The World within the Word – Essays (American Literature Series) - Softcover

"Mr. Gass is an ironist of the highest caliber.... he is an improbable ?minence grise of American letters, festooned with accolades; if there is any justice in the world he will one day get his Nobel prize.... As an essayist, his prose is gorgeously musical, ticking along smoothly as if measured out by metronome. He composes miniature fugues and conducts cadenzas while meandering around his subjects..." -- Vladislav Davidzon, The New York Observer

"The finest prose stylist in America" -- Steven Moore, Washington Post

Mr. Gass is an ironist of the highest caliber.... he is an improbable ?minence grise of American letters, festooned with accolades; if there is any justice in the world he will one day get his Nobel prize.... As an essayist, his prose is gorgeously musical, ticking along smoothly as if measured out by metronome. He composes miniature fugues and conducts cadenzas while meandering around his subjects...--Vladislav Davidzon "The New York Observer "

The finest prose stylist in America. --Steven Moore "Washington Post "

The finest prose stylist in America.--Steven Moore "Washington Post "

The World Within the Word, Gass's second published volume of criticism, is a landmark collection discussing Valéry, Henry Miller, Sartre, Freud, Faulkner, suicide, "art and order," and the transformation of language into poetry and fiction. Revelatory and gorgeous, by turns humorous and devastating, it stands among Gass's best and most provocative books. First published by Knopf in 1978.