Donald Barthelme's Reading List

This is probably old news to a lot of people, but The Believer has an article (from 2003) called DONALD BARTHELME’S SYLLABUS: A NON-READER PURSUES A LITERARY EDUCATION ARMED WITH NOTHING BUT THE DON’S TOP EIGHTY-ONE. It's quite diverting: the list itself, as well as Kevin Moffett's account of his experience tackling it. I get the feeling that Barthelme deliberately included quite a few obscure titles, ones that are no doubt useful to read, however. I guess I'm referring to Gogol's Wife by Tommaso Landolfi, Tragic Magic (which is awesome) by Wesley Brown, The Palm-Wine Drunkard by Amos Tutola, and The Oranging of America by Max Apple. DFW mentions Max Apple in his essay on TV and US fiction, I believe. Barthelme also tried to represent a range of styles on his list. Writers (at first glance) far removed from him in terms of aesthetic make the cut: Saul Bellow, Anne Beattie, Bernard Malamud, John Updike, John Cheever, Ray Carver. Postmodern cohorts of his who are represented include: John Barth, William Gass, Thomas Pynchon, and John Hawkes. William Gaddis and Robert Coover don't make the list, oddly enough.

Last summer I tracked down the ten shortest books on the list and tried to read one per day. I made it five days before burning myself out. I've been proceeding more slowly since then. I plan to finish the list, because it consists of the recommendations of one of my favorite authors, but there are so many other books I need to read.

From an article by John Barth in the NYT: "He [Donald Barthelme] then produced for the seminar his 'short list': five books he recommended to the attention of aspiring American fiction writers. No doubt the list changed from time to time; just then it consisted of Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the stories of Heinrich von Kleist, Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet and Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds - a fair sample of the kind of nonlinear narration, sportive form and cohabitation of radical fantasy with quotidian detail that mark his own fiction. He readily admired other, more 'traditional' writers, but it is from the likes of these that he felt his genealogical descent."

Gordon Lish (The Believer)

According to my staff, this was to have been a one-question, per leg, letteration. Yet you ask, in yours last, excuse me, five questions. Tell you what: I’ll, to the best of my ability, answer one, a word I just had to italicize at my own expense, and another, if we are counting all such exertions obtained from me so far—replying to one of the five, you see—em dashes, earlier, ignored at the worsening peril. To wit: what is that which hammered you into the shape you are in? All right, if this is what you want to know. I, Gordon Lish, will tell you what hammered me into the shape I am in. Was maybe seven, when, come summer, was required to spend it killing Japanese beetles. Oh, and, remaining bent to the grass, dig out, tear out, wrench out—with all my defeated wiles—crabgrass.

Yours truly, etc.,
                                                                 Gordon Lish

Literary Incest (a g-mail chat)

6:10 PM LaTanya: You know a lot of these online journals seem a little incestuous.
6:11 PM me: totally
LaTanya: You're here!
me: and i want to join the family
LaTanya: Ha.
6:12 PM I think you should probably aim higher.
6:13 PM me: what journals were you thinking of?
LaTanya: For which statement?
6:14 PM me: the incest
6:15 PM LaTanya: I was just sort of making a general assessment. I read this htmlgiant blog too much, and then because I'm obsessive I'll go and read the blogs of the people commenting, and then their work, and so on. I noticed that a lot of them have been published in the same online places and nothing more.
6:16 PM me: some, definitely
[RESCINDED]
[RESCINDED]
etc
LaTanya: And there seems to this critique against a lot of print mags for publishing a certain aesthetic.
6:17 PM A lot of it seems hypocritical.
6:19 PM This [RESCINDED] person has an entire blog devoted to [RESCINDED].
6:20 PM me: yeah
6:21 PM [RESCINDED] has [RESCINDED] me
and i have a [RESCINDED] of [RESCINDED] right now at [RESCINDED]
HAHAHA
the POWER
just kidding actually
LaTanya: No, I think a lot of it is that.
me: but i don't like [RESCINDED] [RESCINDED] but i am afraid if i [RESCINDED] [RESCINDED] will think i am getting revenge
LaTanya: So many of these editors are failed/struggling writers.
6:22 PM Well [RESCINDED] put it on [RESCINDED] [RESCINDED].
me: plus [RESCINDED] [RESCINDED] immediately after encouragingly [RESCINDED] my [RESCINDED]
LaTanya: lol
6:23 PM me: what if i e-mailed [RESCINDED] and said "let's make a deal"
LaTanya: But these journals are trying to be cool and "holier than thou" but they're doing the same bullshit.
I wouldn't.
6:24 PM me: i won't
LaTanya: I classify [RESCINDED] as the better journal.
me: but what if
true
LaTanya: If you did it would be hilarious.
me: true
and cause a blog shitstorm if it ever got out
LaTanya: But it would be blogged all over the place.
me: yes
6:25 PM LaTanya: I really dislike blogs.
Yet I read them.
It's a horrible fault.
It's like reading someone's journal.
I haven't read [RESCINDED] though because I like his book.
6:26 PM Plus these people are on Facebook which is weird.
me: his is one of the most tolerable blogs. love the book.
6:27 PM the incest thing is a fine line, and might just be general goodwill
like you are nice to people and they in turn are nice to you
LaTanya: Also, on another note, [RESCINDED] keeps sending me those "suggestions" for his books on [RESCINDED] and I emailed him this long thing about how [RESCINDED] I bought came in the mail and looked like a [RESCINDED] ran over it.
6:28 PM me: haha
LaTanya: And I couldn't finish it bc some of the pages stuck together, and now it's [RESCINDED].
me: sorry to hear it
LaTanya: And the other book I wanted is sold out.
And he hasn't responded and that makes me sad.
me: he will though
guaranteed
6:29 PM LaTanya: We will see.
me: i am freaked out now
this person i don't know
just [RESCINDED]
LaTanya: I don't know what that means.
6:30 PM LaTanya: Probably bc of the connection to the journal.
6:31 PM me: still
LaTanya: Now I'm going to sit here and read all of this.
me: all of what
LaTanya: This blog.
6:32 PM me: oh ok
he
founded [RESCINDED]
less scary
LaTanya: He also likes [RESCINDED].
Not so much.
Maybe this is a joke.
6:33 PM me: maybe literary mag incest is just used in cases of a tie between equally qualified stories
6:34 PM like networking in general
LaTanya: Maybe.
6:37 PM A lot of this stuff though is underdeveloped.
6:39 PM I don't understand why so many people have blogs.
me: it's like a resume in a way
6:40 PM LaTanya: It propagates the "I am special" mentality.
me: more so than facebook?
LaTanya: Maybe.
They're all evil.
me: haha
6:41 PM LaTanya: But a blog is more diary-like.
me: i agree, but a necessary one
hmmmm, it depends what you do with it
LaTanya: Of course I'm a hypocrite I'm aware of this.
me: most are very boring
i can't be bothered to blog anymore
6:42 PM can i post this g-mail chat on my blog?
hahaha
LaTanya: Sure.
me: with [RESCINDED] removed, possibly
6:43 PM k, i need to do some editing
will you be on here later?
6:44 PM LaTanya: I think so.