42 Minutes 351: Summer Book Club - The Tunnel - 09.26.2020 Tonight, for the summer installment of the seasonal book club, the program considers The Tunnel, William Gass's second novel which first appeared on the literary scene in 1995, and at which time was promptly hailed as an indisputable masterpiece. It's the story of a middle aged professor who, upon the completion of his massive historical study, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany, finds himself writing a novel about his own life instead of the introduction to his magnum opus. The Tunnel meditates on history, hatred, unhappiness, and, above all, language. Topics Include: Gaddis, Gass, Postmodernism, William Kohler, Empathy, Guilt & Innocence, Web of Influence, Butterfly Effect, Joyce, Ulysses, Childhood, Perception, Uncle Balt, Shadow, Light, Truth, Beauty, Fascism, House of Leaves, Filth, Dark Thoughts, Nazis, Party of Disappointed People. 42minutes.com