A Good Read: Kiss the Paper With It

We should all know about Donald Barthelme’s use of the cut-up technique in his postmodern adaptation of the classic fairy tale “Snow White.”

“Informal statements             the difficulties of owner-
ship and customs        surprises you by being Love
exchanges       paint it          understanding brown
boys without a penny         I was             bandit head-
gear        And the question of yesterday wait-
ing          members clinging clear milk of
wanting fever hidden           melted constabu-
lary    extra innings of danger        hides    under
the leg résumé          clip chrome method   decision
of the sacred Rota               muscular dream basket
gesture           Kiss the paper with it         tufts     more
interesting than children        painful texture of inter-
esting children offensive candor        lesion              hang-
ing mirror           They only want window boxes
moving with clean, careful shrubs        Manner in
which the penetration was    Excited groans stifled
under      blankets upset      A parliament of less-
favored glass doors closed   extra”

(Pg. 109, Snow White, Scribner Paperback Fiction, New York, 1965)

With all its television commercialese, this passage from Barthelme’s Snow White reads like the transcript of someone’s channel-surfing. Here as elsewhere, Barthelme shucks story in favor of the beauty of the words-on-the-page; he’s composing in the vein of pictography—painting the portrait via montage. Where did Barthelme harvest these clippings? One guess is as good as another; if the newspaper, he’s following in the footsteps of Tristan Tzara. But perhaps Barthelme is recycling bits of stories, cannibalizing his own work. Fragmented images flash like projected still frames, instances that hint at much more. For example, positioning “Manner in / which the penetration was” next to “Excited groans stifled / under” next to “blankets upset” inevitably creates an image and invites us to see what isn’t entirely present. —Fabrizio Ciccone