Sheer Fiction Author:Paul West In Sheer Fiction, Volume Two, Paul West examines the subtleties of Djuna Barnes' almost devilish wit, the Aeschylean tones of Broadway's Les Miserables, and the ideas binding Dickens and Dostoevesky to Faulkner. On the briefer side, West reviews some 50 novels by such diverse authors as Turgunev, J.R.R. Tolkein, Cortazar, Amado, Marie-Claire Bla... more »is, Janet Frame, Anthony Burgess, Anita Desai, Katherine Dunn, George Garrett, Kurt Vonnegut, J.R. Salamanca, Stanley Elkin, and more. Many of the books reviewed are currently available in paperbacks, and more attention is given in this volume to American and other English-language authors than in Volume One. His writing style is supple, invigorating, intelligent, generous by intention, and clearly the result of nothing less than complete engagement with his subject, whether it is the latest European novels or the clinical implications of heart attack or the true nature of atrocity. He is as unstinting in his praise of what he admires as he is devastating in his criticism of pretense and ineptitude.« less