Fiction and the Figures of Life: Essays

288 pp. Includes essays on Gertrude Stein, Bertrand Russell, Jorge Luis Borges, and more. Gass's criticism, in the best tradition of eloquence, wit, and passion, is a defense of 'poesy' in a time of need... Nearly all the essays are a pleasure to read and some it almost seems shocking to say it are works of beauty. It has happened before one thinks of Keat's letters and some fragments of Lawrence that the unlikely combination of criticism, philosophy and metaphorical inventiveness has resulted in a kind of poetry.