Gilbert Sorrentino
Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006) was a prominent figure in the literary avant-garde movement of the 1960s and 1970s, primarily based in New York. Born to a Sicilian father and an Irish mother in Brooklyn, he often drew from his working-class background in his writing, notably in his novel *Steelwork*. Sorrentino began his literary journey in the 1950s, publishing influential magazines like *Neon* and *Kulchur*, which showcased the works of notable contemporaries. His first novel, *The Sky Changes*, introduced experimental narrative techniques, and his later work, *Mulligan Stew*, gained widespread acclaim, solidifying his reputation as a master of literary parody.
Throughout his career, Sorrentino was recognized with numerous awards, including the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. He taught creative writing at Stanford University until his retirement in 1999 and continued to publish works into the twenty-first century, reflecting his evolving artistic vision. Despite his critiques of popular culture and the literary establishment, Sorrentino left a lasting impact on readers and writers alike, exploring the complexities of language and the nature of art. His final work, *The Abyss of Human Illusion*, was published posthumously in 2010, ensuring his literary legacy continued.
Gilbert Sorrentino
American novelist and poet
- Born: April 27, 1929
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York
- Died: May 18, 2006
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Gilbert Sorrentino (saw-rehn-TEE-noh) was a central figure in the literary avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s, which was centered in New York but had artistic ties to other communities in the United States. His work displays fictional devices and techniques that are now associated with postmodernism. The child of a Sicilian-born father and a third-generation Irish mother, he grew up among Roman Catholics in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood. Sorrentino used this milieu, which he considered deadening, in his second novel, Steelwork. A precocious boy, he began his migratory travels by moving across the river to the cultural centers of Manhattan when he was eighteen.
In 1950, Sorrentino enrolled in Brooklyn College and began to write fiction, but he attended classes only one year before his education was interrupted by his being drafted into the Army Medical Corps. When he was released in 1953, he attempted to write a novel that was unsuccessful, then returned to Brooklyn College in 1955. While there, he founded a magazine, Neon, with some of his friends. From 1956 to 1960, Sorrentino edited the magazine and published the works of many prominent writers, including William Carlos Williams, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Hubert Selby, Jr., and Joel Oppenheimer. Although its readership was small, Sorrentino believed that an audience of two hundred was sufficient because, in the late 1950s, the New York community of poets and writers was so close. With novelist James Joyce and poet William Carlos Wiilliams, Sorrentino shared faith in the power of the word and in its multiple technical possibilities, the motif for much of his work.
Together with LeRoi Jones, Sorrentino shared the editorship of another significant magazine of the 1960s, Kulchur (1960–65), whose contributors included members of the Beats, the Black Mountain School, and the New School. Sorrentino wrote numerous critical, iconoclastic pieces for Kulchur and, during these years, published two poetry collections: The Darkness Surrounds Us and Black and White. From 1965 to 1970, he worked at Grove Press, rising from assistant to editor. His first editing assignment was Alex Haley’s edited text, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). In these years, Sorrentino published his first novel, The Sky Changes, which ignores time sequence by scrambling the past, present, and future. He also began his teaching career with a course at Columbia University.
Although critics held him in high esteem, his work was always avant-garde and experimental, and he did not gain popular attention until the publication of his novel Mulligan Stew in 1979. Literary parody is the major device of Mulligan Stew, which is considered Sorrentino’s masterpiece. It was published to rave reviews, gained popularity, and led to Sorrentino’s appointment to the faculty of Stanford University in 1982, where he taught creative writing until his retirement in 1999. In an interview with Alexander Laurence in 1994, Sorrentino spoke of his opinion about the Northern California culture in which he lived during the Stanford years. He found it antithetical and struggled with its “cuteness, its apathy, its general air of paralysis, its relentless small-townishness . . . ” San Francisco, he said, “has the air of an amateur stage production set in sinister natural surroundings.” In the same interview, he castigated publishers, popular culture, the reading public, and the denigration of Italian Americans.
Sorrentino continued to write into the twenty-first century, publishing both fiction and poetry, including Little Casino (2002); The Moon in Its Flight (2004), his first collection of short stories; New and Selected Poems, 1958–1998 (2004); Lunar Follies (2005); and A Strange Commonplace (2006), which would be his final book published during his lifetime.
