) A short space.
WHITTLE: Did you get on well together?
BLOOMSBURY: Like a house afire. (Pause) Like a burning house. (Pause) For a space. (Pause) A short space. (Pause) Temporary love. (Pause) Golden days in the sunshine of our happy youth. (Pause) Brief love. (Pause) Golden days, in the sunshine of our happy youth.
* * * * *
The affair ran the usual course. Fever, boredom, trapped.
* * * * *
SNOW WHITE: You've exhausted me . . . as a possibility?
BILL: No, Snow White. You are still . . . You are the game and the object of the game and the prize for winning the game and the referee. (Pause) And the other team.
The good stuff:
Languishing, half-deep in summer . . .
The Palace
The Joker's Greatest Triumph
At last, it is time . . .
Games Are the Enemies of Beauty, Truth, and Sleep, Amanda Said
The Angry Young Man
Speaking of the human body . . .
L'Lapse
Bunny Image, Loss of: The Case of Bitsy S.
The Photographs
Monumental Folly
The bits that clicked:
Languishing, half-deep in summer, soul-sick and under-friended, I decided to find love.
But I put my melancholy aside and went vigorously about the business of getting connected. I got myself connected to Southwestern Bell, and Entex, and the Light Company, and cable TV, long lines binding me once again into the community.
I set out to sail Buffalo Bayou on a four-by-eight sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood powered by eight mighty Weed Eaters and I saw many strange and wonderful things. I saw an egret and then another egret and a turtle and a refrigerator without a door on it and a heron and a possum and an upside-down '52 Pontiac.
These fine homemade recipes work! Use them with furious enthusiasm.
I am, at the moment, feeling very jolly. Hey hey, I say. It is remarkable how well human affairs can be managed, with care.
"A lovely new song," he says. "Kiss her now, while she's young. Kiss her now, while she's yours."
The moon rocks were as good as a meaningful and emotionally rewarding seduction that you had not expected.
In Bicentennial America yesterday is terrific. Instead of yearning forwardly, which makes more sense in terms of the possible, we yearn backwardly, and who cares for "sense" anyhow?
* * * * *
BLOOMSBURY: A girl I knew once. Slightly. For a space. (Pause) A short space.
WHITTLE: Did you get on well together?
BLOOMSBURY: Like a house afire. (Pause) Like a burning house. (Pause) For a space. (Pause) A short space. (Pause) Temporary love. (Pause) Golden days in the sunshine of our happy youth. (Pause) Brief love. (Pause) Golden days, in the sunshine of our happy youth.
* * * * *
The affair ran the usual course. Fever, boredom, trapped.
* * * * *
SNOW WHITE: You've exhausted me . . . as a possibility?
BILL: No, Snow White. You are still . . . You are the game and the object of the game and the prize for winning the game and the referee. (Pause) And the other team.
July 19, 2022
not Barthelme’s finest short work (with notable exceptions of course), some more overtly political stuff than usual which adds some fun texture to the humour, and Snow White is a home run as always (didn’t originally know it was included in this collection!)
would be really fun to one day get a collection of all of Don B’s illustrated works
would be really fun to one day get a collection of all of Don B’s illustrated works
January 6, 2016
A little uneven but there are several uproarious peaks.
My Favorites :
Stories/Essays
-Three Great Meals
-The Palace
-The Joker's Greatest Triumph (yes, that Joker)
-The Art of Baseball (with T. S. Eliot @ shortstop)
Plays
-The Friends of the Family
Collage Pieces
-there are about six of them and really I liked every one, The Nation of Wheels is about exactly that and is the zaniest of them all.
There were a number of shorts I couldn't make heads or tails of, and the other two plays left me bemused. Still a lot of good variety in this volume and some of the head-scratchers will probably warrant a revisit down the road.
My Favorites :
Stories/Essays
-Three Great Meals
-The Palace
-The Joker's Greatest Triumph (yes, that Joker)
-The Art of Baseball (with T. S. Eliot @ shortstop)
Plays
-The Friends of the Family
Collage Pieces
-there are about six of them and really I liked every one, The Nation of Wheels is about exactly that and is the zaniest of them all.
There were a number of shorts I couldn't make heads or tails of, and the other two plays left me bemused. Still a lot of good variety in this volume and some of the head-scratchers will probably warrant a revisit down the road.
January 8, 2020
нарешті дочитав. збірка уривків, фрагментів і неоповідань-неновел. абсурдний гумор як суміш Беккета, Сартра та ТСЕліота. дуже багато політичних алюзій і загалом часто згадано президентів. цінна передмова від Томаса Пінчона+прикольні колажі з вікторіанськими картинками+back-breaking sentences+бурхлива фантазія словолюба і життєлюба Дона Б.
January 25, 2020
This is an audacious agglomeration of steampunk, doodles, in-jokes, New-Yorker-speak and pretentious new-age twaddle. And I don’t buy it. It seems to me that if Barthelme was half as clever as he liked to pretend, he could just as easily have written something inspiring. Or insightful. Or at least, God help us, amusing. I suppose Don B was having fun. I wasn’t.
After plodding my way through the first half dozen entries, I began to perceive a pattern: Each article started off with a kind of set-up, reminiscent of the intro you get at the opening act of a play — along the lines of “A deserted street, somewhere in the lower East side, enter a barber and his landlord, carrying a monkey”. This is mildly intriguing. Dialogue ensues. It all fades away. I shake my head and try the next entry. Repeat process. Having thereby been enlightened regarding how this works, I understood that by reading only the first dozen lines of each article, I would be almost certain to learn everything of interest that the entire piece had to say and would be free to move right along to the next entry. I would like to thank Mr. B for imparting to me a valuable technique for saving time, should I have occasion to read any more of his stuff at some future date. Regrettably, Mr. B is no longer with us, so I’m unable to thank him in person; perhaps I ought to send a letter of thanks to his publisher. But on second thought, that would be pointless, since I will make sure never to read any more of Barthelme’s musings.
After plodding my way through the first half dozen entries, I began to perceive a pattern: Each article started off with a kind of set-up, reminiscent of the intro you get at the opening act of a play — along the lines of “A deserted street, somewhere in the lower East side, enter a barber and his landlord, carrying a monkey”. This is mildly intriguing. Dialogue ensues. It all fades away. I shake my head and try the next entry. Repeat process. Having thereby been enlightened regarding how this works, I understood that by reading only the first dozen lines of each article, I would be almost certain to learn everything of interest that the entire piece had to say and would be free to move right along to the next entry. I would like to thank Mr. B for imparting to me a valuable technique for saving time, should I have occasion to read any more of his stuff at some future date. Regrettably, Mr. B is no longer with us, so I’m unable to thank him in person; perhaps I ought to send a letter of thanks to his publisher. But on second thought, that would be pointless, since I will make sure never to read any more of Barthelme’s musings.
March 19, 2008
Despite what the wonderful introduction by Thomas Pynchon claims, this is not 'vintage Barthelismo.' There are some choice odds and sods - including dynamite recipes - for the delectation of fans, but the curious should start with '60 Stories.'
April 6, 2018
Absurd and surreal free-associative stories, playful, odd, and totally uninterested in comprehensibility, full of references to literature and philosophy, art and music, but also to pop culture and ephemera, comprised of found texts, collages of words, lists, theatrical declamations, bizarre dislocations and nonsequitors. He used the methods invented by Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and others to unfold language as a tool for the unfettering of human consciousness and our liberation from social and historical norms and conventions.
Donald Barthelme wears the hat of a jester, but enacts the performances of a revolutionary. He descibes his early influence in a Paris Review interview, recounting that his father "gave me, when I was fourteen or fifteen, a copy of Marcel Raymond’s From Baudelaire to Surrealism". I'd say he has spent his life continuing in that path, from where others left off.
Master of the short story, he explores new modes of fiction in collections like Come Back, Dr. Caligari, Guily Pleasures, Sadness, City Life, Guilty Pleasures, and more. One might begin with the two posthumus collections of essays & stories, The Teachings of Don B. and Not Knowing. Of his novels, Snow White is a stellar debut, and The Dead Father is a masterpiece which everyone should read.
Snow White is a farce of broken dreams, its impact reliant on tone, of which he is a master, borne on a wave of experimentalism of every kind, an astonishing performance which defies interpretation.
The Dead Father is an outrageous, hilarious, glorious satire grown in the soil of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and Freud's Totem and Taboo, a trip on Ken Kesey's Magic Bus with William S. Burroughs as the tour guide. Ride along a while, and see where the road takes you.
Donald Barthelme wears the hat of a jester, but enacts the performances of a revolutionary. He descibes his early influence in a Paris Review interview, recounting that his father "gave me, when I was fourteen or fifteen, a copy of Marcel Raymond’s From Baudelaire to Surrealism". I'd say he has spent his life continuing in that path, from where others left off.
