Forty Stories

Description

William H. Gass has written of Donald Barthelme that “he has permanently enlarged our perception of the possibilities open to short fiction.” In Forty Stories, the companion volume to Sixty Stories, we encounter a dazzling array of subjects: Paul Klee, Goethe, Captain Blood, modern courtship, marriage and divorce, armadillos, and other unique Barthelmean flights of fancy. These pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces tangle with the ludicrous, pose questions that remain unresolved, and challenge familiar bits of language heretofore unexamined. Forty Stories demonstrates Barthelme’s unrivaled ability to surprise, to stimulate, and to explore.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Forty StoriesIntroduction by Dave Eggers

Chablis
On the Deck
The Genius
Opening
Sindbad
The Explanation
Concerning the Bodyguard
Rif
The Palace at Four A.M.
Jaws
Conversations with Goethe
Affection
The New Owner
Paul Klee
Terminus
The Educational Experience
Bluebeard
Departures
Visitors
The Wound
At the Tolstoy Museum
The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace
A Few Moments of Sleeping and Waking
The Temptation os St. Anthony
Sentence
Pepperoni
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friends
Lightning
The Catechist
Porcupines at the University
Sakrete
Captain Blood
110 West Sixty-First Street
The Film
Overnight to Many Distant Cities
Construction
Letters to the Editore
Great Days
The Baby
January

…a voice that remains uniquely rewarding and often sounds ageless. (The New York Times Book Review)Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) published twelve books, including two novels and a prize-winning children’s book. He was a regular contributor to the New Yorker and taught creative writing at the University of Houston. In his career, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Book Award, and a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, among others.US