Donald Barthelme

Donald Barthelme has been called “probably the most perversely gifted writer in the U.S.'; As well as “ one of the best, most significant and carefully developing young American writers'; (Harte and Riley, 41). He was born April 7, 1931 to Donald and Helen Barthelme in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Barthelme had a wide range of careers during his lifetime. He worked as a newspaper reporter and as a managing editor of Location, and art and literature review (Harte and Riley, 41). His other jobs included serving in Korea and Japan in the U.S. Army (Barthelme Bio, 1), Professor of English at the City University of New York, teacher of Creative Writing at the University of Texas in Houston, and of course author of short stories and novels (Anderson et al, 919). He is the author of a number of collections of short stories including “Come Back, Dr. Caligari'; (1964); “Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts'; (1968); “ City Life'; (1971); “Sadness'; (1972); “Great Days'; (1978); “Overnight to Many Distant Cities'; (1983); and “Paradise'; (1986). He also wrote Snow White, a parody of the popular children’s fairy tale, the novel. He won the National Book Award for Children’s literature for the book titled “The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine: or, the Hithering, Thithering, Djinn'; (1971) (Marowski and Matuz, 3?). In 1976 he received the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters for his book The Dead Father. His book Sixty Stories was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner award for Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize all in 1982. Barthelme also had the privilege of being widely regarded as one of the ablest and most versatile American stylists (Robert et al, 919). Donald Barthelme passed away July 23, 1989 from cancer in Houston Texas.

According to the Literature book Barthelme’s stories contain plots that are “unconventional episodic, a clutter of styles, absurdities, and slapstick.'; In his hands, “a myth is likely to turn into realism, and realism into absurdity.'; It is said that Barthelme’s characters are “two-dimensional parodies of themselves, rather than fully developed individu...

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...he actors get ready for the play they are putting on, what people think of the play, and finally how the playwright is getting ready for his next play.

Sindbad is a story about a substitute teacher that normally teaches at night, who takes a job during the day. The teacher keeps saying that the students keep asking him to leave. He reads a story about Sindbad to them, but it is a fake version that is about Sindbad owning a store and making everyone that comes into his store happy.

The last story I read was The Explanation. I did not understand what the story was about. It wasn’t really a story but a series of questions and answers with squares filled in with black on each page.

All of the stories that I read came from Barthelme’s book Forty Stories. He is “widely regarded as one of the ablest and most versatile American Stylist'; (Anderson et al, 919). Barthelme does write about a variety of different topics, which does make him a versatile writer. He is a writer that makes the reader think about what they are reading and wonder what he means by what is written.