Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Gass, William H. - Gary Percesepe (review date Summer 1995)

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Gary Percesepe (review date Summer 1995)

SOURCE: A review of The Tunnel, in Antioch Review, Vol. 53, No. 3, Summer, 1995, pp. 380-1.

[In the following review, Percesepe provides a summary of The Tunnel and comments on its critical controversy.]

Having completed his magnum opus, Guilt & Innocence in Hitler's Germany, William Frederick Kohler, distinguished professor of history at a distinguished Indiana University, sits in his chair, intending to write an introduction. Blocked, he writes instead a history of history, or better a history of the historian-as-liar, lout, and loser. Fearing his wife will discover it, he hides the new manuscript by slipping it into the pages of his book. Meanwhile, he begins digging a tunnel out from the basement of his house.

He is not a nice man, this Kohler. He speaks with the volume turned up. He lies like a rug and his sins are not small. He gives new meaning to the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Richard J. Schneider (review date Winter 1979-1980)
   2. Charles Caramello (essay date 1983)
   3. Charlotte Byrd Hadella (essay date Fall 1988)
   4. Kevin J. H. Dettmar (essay date Fall 1991)
   5. Reginald Dyck (essay date Fall 1991)
   6. Arthur M. Saltzman (essay date Fall 1991)
   7. Philip Stevick (essay date Fall 1991)
   8. Robert Kelly (review date 26 February 1995)
   9. Merle Rubin (review date 6 March 1995)
   10. Michael Dirda (review date 12 March 1995)
   11. Michael Silverblatt (review date 19 March 1995)
   12. John Leonard (review date 20 March 1995)
   13. Steven Moore (review date Spring 1995)
   14. Gary Percesepe (review date Summer 1995)
   15. Louis Menand (review date 13 July 1995)
   16. Jim Lewis (review date February 1997)
   17. Maureen Howard (review date 9 March 1997)
   18. John O'Brien (review date Spring 1997)
   19. Marcus Klein (essay date Summer 1997)
   20. Kenneth Haynes (review date Fall 1997)
   21. Arthur Saltzman (review date Fall 1998)
   22. James Wood (review date 1 November 1998)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright