An edition of The Tunnel (1995)

The Tunnel

  • 2.50 ·
  • 2 Ratings
  • 18 Want to read
  • 1 Currently reading
  • 3 Have read
The Tunnel
William H. Gass
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  • 2.50 ·
  • 2 Ratings
  • 18 Want to read
  • 1 Currently reading
  • 3 Have read

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Last edited by Open Library Bot
April 24, 2010 | History
An edition of The Tunnel (1995)

The Tunnel

  • 2.50 ·
  • 2 Ratings
  • 18 Want to read
  • 1 Currently reading
  • 3 Have read

The narrator of The Tunnel is a distinguished man in his fifties, William Frederick Kohler, a professor at a Midwestern university. His principal subject, the Third Reich. He has just completed his massive magnum opus, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany.

All that remains to write is an introduction. Kohler sits down to write a self-congratulatory text and finds himself unaccountably blocked. He begins instead to write an entirely other book, another history - that of the historian himself. What he writes is the complete opposite of his clearly argued, causally determined history of the Reich. It is as subjective and private as history is objective and public, as apparently shapeless and stagnant as history is ordered and directive.

It is chaotic, obscure, full of lies and disguises, gaps and repetitions. Indeed, his Introduction is so personal that he fears his wife will find it, and he slides the manuscript between pages of his book, where he knows it will not be found. At the same time, Kohler begins digging a tunnel out from the basement of his house.

The tunnel comes to mirror Kohler's digging into his life - his feelings, his past, his own few loves and many hatreds. The writing, the digging, the reader's reading, continue together, creating a hole driven into both language and the past, getting closer to and fleeing from the secrets of the novel's fundamental theme - the fascism of the heart.

Publish Date
Language
English

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Tunnel
The Tunnel
2012, Dalkey archive press
Paperback
Cover of: The Tunnel
The Tunnel
September 14, 2007, Dalkey Archive Pr
Paperback in English - Second edition
Cover of: The Tunnel
The Tunnel
May 1, 2006, Dalkey Archive Pr
Audio CD in English
Cover of: The tunnel
The tunnel
1999, Dalkey Archive Press
in English - 1st Dalkey Archive ed.
Cover of: The Tunnel
The Tunnel
April 12, 1997, Random House Value Publishing
Hardcover in English
Cover of: The tunnel
The tunnel
1996, HarperPerennial
in English - 1st HarperPerennial ed.
Cover of: The Tunnel
The Tunnel
1995, Knopf
in English

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Book Details


The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL7680095M
ISBN 10
0517174030
ISBN 13
9780517174036
Goodreads
784026

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
April 24, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs.
April 16, 2010 Edited by bgimpertBot Added goodreads ID.
December 14, 2009 Edited by WorkBot link works
April 29, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record