Master of the short story, he explores new modes of fiction in collections like Come Back, Dr. Caligari, Guily Pleasures, Sadness, City Life, Guilty Pleasures, and more. One might begin with the two posthumus collections of essays & stories, The Teachings of Don B. and Not Knowing. Of his novels, Snow White is a stellar debut, and The Dead Father is a masterpiece which everyone should read.
Snow White is a farce of broken dreams, its impact reliant on tone, of which he is a master, borne on a wave of experimentalism of every kind, an astonishing performance which defies interpretation.
The Dead Father is an outrageous, hilarious, glorious satire grown in the soil of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and Freud's Totem and Taboo, a trip on Ken Kesey's Magic Bus with William S. Burroughs as the tour guide. Ride along a while, and see where the road takes you.
June 23, 2022
El mayor problema aquí reside en ordenar de forma cronológica los relatos, de tal modo que 2 textos insuperables (el del adulto que por un error burocrático/castigo se ve condenado a volver al colegio y el del globo) y otro texto final al mismo nivel (el de las fotografías del alma) ejercen de extremos de un interior ni malo ni excesivamente bueno (con la salvedad del relato de la esmeralda) que, claro, después de ese comienzo tan bestial de la recopilación, pues en comparación la cosa se resiente no por demérito de los relatos centrales sino por la abismal diferencia que existe entre los 2 primeros relatos y cualquier cosa con la que los compares, ya sea de este autor u otro cualquiera.
Digamos que es un poco como hacerte un sandwich mixto pero cambiando el pan de molde por tu helado favorito: ya puedes ponerle huevo, beicon, alcaparras o lo que sea en la parte central que si separas todo en un plato y vas probando helado - helado - parte central te vas a quedar con que el helado es helado y lo del centro, por contraste, es mierda.
Digamos que es un poco como hacerte un sandwich mixto pero cambiando el pan de molde por tu helado favorito: ya puedes ponerle huevo, beicon, alcaparras o lo que sea en la parte central que si separas todo en un plato y vas probando helado - helado - parte central te vas a quedar con que el helado es helado y lo del centro, por contraste, es mierda.
April 26, 2024
Aside from four or five short pieces including real recipes ("Three Great Meals" and "Fine Homemade Soups") and satires like "My Lover Said to Me", "..... on the Bank of the Delaware" and "The Young Visitirs", the majority of said post-modern wit seemed lost in a jumble of arcane vocabulary and non-sequiter sentences, some accompanied by cut and paste public domain Victorian drawings -think Terry Gilliam's filler cartoons for MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS.....all together, a bit like listening to a philharmonic orchestra tuning up...only really loud. And not stopping anytime soon.
Post-modern writing is not everyone's taste. I understand that. I appreciate the fact that the world is full of divergence- taste, opinions, desires, goals, limits, needs........
BUT, I should have suspected something was a little off base when I requested THE TEACHINGS OF DON B. from the library. It was listed as " in storage /closed stacks". A mint 1992 edition that appeared in like-new condition? A 31 year old book ? I read the positively glowing intro * by Thomas Pynchon and set myself up for (maybe somewhat dated) hilarity .........I guess I'll leave Barthelme for the fans of Pynchon, Kerouac, Robbins, Borges, Proust and Joyce. I am now returning the book in its pristine condition and hope the next borrower is equally surprised by this bit of mint-condition literary divergence.
*EDITORIAL NOTE: The glowing introductions/ prefaces most likely belong to some other book.....I read them . Then I read the book. No match.
Post-modern writing is not everyone's taste. I understand that. I appreciate the fact that the world is full of divergence- taste, opinions, desires, goals, limits, needs........
BUT, I should have suspected something was a little off base when I requested THE TEACHINGS OF DON B. from the library. It was listed as " in storage /closed stacks". A mint 1992 edition that appeared in like-new condition? A 31 year old book ? I read the positively glowing intro * by Thomas Pynchon and set myself up for (maybe somewhat dated) hilarity .........I guess I'll leave Barthelme for the fans of Pynchon, Kerouac, Robbins, Borges, Proust and Joyce. I am now returning the book in its pristine condition and hope the next borrower is equally surprised by this bit of mint-condition literary divergence.
*EDITORIAL NOTE: The glowing introductions/ prefaces most likely belong to some other book.....I read them . Then I read the book. No match.
March 21, 2024
Hay de todo, pero no deja de asombrar la capacidad de Barthelme para mirar los Estados Unidos de la guerra fría con un humor fantástico. Hay piezas que se olvidan rapidamente y otras que se quedan en la memoria como una sonrisa tímida (o grande). Me ha sacado bastantes risas en el transporte público y muchísimas ideas interesantes sobre como afrontar los relatos. Ninguno es formalmente igal al anterior, en todos hay una intención por renovar la forma de contar que merece la pena bucear. Me ha encantado ir dando vueltas por intentos, algunos más afortunados que otros, de renovar la narrativa corta. Imposible no compararlo con Pynchon ya que la edición que tengo viene prologada por él.
Read
March 1, 2021Putting this away for now, after 114 pages. Loved the style and voice, but you lose something reading such quick-hits straight through in book form. One after another, they start to lose their fizz, and you're left craving something more substantial. It'd be perfect to stumble upon one on its own in a magazine.
December 3, 2021
odd that they'd apparently publish this one first out of the three posthumous collections, one for the real donheads who want every stray scrap (such as moi), even more uneven than flying to america but these are mostly just fripperies tossed off the sections of the new yorker i skip each week after all.
August 8, 2019
La enseñanza que queda del libro: todo puede convertirse en una historia, desde un empaque de sopa de pollo marca Knorr, el villano de una serie animada de los 80, hasta el despido de una conejita Playboy. No existe un formato establecido para contar una historia, existen, en este caso 24
December 10, 2019
There are some great pieces in here, but as far as posthumous releases go I’m much more excited to read Barthelme’s nonfiction than these odds and ends. It seems that he published the majority of his best work during his lifetime; good for him.
June 4, 2017
Si te quedaste con ganas de alguna obra póstuma de Samuel Beckett o de Ionesco, Donlad Barthleme escribió este libro para vos.
January 23, 2019
Wonderfully creative and inspirational. Will read it again.
July 17, 2019
i only read about 40 pages of this book then left it in a bar. seemed pretty good though.
July 14, 2020
My favorite of the posthumous collections.
July 16, 2020
A few good scraps, but mostly trash
February 21, 2022
I’m a fan of most Barthelme works but it was a struggle to get through this. Why? Perhaps because it’s uneven. Disjointed. No flow. Or maybe I’ve changed as a reader. Not sure
September 18, 2024
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.
Very entertaining, and also unexpectedly informative. Impressive.
Very entertaining, and also unexpectedly informative. Impressive.
April 20, 2011
this collection is a delight. collage. good word for what barthelme has here.
cue the soundtrack: rescue me! doobie doobie doo! rescue me! pretend i'm a pony.
"the teachings of don b: a yankee way of knowledge"
--i think this is a story about how to get published. beware the michelin man.
"i wrote a letter..."
--to the president of the moon. a friend pointed out marilyn once to me. she's straight up and down in iowa, but up here, she tilts.
"challenge"
---ummmm
----the japanese-made book review----
"three great meals"
---ha ha ha ha! recipes. i believe vonnegut did this, too, although these seems more complete, especially if you need to feed 60. these look like they'd work.....fable maybe
"languishing, half-deep in summer"
--someone decides to find love...the ads...heh heh
"the palace"
--all cashing the same amount check...84.06 ok
"mr foolfarm's journal"
--this one has the Important Person in it...i just read something else w/the Important Person in it--the evolution of bruno littlemore...too, i think heller's good as gold as a number of Important Persons in it. there was an old woman named nancy, who decided not to pay me in full, said she has a number of Very Important People who stop at her house and do stuff. heh heh...
"natural history"
--this looks to be the 1st of many w/pic-drawings...all of these are a hoot ha ha ha ha ha ha! what i like about barthelme is that you cannot avoid coming into contact w/these ideas that merge onto the page from a multitude of lanes. best go w/it.
"the joker's greatest triumph"
---da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, Batman! Batman! Batman! Great Scott!
HA HA HA HA..."what makes the Joker tick I wonder?" HA HA HA HA!
"the author"
"my deranged mother has written another book." heh heh!
"i was gratified this week..."
--ooo, yeah, human resources. it all goes back to the grassy knoll
"when i didn't win..."
---numbers....Big Numbers...like the lottery...a struggling young country fiddler of promise....here in the outback, we have the future inspectors, those who show promise, carry the blanket during the parade, coins are thrown.
"return"
--story about the azalea trail....shooting one...heh heh...connected, HA HA HA HA HA!
"at last, it is time..."
HA HA HA HA...the truth about thanksgiving...
"the inauguration"
--another w/pics...the collage-effect that i've seen others mention, perhaps pynchon in the introduction. these are hilarious. short sweet...a large contributor? you mean, like king george? ha ha haha!
