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pairs him with Vladimir Nabokov, Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino,
and T.S. Eliot ...
and T.S. Eliot ...
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Complete article at the following URL:
http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/6276
West’s prose cannot make it across “The Universe”
By Whitten OverbyStaff Writer - April 11, 2008
Paul West is an extremely stubborn writer. He has not deviated from his desired subject matter, rather attaining critical success through the mastery of his unique form. Unfortunately, West’s writing is better known for the awards it has won than for outstanding sales. His oeuvre is notable for its breadth, encompassing novels, short stories, personal essays, criticism, poetry, and autobiography. Each work uses form as a means of experimentation. The critic Diane Johnson lauded West for “his faith in the novel as an art form, as a dignified production of the human mind, capable of rendering, in its infinite variety, social comment, philosophic statement, comedy, [and] pain.” The depth of subject matter West has explored bespeaks his theme of choice, namely, his belief in the rich abundance of human experience. West’s sole short story collection, “The Universe, and other Fictions,” serves as an entrance into his understanding of fiction.The inordinate amount of wonder West finds in the universe pairs him with Vladimir Nabokov, Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino, and T.S. Eliot. Like Nabokov, West views reality as comprised of random, ever-changing forces. His narratives are often surrealistic but vivid abstractions of concrete fact. His short stories also reflect Cortazar’s desire to push language to new ends. The use of irregular syntax, linear and non-linear narrative structures, modernistic stream of consciousness, and general ambiguity stems from Cortazar. Undercurrents reminiscent of Calvino’s wavering between precious description of the fantastic and grounded realism also appear in West’s writing.
[ ... ]West does not write convincingly about these other cultural contexts in “The Universe,” however. His dialogue and narrative expositions read so similarly that a lack of quotation marks caused them to be confused. Furthermore, the conclusion leaves the reader wondering why West establishes so many paradoxical conditions without answering a single one. The relationship between the spoken and unspoken is a powerful one, which West fails to actualize in the text. He descends into the literary canon without developing a coherent response and integration of the material he studies. Consequently, his prose reads like a coarser version of the modernist aesthetic, deftly allusive without providing necessary explanation for its allusions.
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