William Gass shows sheen of great prose

“Eyes: Novellas and Stories” by William H. Gass (Alfred A. Knopf, 256 pages, $26)

If there were any doubt that high-brow, literary fiction is alive and well, William H. Gass will quickly lay it to rest. A virtuoso of poetic prose, rippling with alliteration, slant rhyme and wily metaphors, he caresses and seduces the English language to yield marvelous, clause-clogged sentences that would put Henry James to shame. Gass gushes a dark wisdom and wit, the furthest thing from a feel-good humanism or happy endings. With the sensibility of a Jonathan Swift, at 91, he has honed his literary skills for nearly 50 years (of publication), and shows no signs of letting up.

His latest collection of novellas and short stories, “Eyes,” broods over the foibles of the human condition and of not-so-human artifacts such as the piano that starred in the film “Casablanca,” and a forlorn metal folding chair abandoned in a barber shop. These soliloquies of usually mute objects are minor tours de force, tributes to Gass’ enormous imagination, but they pale beside the brilliant “In Camera,” the opening novella, and the frenetic, stream-of-consciousness “Charity,” which carries the reader along in a rush of sensations and judgments about helping the needy to help themselves – and get them off our backs. When he is good, Gass is wickedly good, still one of our country’s finest prose stylists.

“In Camera” examines aesthetic obsession with an almost surgical precision. In a dusty, dim shop of “gray-white, gray-black photographs” in a rundown neighborhood “so drably uninteresting robbers wouldn’t visit even to case its joints,” Mr. Gab guards his precious images, the bulk of them probably purloined. He does more admiring of his handsome, ever-growing stock than he does transacting business – “staring at his prints in the darkness, prints that covered the pockmarked wall of the shop, displayed there like dead things hung from nails, as if slain while other prey were being hunted.”

Among his prized trophies of big-name photographers – Ansel Adams, Eugene Atget, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Josef Sudek and Edward Weston – he cherishes the simple image; no tricks for him, only “reality.” “Realism – truth – was the exclusive property of photography,” he says.

That’s one of the few things he does say. Mr. Gab stays ironically tight-lipped throughout the novella, but he does try to teach his assistant, Mr. Stu (eventually named that, after graduating from plain, old “stupid”), a thing or two about artistic appreciation. Mr. Stu, raised in an orphanage, is a deformed, Quasimodo-like young man, disfigured but not disabled, and anything but stupid. The father-son relationship between the pair is stern but touching, as Mr. Gab insists that Mr. Stu learn a word a day and recite sentences from critics like Walter Pater in a sort of privileged, insular sentimental education.

We watch as Mr. Stu grows up, moves out on his own, explores the anathema of color photography (all the images in Mr. Gab’s store are black and white), while Mr. Gab carefully sells his wares only for cash to sinister customers with names like Mr. Weasel.

Before long, it becomes clear that Mr. Gab’s clients are all thieves, stealing only the highest quality images for the master collector. Things head downhill quickly from there for both Mr. Gab and Mr. Stu. Detectives arrive, tears are shed, photos removed.

But plot isn’t the point with Gass. Language is. So even as he expresses his admiration of an individual photograph (Gass himself is an avid photographer), he increases our own admiration of the wonder of words displayed on the page:

“If you were to look at the penetrating portrait Berenice Abbott made of Eugene Atget when he was a wispy-haired old man with sunken cheeks, a mouth relieved of most of its teeth, assertive nose, and intense eyes, you might get a whiff of Mr. Gab, too, for he was ancient early, grew up to reach old in a hurry, and then didn’t change much for decades except to solidify his opinions much the way Atget had, both men easily angered, both men hugging their habits, each short of speech, and patient as the stones Atget alone gelatinized.”

After “In Camera,” “Charity” steps to center stage, the bookend novella that, once completed, helped inspire Gass to write his most recent novel, “Middle C.”

Hardy is the story’s protagonist, a Washington, D.C., corporate lawyer whose feverish stream of consciousness has him hounded by panhandlers, do-gooders and legions of others writing for money. What is the charitable thing to do? he wonders, as he runs the affluent gauntlet of K Street. But it’s hard to focus while his mind keeps drifting toward sexual imagery.

Still, for all his peccadilloes, his situation proves to be one of genuine perplexity and annoyance.

“Hardy was in a happy homeless state, wasn’t he? His apartment was as empty as a sunny Sunday. In any case, how much good got done? Were some givers given God’s grace as a consequence of their giving, or did they need God’s grace in order to give in the first place? He’d read that most of the money these charities collected went to the administrators of the business. To buy little red soldier suits and a tambourine, or to dress deadbeats up as Santas. Only a little found its way to the poor, the sick, the diligent researcher, the ill-favored poet in his garret, the painter supported only by his easel, the cold-finger composer who’s had to pawn his ivories, feeding dog food to his famished genius till it barks, and music blares out the horn of the speaker.”

Hardy comes across as voluble as Mr. Gab remains mum. His dilemma, ethical to the core, demonstrates how Gass, a professor emeritus of philosophy, explores big issues beneath the beautiful surface of his prose. Here is where the music really blares; here, the horn of plenty runneth over.

Although the other stories in this collection don’t quite measure up to the level of the novellas, “Eyes” is a gripping gift from Gass, who always requires concentrated reading, but rewards every serious effort. At 91, he just keeps getting better, all to the benefit of the state of American prose.

This story was originally published December 13, 2015 at 10:12 AM with the headline "William Gass shows sheen of great prose."