Omensetter's Luck

I can't believe anyone will ever describe this book as a "fun read". I felt as I was reading it that it was as densely written as poetry in many places and could never be grasped by reading it as a progression of plot. It is full of allusions, metaphors, and suggestions and the reader will have to fend for himself. Only by looking back on the novel as a whole do I begin to see what I think might be the meaning. It seems that the point may be that inner, or psychological success in life depends on how we are able to represent the world to ourselves through our inner dialogues. Those gifted with higher levels of perception are more or less cursed with the need to be more articulate with themselves. There are several different degrees of consciousness represented by characters in this story. The conclusion of the book seems to be the author's summing up, metaphorically of these ideas. A novel of inner, psychological landscapes, it should appeal to those who quest for books that broaden our perspectives,

Omensetter's Luck has been a treasured, special book for me since I first read it many years ago.My copy is battered from several readings and dippings over time and the fact it once was drenched by an incoming tide and covered in sand as I lay on a beach in Mexico but I will never part with it. Reading this beautiful novel you become swamped and overwhelmed by a magical language world. I'd like to quote a sample of Jethro Furber's musings: (About death) "Why was it sorrowful, The Great Alternative? No hell afterward, but blessedness. What could be more blessed than to rest in a core of silence - not to be? He'd meant to preach to that. His whole life, he'd meant to preach, to preach... Where was his preaching and his preachment now? Would Henry's body, hanging in its tree, be dreaming?"

Even with its antiquated setting, "Omensetter's Luck" is so avant-garde and eccentric that it's a challenge to write a review that doesn't seem like a shameful oversimplification. Imagine a story about perceptions of good and evil, envy, and suspicion narrated in an impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness style that rivals Faulkner at his most experimental, combining uniquely poetic prose, Joycean wordplay, an ominous mood, and multiple focuses, voices, and perspectives, and you'll begin to get the idea. The time is evidently the late nineteenth century, the place a small town called Gilean located on the Ohio River. A "wide and happy" man named Brackett Omensetter recently has moved into town with his pregnant wife, two daughters, dog, and a mountain of furniture and belongings on a horse-drawn cart. He rents a house from a man named Henry Pimber and gets a job as a tanner with Mat Watson, the town blacksmith.Omensetter quickly becomes an object of curiosity in Gilean for his unbelievable, almost supernatural, luck. In the middle of the rainy season, the rain stops for his moving day; his house manages to avoid an otherwise damage-guaranteeing flood; he seems impervious to injury. He's an expert stone skipper and an effective naturalistic healer. Nobody will bet against him. He is not only aware of his own incredible luck; he depends on it so strongly that it replaces religion, and he feels no need to attend Gilean's only church, ministered by the Reverend Jethro Furber. Furber is a fascinating character who avoids the flatness of most fictional preachers. His parents sheltered him insufferably as a child, depriving him of anything they considered a bad moral influence and prohibiting him from playing with other kids; now he walks around reciting dirty songs to himself and talks to the grave of Pike, a previous pastor. He resents Omensetter's neglect of the church yet is intrigued by his ostensible luck; unsurprisingly, he accuses Omensetter of being "of the dark ways" and "beyond the reach of God." He tries gently to persuade Watson to fire Omensetter, which would force him to leave town...P>Approaching "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying" in complexity of both narration and characterization, "Omensetter's Luck" is an odd book in both style and substance, the product of an independent literary thinker who demonstrates that a truly good story transcends even the strangest packaging.

An unbelievable journey through differing perspectives of human lonliness. Those familiar with Gass's work will notice the philosophical undertonings beneath his at-times meandering but beautiful prose. Writing like this is simply underappreciated. It belongs among the great works of this century, yet it has been hardly recognized. The highest recommendations.