For all of his cavils, Sorrentino was the recipient of many awards, including Guggenheim Fellow in Fiction in 1973 and 1987, John Dos Passos Prize for Literature in 1981, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature in 1985, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction in 1992, and the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005. Additionally, he was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for both Aberration of Starlight (1980) and Little Casino.
Sorrentino spent his life pursuing his ideal of art. He believed that as the artist works, the vision is changed, reformed, and corrupted, so that all artistic effort is essentially a drive to reach an ideal that is unattainable. Within these limitations, however, Sorrentino was an artist of unusual drive and ability and provided his readers with new ways to think about language and literature.
Following complications from lung cancer, Sorrentino died on May 18, 2006, in New York City, at the age of seventy-seven. Having made a concerted effort to finish one last book, he left a final manuscript with his son, Christopher, with explicit instructions to ensure its publication. That work, The Abyss of Human Illusion, was published posthumously with minimal edits in 2010.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
The Sky Changes, 1966
Steelwork, 1970
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, 1971
Splendide-Hotel, 1973
Mulligan Stew, 1979
Aberration of Starlight, 1980
Crystal Vision, 1981
Blue Pastoral, 1983
Odd Number, 1985
Rose Theatre, 1987
Misterioso, 1989
Under the Shadow, 1991
Red the Fiend, 1995
Pack of Lies, 1997
Gold Fools, 1999
Little Casino, 2002
Lunar Follies, 2005
A Strange Commonplace, 2006
The Abyss of Human Illusion, 2009
Poetry:
The Darkness Surrounds Us, 1960
Black and White, 1964
The Perfect Fiction, 1968
Corrosive Sublimate, 1971
A Dozen Oranges, 1976
White Sail, 1977
The Orangery, 1978
Selected Poems, 1958–1980, 1981
A Beehive Arranged on Humane Principles, 1986
New and Selected Poems, 1958–1998, 2004
Drama:
Flawless Play Restored: The Masque of Fungo, pb. 1974
Nonfiction:
Something Said, 1984 (essays)
Translation:
Suspiciae Elegidia/Elegies of Sulpicia, 1977
Short Fiction:
The Moon in Its Flight, 2004
Bibliography
Boylan, Roger. "Gilbert Sorrentino's Last Novel." Review of The Abyss of Human Illusion, by Gilbert Sorrentino. The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/Boylan-t.html?mcubz=1. Accessed 31 May 2017. A review that discusses Sorrentino's final book, The Abyss of Human Illusion, placing it within the scope of the author's oeuvre.
Greiner, Donald J. “Antony Lamont in Search of Gilbert Sorrentino: Character and Mulligan Stew.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 1 (Spring, 1981): 104–112. This article analyzes the ways Sorrentino enlarges the traditional role of character.
Hawtree, Christopher. "Gilbert Sorrentino." The Guardian, 6 June 2006, www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jun/07/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries. Accessed 31 May 2017. Obituary covering Sorrentino's life and work.
Klinkowitz, Jerome. The Life of Fiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977. Explores major developments in American fiction, with an emphasis on modernism and its nucleus in New York. Contains a chapter on Sorrentino.
Mackey, Louis. Fact, Fiction, and Representation: Four Novels by Gilbert Sorrentino. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1997. A critical study of Crystal Vision, Odd Number, Rose Theatre, and Misterioso. Includes bibliographical references and an index.
McPheron, William. Gilbert Sorrentino: A Descriptive Bibliography. Elmwood Park, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1991. Traces Sorrentino’s career from his first short story in 1956 to early 1990. Treats writings both by and about Sorrentino. Includes an index.
Mottram, Eric. “The Black Polar Night: The Poetry of Gilbert Sorrentino.” Vort, 1974, 43–59. This is an exhaustive discussion of Sorrentino’s poetry, focusing on his color imagery, his humor, and his poetic techniques. Especially strong in documenting the poet’s bleak vision.
O’Brien, John, ed. Gilbert Sorrentino Number. Elmwood Park, Ill.: Dalkey Archive, 1981. Contains critical writings on Sorrentino’s work.