John's Wife by Robert Coover

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Original Title: John's Wife

ISBN: 0684830434
ISBN13: 9780684830438
Autor: Robert Coover
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (3237) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 432 pages
Download Format: PDF, FB2, MOBI, MP3.
Published: April 19th 1997 / by Simon & Schuster / (first published 1996)
Language: English
Genre(s):
Fiction- 10 users
Novels- 2 users

Description:
The bestselling author of "The Public Burning" spins a darkly magical tale about life in an ordinary
small town and the woman who casts a spell on its inhabitants.

About Author:

Born Robert Lowell Coover in Charles City, Iowa, Coover moved with his family early in his life to
Herrin, Illinois, where his father was the managing editor for the Herrin Daily Journal. Emulating
his father, Coover edited and wrote for various school newspapers under the nom-de-plume
Scoop. He was also his high-school class president, a school band member, and an enthusiastic
supporter of the Cincinnati Reds. In 1949 Coover enrolled in Southern Illinois University, and, after
transferring to Indiana University in 1951, earned his bachelor's degree in 1953 with a major in
Slavonic languages. While in college, he continued editing student papers, as well as working
part-time for his father's newspaper. The day he graduated, Coover received his draft notice and
went on to serve in the U.S. Naval Reserve during the Korean War, attaining the rank of
lieutenant. Upon his discharge in 1957, Coover devoted himself to fiction. During the summer of
that year, he spent a month sequestered in a cabin near the Canadian border, where he studied
the work of Samuel Beckett and committed himself to writing serious avant-garde fiction. In 1958,
he travelled to Spain, where he reunited with Maria del Pilar Sans-Mallafr, whom he had earlier
met while serving a military tour in Europe. The couple married in 1959 and spent the summer
touring southern Europe by motorcycle, an experience he described in One Summer in Spain:
Five Poems, his first published work. Between 1958 and 1961, Coover studied at the University of
Chicago, eventually receiving his master's degree in 1965. The Coovers lived in Spain for most of
the early 1960s, a time during which Coover began regularly publishing stories in literary
magazines, including the Evergreen Review.
In 1966, after the couple returned to the United States, Coover took a teaching position at Bard
College in New York. He also published his first novel, The Origin of the Brunists (1966), which
won the William Faulkner Award for best first novel. In 1969, Coover won a Rockefeller
Foundation grant and published Pricksongs and Descants, his first collection of short fiction. That
year, he also wrote, produced, and directed a movie, On a Confrontation in Iowa City (1969).
Coover has maintained an interest in film throughout his career. During the early 1970s, Coover
published only short stories and drama, including A Theological Position (1972), a collection of
one-act plays, all of which were eventually produced for the stage. He also won Guggenheim
fellowships in 1971 and 1974, and served as fiction editor for the Iowa Review from 1974 to 1977.
By the mid-1970s, Coover had finished his next novel, The Public Burning; it took him more than
two years to find a publisher for the work, which was ultimately cited as a National Book Award
nominee. Coover received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1985 and a Rea Award for
A Night at the Movies (1987), a collection of short stories. While Coover concentrated primarily on
short fictionwith the exception of Gerald's Partyduring the 1980s, he produced a series of new
novels during the 1990s.
Coover has taught at a number of universities, including the University of Iowa, Columbia
University, Princeton University, and Brandeis University, throughout his career. Since 1981 he
has been a writer-in-residence and faculty member of the creative writing program at Brown
University.
Among the vanguard of American postmodern writers to come of age during the late 1960s,
Coover is respected as a vital experimentalist whose challenging work continues to offer insight
into the nature of literary creation, narrative forms, and cultural myths. Convinced early in his
career that traditional fictional modes were exhausted, Coover has pioneered a variety of inventive
narrative techniques, notably complex metafictional structures and ludic pastiches of various
genres to satirize contemporary American society and the role of the author. In this wa

Other Editions:

- John\'s Wife (Hardcover)

- John\'s Wife (Kindle Edition)

- John\'s Wife: A Novel (ebook)

- Johns Frau (Hardcover)

- Johns Wife (ebook)

Books By Author:

- The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

- Pricksongs and Descants

- The Public Burning

 - Briar Rose

- The Origin of the Brunists

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Rewiews:

Nov 03, 2015

Nathan "N.R." Gaddis
added it
Shelves: robert-coover-completioniziert, 2015-gelesen
And now, Coover Completionism!

Were I a talented writer with a developed bit of wit, Id write a parody of one of those saccharine
reviews that simply gushes about Johns Wife (know that her name is apostrophed) and youd all
rush out to tbr this wonder. But Im not. So Ill settle for exclaiming that Johns Wife ought to count
more highly in the esteem of Coover readers ; it ought to count up there with The Public Burning,
even if the fireworks are a tad more restrained. And Coover readers ought
And now, Coover Completionism!

