The Tunnel

Have you ever read a book that was clearly smarter than you?  Enter the world of William Gass and his book the Tunnel.  It took him thirty years to write! …and about 30 years for me to ever understand the subtext throughout his “stream of consciousness” on-going 675 pages about a college professor writing a book about Hitler and Nazi Germany.  While there are fragments that focus on the atrocities of the German leadership, the author’s main character, Professor William Fredrick Kohler, offers insights into his own life, with an unending fascination with his penis and his own insecurities around being a male, and the concerns he has about his previous book, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler’s Germany.  He realizes that his own life is full of innocence and guilt and begins to dig a hole (the tunnel) to hide his work as the flaws begin to control his life.   There is SO much in this book that reminds me of a combination of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Kurt Vonnegut’s books.  How so?  The stream of consciousness of both authors and the writing over the pages with funny words, notes in the margins, etc.  It also has the subtext that requires the reader to be slow and methodical to completely understand the various messages contained within.  This is one of those books that from the onset I had a really hard time connecting.  It needs complete attention and constant reframing.  You also need about 2-3 weeks of solid commitment to get through this one, or you may miss the many themes, issues, and humor, which I caught a little bit.  Yes, this one is beyond my attention span and comprehension, or at least on warm sunny days sitting on a boat! This one won’t make my top five this year…