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

[Joseph Tracy]

On Mar 21, 2009, at 1:02 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> I read Grendel  and felt he started with something interesting and  
> subverted it to affirm triumphalism, suppression of the feminine  
> and racism, which is what Beowulf is all about. I will never read  
> another book by Gardner, because, oddly, I found the book  to be  
> morally revolting.  Grendel after all was just a stand in for the  
> primitive, the Celt,  earth mother religions, whatever heathen you  
> want to beat the shit outta to make room for your mead hall.
> On Mar 20, 2009, at 10:27 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>
>> 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
>