IMAGINATIVE QUALITIES OF ACTUAL THINGS

by Gilbert Sorrentino ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 21, 1971

*The actual qualities of imaginative things like the antinovel are. . . are. . . are. . . oh well type something. . . fictive. Or ""oneiric.""** But actually pretty actual -- playful, immodestly sexy***, full of lists (these are tremendous) and author interpolations and footnotes and words -- ""The reader will see that what I am driving at is that the words he is reading -- are words."" Right? About Artpeople, eight of them, drifting in and out of each other and 'poesie' and sculpture along with anybody else that might be around -- say Larry Rivers or Ron Padgett or Mailer or Nabokov. Real people such as Sheila Henry and Lou who do the Brooklyn to Berkeley to New York scene; or Guy Lewis who has problems like Hemingway and erratic**** impotence; or Dick Detective, he of the amethyst neon eyes and English Ovals who ends up with his Schenectady April in Vermont right out of Robert Frost via Julia Childs -- ""Thus do dreams come true and crumble every day in America"" which might be what all this is about. It works not as a ""superb fictional re-creation of a real time and place""***** but as a savant hip parody. Right * a house designation which usually works inversely in terms of general appeal. ** a good reviewer word, according to the author, but very hieratic. *** raunchy **** this is not a typo ***** that's the publisher blurbese on the fact sheet.

Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1971

ISBN: 1564784703

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION