by Donald Barthelme
Critic V.S. Pritchett says a short story is "a briefer art...sometimes raw and journalistic but essentially poetic in the sense of being an instant response to the exposed human being." That is a perfect description of the high art of Donald Barthelme. In the past two decades he has published two brief novels and seven volumes of short stories; nine of these tales have never appeared in books. Most Barthelme stories are brief; but they're clotted with slightly tilted clichés. Triteness is magnified and made fresh. Conversations that appear banal on the surface contain lifetimes of anguish just underneath. The classic and the obscure are linked to the trendy and obvious. Barthelme can do what Woody Allen does, without the whining; he can do what S.J. Perelman did without the Victorian language. His is an unerringly accurate reflection of what life has really been like from 1960 to 1980 If any contemporary writing survives the next century, Barthelme's prickly, hilarious stories will be there. (Putnam, $15.95)
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