VLVL (13) p 274 - "...Hooking a U" [Hidden SS's]

[Michael Bailey]

John Gardner had his enfant terrible period, but he wasn't primarily a
critic, more of a novelist. He was certainly in my pantheon along with
Pynchon and Barth (whom he really ticked off) right up until his death
by Harley in 1982.  Grendel and the Sunlight Dialogues of course were
good, but the Mickelsson book was pretty cool too, and the stories
quite tight and worth a look.  Given the effects of John Gardner's
attempts at critiquing his contemporaries, it makes Pynchon's
reticence seem doubly wise...and given the dark tonality of much of
Gardner's work and what seems to me like the difficulty in tracing a
moral lesson in any of it, it's funny that he should have mounted the
lectern to preach on moral fiction.

By odd chance, his sister joined our church here in Florida in the
90s, and we were reasonably close friends until her death in 1998.  I
once attended with her in Batavia a memorial reading of some choice
Gardner passages, and a performance of one of his plays at the
Community College theater.
Saw a museum exhibit with relics of him including the Harley, leather
jacket and even the wristwatch he was wearing, with some of his hairs
caught in the band...ewww...but maybe someday he can be cloned...

>



-- 
 - "Be groovy or B movie" - the old 24fps signoff