A glass mountain sits in the middle of a city and at the top sits a 'beautiful, enchanted symbol'. Seeking to disenchant it, the narrator must climb the mountain. Confronted by the jeers of acquaintances, the bodies of previous climbers and the claws of a guarding eagle he, slowly, begins to ascend. In true postmodernist form, subject and purpose collide as Donald Barthelme uses one-hundred fragmented statements to destabilise a symbol of his own - literature's conventional forms and practices. With a quest, a princess and an array of knights, Barthelme subverts that most traditional of genres, the fairy-tale; irony, absurdity, and playful self-reflexivity are the champions of this short story.
- ISBN10 0718196260
- ISBN13 9780718196264
- Publish Date 6 March 2014
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
- Edition Digital original
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Pages 46
- Language English