Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Butler, Robert Olen - Josephine Hart (review date 16 January 1994)

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Josephine Hart (review date 16 January 1994)

SOURCE: Hart, Josephine. “Beyond His Wildest Fantasies.” Washington Post Book World 24, no. 3 (16 January 1994): 1, 12.

[In the following review, Hart argues that They Whisper is a “meditation on the spiritual nature of sexuality” and praises the profound and disturbing aspects of the book.]

In literature, as in life, there are tales of singular passion—Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Antoine-Francois Prevost's Manon Lescaut. And then there are others, which tell of a multitude of amatory encounters—Moliere's Dom Juan, Casanova's Memoires and Guy de Maupassant's Bel-Ami. Robert Olen Butler's They Whisper belongs to the latter category. It is a profound, disturbing and important book.

“The degree and kind of a man's sexuality reaches up into the ultimate pinnacle of his spirit—beyond...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Madison Smartt Bell (review date 23 February 1992)
   2. Richard Eder (review date 29 March 1992)
   3. Kathleen Gilgore (review date 4 September 1992)
   4. Cynthia McCown (review date 11 December 1993)
   5. Josephine Hart (review date 16 January 1994)
   6. Robert Olen Butler and Missouri Review (interview date February 1994)
   7. Julia Glass (review date 6 February 1994)
   8. Robert Olen Butler and Michael Sartisky (interview date spring 1994)
   9. Mark Ford (review date 12 May 1994)
   10. Helen Heritage August (review date August 1994)
   11. Lorrie Smith (essay date spring 1995)
   12. Jonathan Penner (review date 10 November 1996)
   13. Barbara C. Ewell (review date 17 May 1997)
   14. Susan Balée (review date summer 1997)
   15. Peter Stanford (review date 17 August 1997)
   16. Susie Linfield (review date 25 January 1998)
   17. Thomas Bonner (review date 20 June 1998)
   18. Ron Charles (review date 6 January 2000)
   19. Kit Reed (review date 16 January 2000)
   20. Jonathan Levi (review date 23 January 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Moliere