Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Gardner, John (Vol. 18) - John Romano

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

JOHN ROMANO

It is the interesting fate of "Freddy's Book" to follow John Gardner's critical essay "On Moral Fiction" on the ever-longer shelf of his books. Interesting because the new novel is a very enjoyable one, an entertainment high and bright, in every sense; and yet it can't expect to escape the dead-earnest question, is it moral? Its very structure—a novel within a novel, or rather, a fairytale-historical novella with a long fictional preface explaining how the subsequent narrative fell into the editor's hands—suggests the kind of literary game-playing against which the Gardner of "On Moral Fiction" has so much to say: it is a structure worthy of that "unmoral" novelist John Barth. "On Moral Fiction" itself is very enjoyable too—meaning brightly readable, which critical essays generally aren't. But underneath it is a sermon as solemn as the little word "on" in its title, shot through with that dread of pleasure we associate with early Protestantism. It...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Norma L. Hutman
3. Brina Caplan
4. Marilyn Arnold
5. THOMAS LeCLAIR
6. Robert Richman
7. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
8. URSULA K. Le GUIN
9. John Romano
10. THOMAS LeCLAIR
11. Marc Granetz
12. Copyright