The World Within The Word Essays

352 Pages·1971·45.63 MB·English

by  William H. Gass

Books by William II. Gass
Omensetters Luck
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country
Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife
The Tunnel
Cartesian Sonata
On Being Blue
Fiction and the Figures of Life
'The Habitations of the Won!
Finding a Form
Reading Hi Ike
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The World Within the Word
The World
Within the Word
Essays by
William H. Gass
BASIC
BOOKS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
The World Within the Word was originally published
in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf Publishers in 1978.
The Basic Books edition is published by arrangement
with Alfred A. Knopf.
Copyright© 1971, 1972, 1973. 1974. 1975, 1976
by William !i. Gass
Published by Basic Books.
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
AH rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the. case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address Basic Books.
10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10025-5299.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gass, William H, 1924-
The world within the word.
Reprint of the 1st ed. Published in 1978 by Knopf,
New York.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Literature, Modern—History and Criticism—
Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title.
[PVI710.G33 1979] 809 79-52364
ISBN 0-465-02625-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
For
Robert Silvers
who made me write
most of these essays
and
to
Mary
who had to endure
their doing
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Contents
The Doomed
in Their Sinking
3
Malcolm Lowry
16
Wisconsin Death Trip
39
Mr. Blotner,
Mr. Feaster,
and Mr. Faulkner
45
Gertrude Stein
and the Geography
of the Sentence
63
Three Photos
of Colette
m
Proust at 100
147
Paul Valery
158
Sartre on Theater
777
Upright
Among Staring Fish
203
The Anatomy
of Mind
208
Food and Beast
Language
253
Groping for Trouts
262
Carrots, Noses,
Snow, Rose, Roses
280
The Ontology
of the Sentence,
or How to Make
a World of Words
308
Notes
and
Acknowledgments
339