Were I a talented writer with a developed bit of wit, Id write a parody of one of those saccharine
reviews that simply gushes about Johns Wife (know that her name is apostrophed) and youd all
rush out to tbr this wonder. But Im not. So Ill settle for exclaiming that Johns Wife ought to count
more highly in the esteem of Coover readers ; it ought to count up there with The Public Burning,
even if the fireworks are a tad more restrained. And Coover readers ought to count as the average
reader, but alas. However, as I declaim how great is Johns Wife Im fully aware that Im tempted
that direction a bit by the degree to which it is a more normalish=novel ; more normalish than the
middleclass nightmare of Geralds Party (also apostrophed ; and both employing to fine effect the
parentheticalization of subclaused thoughts) and more realist than Pinocchio and nothing at all
like the pyrotechnics of Lucky Pierre. What it is is a slightly more salty Coover than the Brunist-
realist phase ; one sees here the overlap. Not that Coover was attempting that kind of
middle=class Updikism (as Therouxs An Adultery maybe kind of did) because you cant put a
Gargantua-ette (that would be a female Gargantua) into a bourgeois novel. But speaking of the
bourgeois novel, its not really that, but more like the American Small Town Novel of which variety
Ive been reading several recently -- combine that setting (of the sort I grew up in several times ; I
think there were at least three) with a large cast of characters and a floating PoV and you get a set
of significant, unremarked upon novels which successfully avoid the First Person Terror (ie, PoV)
and result in what is frequently derided as PoMo -- I mean of course Coovers own Brunist novels
and Evan Daras novels and Jeff Burseys novels (I know, hes Canadian, but I said American
and my America is large) ;; probably extends back to things like Sinclair Lewis ; and theres at
least an Indian version in Kanthapura.

At any rate, Johns Wife, well, its about us. Which might account for why it wont be a novel for
every reader ; were not pretty.

Pedanticity Warning!!!
______________
Ive thought about chunking up Coovers oeuvre. Its not really a matter of chronology since the
time of the writing too often does not coincide with its publication. For instance, The Adventures of
Lucky Pierre: Directors Cut was written over a period of forty years, published finally in 2002.
Publication of The Public Burning (1977) was delayed several years due to legal sweaty=palms. A
Political Fable (1980), was first published as The Cat in the Hat for President in New American
Review in 1968. So instead, sort of a genre=chunking of his many books published, lo, these past
50 years.

I. The Brunist/Realist Books

Here, naturally, belong his two Brunist tales, The Origin of the Brunists (1966) and The Brunist
Day of Wrath (2014). But Id also place his popular The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J.
Henry Waugh, Prop. here since the depiction of Henrys fall into his fictional world is more or less
realistically portrayed. Naturally, as with all Fiction, these three are richly meta=phictional.

II. The Short Stuff :: Novellas and Short Stories

Quite, true, these could/should be divided in half, but in my book, they kind of do similar things, ie,
produce perfect pieces (unless they fail, etc). The novellas almost seem like formal perfection and
have been functioning quite well for introducing readers to Coovers genius. Roughly in order of
my esteem of them--correction :: I just cant do that ::
Ghost Town
Spanking the Maid
Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears*
Briar Rose
Noir
A Political Fable*
Stepmother
The stories are strewn around. Theres the classics -- A Night at the Movies or, You Must
Remember This (film and the movies saturate Coovers writing) and Pricksongs and Descants.
The fable stuff -- A Child Again. And In Bed One Night & Other Brief Encounters. The recent stuff,
still uncollected, but listed (naturally against the rules) in the gr=db and available (often) free to
read -- dont miss Going for a Beer!!

* (to be read in conjunction with The Public Burning)

III. The Novels

Pretty much the Coovers no one reads. But should ::
Geralds Party -- in which the I is apostrophized* (199 ratings 22 reviews )
Pinocchio in Venice (161 ratings 26 reviews )
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre: Directors Cut -- really pretty much an unendurable masterpiece
(52 ratings 9 reviews )
Johns Wife -- in which she is apostrophized* (84 ratings 7 reviews )

All four are of the genre tour de force or something ; but readers with weak stomachs will have
already avoided them and/or wont have the patience to endure them. None of them are of that
comfort=making kind of novel. All will seem perhaps on the long side for those who have loved the
small doses of similar stuff in the shorter works. But I think its a pity more people do not read them
; theyre a great antidote to the extremely conservative nature our literary scene has taken on in
recent years decades.

*to complete the apostrophe trilogy, well draft Noir in which you is apostrophized

IV. The Public Burning

Stands on its own, naturally. It consists of one part realist (see I. above) and one part insanity, a
blend of The Novels & The Short Stuff.

And then some miscellaneous stuff only Completionists might be interested in -- A Theological
Position (a collection of plays) and The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell) (a kind of tribute, I think),
for instance. And several extremely small print=runs of stuff collectors=only (see Friend Brians
copy of Spanking the Maid). But I think thats most of it, mostly.

But so, Coover is simply on a grand scale. Joyce. Faulkner. Gaddis. That kind of level. Pure/sheer
American genius (I remind you of my inability to properly compose the saccharine that would be
antidote to these bold claims). That he is not thoroughly known (although frequently you might find
articles about his students and influencees dropping his name), that his name is not habitually
lined up on that line of, for instance, Fitzgerald-OConnor-Hemingway-Updike-Etc-Faulkner, says a
whole lot more about our literary culture than it does about the value of Coovers works. And, Id
really have to insist, if you were to ask, yes, Coover is more long=haul improve-with-age than
might be the fading light of his fellow=master, John Barth. These Coover books (Donald Duck for
President?!?!) will hold up very nicely these next several coming decades.
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