Inspired by last week’s BANANAFISH, we turn our attention to the Glass family chronicles: in particular, Seymour Glass, the oldest of seven precocious children of showbiz parents. What makes Seymour tick? Why would this brilliant, ridiculously educated polyglot choose to exit the world? He clearly has PTSD, but that’s not it. He’s a poet, but sensitivity doesn’t explain it. The answer appears to lie somewhere within religions both western and eastern—a glut of self-contradictory wisdom offering five answers to every query.
These novellas pose other challenges to the reader. The language is exceptionally parenthetical (which explains the bad reviews that followed publication), and the bulk of the second story in particular is digressive and tangential, more like authorial solitaire than storytelling. But there’s something about the voice and the puffed-up Zen approach to intellectualization. As hard as SEYMOUR is to slog through, it’s harder to put down. Reviewed on Feb. 10, 2022