The Teachings Of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, And Plays

Product Description Barthelme . . . Happens To Be One Of A Handful Of American Authors, There To Make Us Look Bad, Who Know Instinctively How To Stash The Merchandise, Bamboozle The Inspectors, And Smuggle Their Nocturnal Contraband Right On Past The Checkpoints Of Daylight Reality. -Thomas Pynchon, From The Introductionsixty-Three Rare Or Previously Uncollected Works By A Master Of The American Short Story Form *A Hypothetical Episode Of Batman Hilariously Slowed Down To Soap-Opera Speed. *A Game Of Baseball As Played By T. S. Eliot And Willem Big Bull De Kooning. *A Recipe For Feeding Sixty Pork-Sotted Celebrants At Your DaughterS Wedding. *An Outlandishly Illustrated Account Of A Scientific Quest For God. These Astonishing Tropes Of The Imagination Could Only Have Been Generated By Donald Barthelme, Who-Until His Death In 1989-Seemed Intent On Goosing American Letters Into Taking A Quantum Leap. Gleeful, Melancholy, Erudite, And Wonderfully Subversive, The Teachings Of Don B. Is A Literary Testament Cum Time Bomb, With The Power To Blast Any Reader Into An Altered State Of Consciousness.A Small Education In Laughter, Melancholy, And The English Language. -The New York Times Book Review Barthelme, Who Died In 1989, Was A Distinctive Master Of Fragments . . . Anger, Wit, Extravagant Associations And Disassociations; These Would Be Less Memorable If It Were Not For BarthelmeS Ability To Evoke Dreams And The Tenderness With Which He Does It. -Los Angeles Times Review Praise For The Teachings Of Don B.BarthelmeS Art Was Pre-Eminently One Of Surprises, Darting From Satire To Lyricism To Poker-Faced Banality In A Single Paragraph....The Teachings Of Don B. Is A Small Education In Laughter, Melancholy And The English Language. -The New York Times Book ReviewDonald Barthelme May Have Influenced The Short Story In His Time As Much As Hemingway And OHara Did In Theirs. -New York TimesBarthelme Happens To Be One Of A Handful Of American Authors, There To Make Us Look Bad, Who Know Instinctively How To Stash The Merchandise, Bamboozle The Inspectors, And Smuggle Their Nocturnal Contraband Right On Past The Checkpoints Of Daylight Reality. -Thomas Pynchon, From The Introductionpraise For Donald BarthelmeDonald Barthelme Almost Single-Handedly Has Revived The Genre Of The Short Story And Made It Into A Fresh Art Form... He Can, And Does, Write Stories Of Every Kind. -PeopleProbably The Most Perversely Gifted Writer In The United States. -LifeAmong The Leading Innovative Writers Of Modern Fiction. -New York TimesThe Delight He Offers Readers Is Beyond Question; His Individuality Is Unmatched. -Los Angeles TimesAlongside Raymond Carver, The Most Emulated Short Story Writer In America. -Chris Power,The GuardianA Sophisticated Entertainer And An Elegant Stylist...There Arenew Yorker Captions Which Would Look At Home In BarthelmeS Dialogue, Just As There Are Lines In His Stories Which The Cartoonists Might Envy. -Patrick Parrinder,London Review Of BooksBarthelmeS Fiction Is Affected, Weightless, Utterly Original. One WouldnT Have It Any Other Way. -Arizona RepublicEvery Sentence I Read Makes Me Want To Stop And Write Something Of My Own. He Fires All Of My Synapses And Connects Them In New Ways. He Sends A Herd Of Wildebeest Through My Mind. ItS A Whole Jungle Full Of Animals, Really, Every Color And Shape, And He Sends Them Scurrying All Over My Brain, Screaming, Defecating, Fornicating. -Dave Eggers, Author Ofthe CircleOne Of The Great Citizens Of Contemporary World Letters. -Robert Coover, Author Ofgoing For A Beer About The Author Donald Barthelme Is A Winner Of The National Book Award And Is The Author Of Over Seventeen Books, Includingflying To America,City Life (One Oftime MagazineS Best Books Of The Year), Andsixty Stories, Which Was Nominated For The National Book Critics Circle Award, The Pen/Faulkner A