"the art of baseball"
--this one is fun, baseball, facts, figures, all true...i didn't look them up. t.s. eliot at short? ha ha haha! evidence is presented. oh well, the guy who didn't let me play dresses in skirts now and has evolved the ability to secrete jerkins lotion out of his asshole, so we've come far, (evolution, baby! evolution, in a howard c voice) but having only been given the chance to practice, i'm understandably pizzed.
cue the soundtrack: rescue me! doobie doobie doo! rescue me! pretend i'm a pony.
"the teachings of don b: a yankee way of knowledge"
--i think this is a story about how to get published. beware the michelin man.
"i wrote a letter..."
--to the president of the moon. a friend pointed out marilyn once to me. she's straight up and down in iowa, but up here, she tilts.
"challenge"
---ummmm
----the japanese-made book review----
"three great meals"
---ha ha ha ha! recipes. i believe vonnegut did this, too, although these seems more complete, especially if you need to feed 60. these look like they'd work.....fable maybe
"languishing, half-deep in summer"
--someone decides to find love...the ads...heh heh
"the palace"
--all cashing the same amount check...84.06 ok
"mr foolfarm's journal"
--this one has the Important Person in it...i just read something else w/the Important Person in it--the evolution of bruno littlemore...too, i think heller's good as gold as a number of Important Persons in it. there was an old woman named nancy, who decided not to pay me in full, said she has a number of Very Important People who stop at her house and do stuff. heh heh...
"natural history"
--this looks to be the 1st of many w/pic-drawings...all of these are a hoot ha ha ha ha ha ha! what i like about barthelme is that you cannot avoid coming into contact w/these ideas that merge onto the page from a multitude of lanes. best go w/it.
"the joker's greatest triumph"
---da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, Batman! Batman! Batman! Great Scott!
HA HA HA HA..."what makes the Joker tick I wonder?" HA HA HA HA!
"the author"
"my deranged mother has written another book." heh heh!
"i was gratified this week..."
--ooo, yeah, human resources. it all goes back to the grassy knoll
"when i didn't win..."
---numbers....Big Numbers...like the lottery...a struggling young country fiddler of promise....here in the outback, we have the future inspectors, those who show promise, carry the blanket during the parade, coins are thrown.
"return"
--story about the azalea trail....shooting one...heh heh...connected, HA HA HA HA HA!
"at last, it is time..."
HA HA HA HA...the truth about thanksgiving...
"the inauguration"
--another w/pics...the collage-effect that i've seen others mention, perhaps pynchon in the introduction. these are hilarious. short sweet...a large contributor? you mean, like king george? ha ha haha!
"the art of baseball"
--this one is fun, baseball, facts, figures, all true...i didn't look them up. t.s. eliot at short? ha ha haha! evidence is presented. oh well, the guy who didn't let me play dresses in skirts now and has evolved the ability to secrete jerkins lotion out of his asshole, so we've come far, (evolution, baby! evolution, in a howard c voice) but having only been given the chance to practice, i'm understandably pizzed.
May 24, 2014
Barthelme is a master. Guaranteed laughs, pangs of heartache, and resignation come with his portrayal of the state of Western culture, politics, science, and love. One of my top 3 favorite authors. Mind you, a couple of his stories still fall flat or beg to be skimmed over, but that's a small price to pay for a man who takes risks in his writing.
November 1, 2007
previously uncollected stuff. This may be OOP now. It's got a great, lengthy intro written by Pynchon, in his inimitable style.
The first, I believe eponymously-titled, story is a hoot, as are the 'recipes'.
The first, I believe eponymously-titled, story is a hoot, as are the 'recipes'.
January 4, 2008
This was a posthumous release, and while it's got some great stories in it, it somehow doesn't quite have the magic-lyrical quality that some of his other story collections do. Enjoyed and recommended nevertheless.
January 26, 2008
Donald Bathelme was a strange and wonderful writer, and that's all reflected in this here book. A great gift for any friends about to go off the deep end into Carlos Casteneda-style New Age weirdness.
April 11, 2009
A hodgepodge, but a fun one. Highlights include "Wasteland" the musical, a reimagining of an episode of Batman, and of course, every illustrated collage piece. Still, probably for diehard Barthelme fans only.
February 8, 2016
A good group of stories (with pictures!) from Barthelme. If you haven't read Barthelme you absolutely should. Not sure? Check out McSweeney's Issue 24 which contains an elegy for the man from a group of great authors, and a good group of stories from authors inspired by Don B.
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