Gardner, John (Vol. 7) - Gardner, John 1933–
Gardner, John 1933–
Gardner, an American Old and Middle English scholar, a philosophical novelist and short story writer, and, with Jason and Medeia, an epic poet, has always demonstrated what George Stade called a "reverence for ancient forms and permanent truths." The Sunlight Dialogues, one of the most important novels of the seventies, was admired by one critic as the work of a "lunatic illusionist."
A serious case can be made for how little John Gardner resembles himself. Now he's an epic poet, now an epic novelist, now a medieval monster, now a simulated Poe or Melville. He is the latter two, and more, in [The King's Indian, a] collection of his short fiction, the title story a remarkable novella, full of marvels.
Gardner is the Lon Chaney of contemporary fiction, a writer without a personal psychography in his work. He seems sprung not from life but literature, history and ideas, a man making books with other...
[The entire page is 6111 words long]
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