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Authors
Donald Barthelme (b. 1931)
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Barthelme published three novels during his lifetime: Snow White (1967), The Dead Father (1975), and Paradise(1986). A fourth, The King, appeared in 1990, the year after he died. His story collections are Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964), Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts (1968), City Life (1970), Sadness (1972), Guilty Pleasures (1974), Amateurs (1976), Great Days (1979), Sixty Stories (1981), Overnight to Many Distant Cities (1983), and Forty Stories (1987). The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine (1971) is a work for children, whereas Sam’s Bar (1987) provides a narrative for adult cartoons by Seymour Chwast. Kim Hertingzer edited The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992), many of which were omitted from Barthelme’s own collections, and Not Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme (1997). Stanley Trachtenberg’s Understanding Donald Barthelme (1990) is a sound introduction, while Maurice Couturier and Régis Durand’s Donald Barthelme (1982) offers a superb explication of Barthelme’s literary theory. Jerome Klinkowitz examines the author’s entire canon in Donald Barthelme: An Exhibition (1991) and provides a primary and secondary bibliography.
Barthelme’s story, “The Balloon,” can be exasperating if we don’t understand that he is thinking about cultural habits of response - ways in which we are conditioned to regard and talk about mysteries and enigmas. In nearly catatonic prose, the narrative chronicles the tepidness of the reaction to the mystery visited upon the city. Is this science fiction, a tale of a metropolis of pod-people who can no longer react to anything? Or is the story trying for a truth about the etiquette of thinking and feeling, in an age of professional critics, armies of professors, and “interpretation” as an American heavy industry?
Questions for Discussion and Writing
1. Look at the verbs in the sentences in the opening pages of “The Balloon.” How would you characterize these choices? Is Barthelme following standard advice doled out in creative writing courses? Why not? How is the tone of the narrative affected by these verb choices? What are the advantages and dangers of this strategy?
2. Does anything “happen” in this story? Does it turn out to be what it seems to be about at the opening? Why does it conclude where it does?
3. If you can, spend some time visiting a museum of modern or contemporary art - preferably a museum at a college or in a large city, a museum with a thematic show of new artists and works - and try to enjoy two experiences simultaneously: the art on exhibit, and the people looking at the art. Look for works that seem designed to stun, shock, or surprise - with wild colors, outlandish size, noise, or some other contrivance or transgression of conventional taste or form. Do you see the work actually having the effect on viewers that seems to be intended? What are the visitors doing? How long do they look? What do people say to one another? What incongruities do you sense between the art and the response? What parallels do you notice to responses and themes in “The Balloon”?
