I don’t know how I missed this, but back in March the Dalkey Archive put Donald Barthelme’s two previously out-of-print novels, Paradise and The King, back in print. What great news for you all!
I discovered Barthelme back when I was in college. In a Creative Writing 101 class the grad student/teacher passed on one of Barthelme’s short stories, "Cortes and Montezuma." For me, it was one of those awakening moments. I had never read anything like it. That was eleven years ago; ever since I’ve religiously stopped in the “B” section anytime I’m in a used bookstore, looking not just for a Don B. book I might not already have (there are very few at this point) but any version of a Don B. book I don’t have. I have all the short story collections and novels as first editions, plus the variety of paperback versions that followed in the 80s, and of course easy-to-find collections that have come since (40 Stories, 60 Stories, Teachings of Don B., and Not-Knowing). I’ve even got a couple rare small press books he did, though there are a few more out there that are too pricey for me. (And if anyone out there sees Sam’s Bar or his children’s book, The Hithering Dithering Djin, hit me up!)
All that is to say that I am obsessive when it comes to Barthelme. I’ve read it all. Twice, at least. And for as long as I’ve been collecting his books, only the novels Snow White and The Dead Father have been in print (in addition to the aforementioned collections). Barthelme is often credited as being one of the true masters of the short story, but as a novelist he is underrated. Granted, his novels are all comprised of very short, tableau-like chapters—they often evoke the feeling of flipping through a surreal photo album rather than following a real plot—but it is just this reason that his novels are so wonderful. He is able to stretch out in his novels; where some of his short stories might seem slight, his novels (particularly Snow White and The King) become like paintings on the page. Each chapter is not necessarily connected sequentially to the next, but neither are his juxtapositions abrupt nor without thought. You can step back from a Barthelme novel as if you were in a museum: with a little distance, backing away from each small detail, the whole image coheres as if without effort.
Until now, however, it might have been difficult to really see how well Barthelme could accomplish this, since only Snow White and The Dead Father have been in print. Snow White (a sexually liberated and slightly surreal retelling of the fairy tale) is brilliant, of course. The Dead Father, meanwhile, is less so—despite that many other critics think is a high point in his career. The “plot” is more abstract—a convoy of people are carrying the oversized, statue-like (but talkative) eponymous character across a desolate landscape—and the structure more experimental (i.e,. the story-within-the-novel that appears 2/3 of the way in). Personally I felt as if I was always held at arm’s length with this book, not really sure if I was grasping its true intent. I’m still not sure if it is a noble failure or half-baked experiment.
Barthelme followed this with Paradise, my least favorite of his novels. Least favorite, in fact, because it is at the other extreme in comparison to The Dead Father. This is his most straightforward work of his career, as it tells the story of a newly divorced man who happens to find a gorgeous penthouse apartment in New York, which he must share with three beautiful and sexually free lingerie models—hence the title of the book. Barthelme is of course subverting everything that this cliché fantasy plot would imply, but the novel nevertheless lacks the daring prose that marked his short stories and first two novels.
Which brings us to what I feel was Barthelme’s best moment—The King, his fourth and final novel, originally published in 1986, not long after he passed away. The King returns to similar territory as Snow White, appropriating a well-known story (in this case, King Arthur) and treating it in a collagist style. But The King is more ambitious than Snow White. It has more to say, is more experimental (without falling over the deep end), and holds together stronger than anything he’d done before.
In The King, Barthelme tells the story of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, but places the action in the middle of World War II. Unlike a theater troupe reinterpreting Shakespeare in a new time and place, however, Barthelme crashes the story right into the reality, forcing anachronisms against each other. Arthur and the knights are still on horseback, chasing after the grail. But meanwhile Hitler is off in Germany making a ruckus, and that Churchill fellow is making a power grab against Arthur. Eventually the Grail and Atomic Bomb are confused as one and the same. The book is at once hilarious and moving. The prose is vivid, almost filmic. And I’ve frankly not seen a novel imbued with such distinct imagination as this. Hopefully now that the Dalkey Archive has put it back in print The King will be given its rightful critical praise. Many a McSweeney contributor has displayed their fondness for Barthelme (i.e., ripped off wholesale certain “Barthelmic” absurdities), but The King, more than anything else Barthelme has ever written, really highlights how untouchable Don B. really is.
Bonus Barthelme Material:
—Speaking of the McSweeney's–Barthelme connection, an early issue of the Believer printed Don B's syllabus for the class he taught at the University of Houston.
—For the cash-shy, Jessamyn's Barthelme site is a great resource. Lots of stories available there for zilch. Highly recommended if you're not sure whether you'd like his stuff. I suggest the aforementioned "Cortes and Montezuma," "Some of Us had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby," or "The first thing the baby did wrong..." (Come on: "The baby's name was Born Dancin'.")
