Sadness

2011, Jan.: #4
One of the better Barthelme collections, before he became a tad too redundant and pointless (tho not always!) in the latter half of the '70s. Also, like most Barthelme collections--like most flash fiction, really--I read, once I close that cover I...I just can't really remember a whole lot about it. What the **** did I read and why did I like it so much?

75%
[85] ( )

Immediately upon reading the opening phrase of the first story "While I read the Journal of Sensory Deprivation...", you know you're back in the world of Donald Barthelme, the most clever and witty postmodern short story writer I have ever read.

You either love Barthelme or don't understand a word of him, but if you are willing to slow down a bit and give him a careful reading, you can't help but be amazed at his cleverness.

This collection stands up well next to his others - outshines many of them. The name is paradoxical, because even though many of these stories explore sadness, this is always overcome by Barthelme's unrelenting humor.

Out of the sixteen stories in Sadness, only four or five were repeated in Forty Stories, so this is definitely worth getting your hands on.

- Critique de la Vie Quotidienne
- Traumerei
- The Genius
- Perpetua
- A City of Churches
- The Party
- Engineer-Private Paul Klee Misplaces an Aircraft Between Milbertshofen and Cambrai, March 1916
- A Film
- The Sandman
- Departures
- Subpoena
- The Catechist
- The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace
- The Rise of Capitalism
- The Temptation of St. Anthony
- Daumier ( )