Adrián Astur Álvarez reviewed Snow White by Donald Barthelme
Review of 'Snow White' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
What this book has given me, over the past few days of reading, are innumerable scraps of paper: post-it notes, torn rectangles of printer paper, jagged sections of to-go bags. The one nearest me reads:
"I had in mind launching a three-pronged assault but the prongs wandered off seduced by fires and clowns. It was hell there in the furnace of my ambition. It was because, you said, I had read the wrong book. He reversed himself in his last years, you said, in the books no-one would publish. But his students remember, you said."- pg 53
The book does not provide much more context to appreciate that quote. Like most of Barthelme's short stories, the gems in Snow White work in plainspoken absurdity, like David Lynch at his most playful. He plays with the reader as a detached narrator and while it may be a critique born of our …
What this book has given me, over the past few days of reading, are innumerable scraps of paper: post-it notes, torn rectangles of printer paper, jagged sections of to-go bags. The one nearest me reads:
"I had in mind launching a three-pronged assault but the prongs wandered off seduced by fires and clowns. It was hell there in the furnace of my ambition. It was because, you said, I had read the wrong book. He reversed himself in his last years, you said, in the books no-one would publish. But his students remember, you said."- pg 53
The book does not provide much more context to appreciate that quote. Like most of Barthelme's short stories, the gems in Snow White work in plainspoken absurdity, like David Lynch at his most playful. He plays with the reader as a detached narrator and while it may be a critique born of our time, his lack of sincerity renders the project meaningless beyond an ice cold intellectual engagement.
I'm tired of postmodernism.
Snow White can barely sustain itself as a novel and I still prefer Barthelme's short stories, where lessons on writing and narrative are in abundance.
