SOURCE: A review of Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 18, No. 3, Fall, 1998, p. 232.

In the following review, Saltzman offers positive assessment of Cartesian Sonata and Other Novellas.

William Gass regularly demonstrates how the artist's devotion is best measured by his concern for the language he cultivates; his scruple and injunction is that beauty, vision, and morality require the precision and ingenuity of sentences lovingly constructed. Indeed, the dry prairie solitudes that dominate these four novellas prove to be rich soil for linguistic enterprises. Disappointments and hatreds still sparkle with imagery and inspire alliterative runs that belie the conditions of the characters, whose funks and futilities recall those of Gass's previous Midwestern populations in Omensetter's Luck and In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.

The title novella features a poisonous marriage reminiscent of the Kohlers in The Tunnel. It pits airy, clairvoyant...