Gass is so cutesy he makes me puke. He consciously seeks to be "postmodern." Every sentence is an occasion for another metaphor which serves only to prove how good Gass is at coming up with unusual metaphors. When he reviews the works of others, he preens himself on enjoying their "subtleties" like any 4th-rate critic. Ick, ick, what a pri__!

The ideas behind the writing are nothing new. Basically the modern world has embraced TV and other media and abandoned literature, and Billy isn't too happy about this. Well, Billy, the philistines aren't listening to you. They can't even understand you. That's why they're philistines. Genuinely strong spirits don't need you to tell them.

His sentences strike defeatist-defiant and heroical-stoical poses; seldom could I find any genuine enthusiasm for any pleasure simple or complex. It's all forced and repulsive.

For genuine thought-poetry, read the Philosophical Investigations of Wittgenstein, not this literary pretender.

For anyone tired with the last fifteen years of "hip" postmodernism, this is an inspiring collection of darkly comic and seriously focussed essays ranging from the dillema of language and meaning to the innanity of literary prizes (which is especially juicy and hostile due to the fact that Gass, in the ranks of Pynchon, Gaddis, Reed, Coover and Ashberry, has never won one). Gass's prose cranks up the brain with lightening quickness, exercising synapses that haven't seen this much attention since German romantic criticism. He explores the epiphanies of recognition much differntly than the contemporary semioticians and psychanalysers because he expands his own inquiries in a playful use of language that demonstrates rather than deconstructs. Gass may not be our Walter Benjamin, but in an American literary landscape reluctant to relax and break wind he is our flatulator par excellence.