Oct 1, 2026 · 2 hr 5 min · 13 segments
Sorry this one's a little late! We finish out our series on "The Tunnel" by William Gass!
Yeah, I mean, like I said, because of the way I ended up reading this section, there was a decided sense of anti-climax when I did hit the end because, again, I thought I had, like, at least 50 more pages left when I hit the end.
And the way the Donkey Archive version is printed, there's, like, you know, a little extra sheaf of pages there in the back that kind of tricked me.
Again, I got tricked by how deceptively thick the paper of this book is.
Yeah, that's interesting that there is that that little extra bit of material at the end.
Like it's it's a little bio basically of him.
Yeah.
But I mean, it's it's and I think we'll get to this, but there's a sense in which.
Like the way the book ends is intentionally anticlimactic.
Yes.
Yeah.
A
thing happens that ends the story such as it is.
But gas, I think, leaves us with the sense that, yes, this could go on forever if I continue to let it.
And so I'm going to arbitrarily have something happen that forces a stop.
But turns out we don't actually want what we want.
It turns out that sometimes you want something, you get it.
And oh, what was that? Turns out it didn't solve any of the things you thought it was going to solve.
Yeah, and I open up a bunch of new questions that you have to deal with.
Yeah, forever.
So and I think that feeling sometimes leads people to underrate this book.
And I know I think I underrated it the first time I read it when I got to the end.
And I just thought, well, that's it.
Anti-climax.
And now that I'm reading it.
Yeah, I mean, like I said, because of the way I ended up reading this section, there was a decided sense of anti-climax when I did hit the end because, again, I thought I had, like, at least 50 more pages left when I hit the end.
And the way the Donkey Archive version is printed, there's, like, you know, a little extra sheaf of pages there in the back that kind of tricked me.
Again, I got tricked by how deceptively thick the paper of this book is.
Yeah, that's interesting that there is that that little extra bit of material at the end.
Like it's it's a little bio basically of him.
Yeah.
But I mean, it's it's and I think we'll get to this, but there's a sense in which.
Like the way the book ends is intentionally anticlimactic.
Yes.
Yeah.
A
thing happens that ends the story such as it is.
But gas, I think, leaves us with the sense that, yes, this could go on forever if I continue to let it.
And so I'm going to arbitrarily have something happen that forces a stop.
But turns out we don't actually want what we want.
It turns out that sometimes you want something, you get it.
And oh, what was that? Turns out it didn't solve any of the things you thought it was going to solve.
Yeah, and I open up a bunch of new questions that you have to deal with.
Yeah, forever.
So and I think that feeling sometimes leads people to underrate this book.
And I know I think I underrated it the first time I read it when I got to the end.
And I just thought, well, that's it.
Anti-climax.
And now that I'm reading it.
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