NP but Barthelme (with a TRP footnote or two)

[Mark Kohut]

In a March 2009 NYR of Books, Lorrie Moore reviewed T. Daugherty's bio of Donald 
Barthelme.

She writes "the placement of unexpected things side by side is not only the 
spirit of
surrealism but also the beating heart of both comedy and nightmare."

TRP is quoted speaking of "the radiant quality" of Barthelme's attention. And, 
when 

Don B. grew a beard, said "he looked like Solzhenitsyn."  

Bellow anecdote and the divide between. Bellow did not like Don B.'s fiction. 
Said
they lacked "an inner life". [Lorrie Moore goes on to say that they were 'all 
inner life" in one way]
Face-to-face Saul asked Don B.: "Do you really think it is that hard for people 
to talk to each
other?"