Life is too short to waste time with a book like this.

I can't believe anyone would publish these essays in the first place. I enjoy meandering prose, but only if it is to an eventual point. These pieces go on and on. Uncharacteristically, I was constantly checking how many pages I had left before the next essay.

A few of the pieces showed promise - Invisible Cities, Sidelonging, Tests of Time and The Shears of the Censor in particular - but soon become tedious as the reader is bludgeoned with copious amounts of prose that leads to no purpose. The one exception was Anywhere But Kansas, which was a lithe 9 pages. I am assuming that the other 30 pages were eaten by Gass' puppy or something.

Just to be clear, I read many long, complex novels and enjoy them - Barth's Giles Goat-Boy, Sot-Weed Factor and Letters; Grass' Tin Drum and Dog Years; Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - but when you are writing essays they have to be tight, or at least vaguely interesting throughout, else the length becomes unbearable.

Until now, I was excited to read The Tunnel. I will still give it a shot in the coming months, but I am no longer looking forward to it. ( )