Gass, William H. - Michael Dirda (review date 12 March 1995)

Michael Dirda (review date 12 March 1995)

SOURCE: “In the Dark Chambers of the Soul,” in Washington Post Book World, March 12, 1995, pp. 1, 10.

[In the following review, Dirda offers positive assessment of The Tunnel.]

Long awaited. Eagerly anticipated. Thirty years in the making. Such siren calls have sounded before—most recently luring us to Harold Brodkey's Runaway Soul and Norman Mailer's Harlot's Ghost. Each time we wonder, could this be it? Our age's Ulysses? Our Magic Mountain? So we plunk down our cash, lug our shiny purchase home, swiftly read up to page 47 or 99—and then sigh. The great book, the masterpiece is, well, okay. No great shakes. Not bad really. But hardly the work of a god.

Doubtless we'd be less disillusioned if we didn't keep getting our hopes up so high. Because William H. Gass has been working on The Tunnel nearly half his life, I wanted the novel to be a...

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