Barthelme's art is not static. He is an explorer of prose forms. He stays abreast of literary developments in America and elsewhere and his fiction constantly changes to reflect slight changes in the way we experience our lives. Great Days continues where Amateurs, the previous collection, left off; the stories are increasingly clipped, less visual, more difficult. The range of pleasure available upon a first reading has grown even narrower.

As usual, about half of these new stories are baubles, one-notion entertainments…. [They] are crankier, less funny than earlier jeux d'esprit…. The voices in these stories discourse on a variety of topics; non-specific references (her, it, that) allow the topics to be linked together grammatically, a kind of layering of meanings. The stories are open to all suggestions, and can stop on a dime and head in any direction. Even in "On the Steps of the Conservatory" and...