The Tunnel

William H. Gass's monumental novel, "The Tunnel," plunges into the tormented psyche of William Frederick Kohler, a middle-aged history professor at a Midwestern university. Ostensibly writing his magnum opus, 'Guilt and Innocence in Hitler's Germany,' Kohler instead finds himself consumed by a dark, sprawling, and deeply unsettling autobiography. He constructs a metaphorical 'tunnel' in his basement, a literal and psychological escape from his academic responsibilities and his suffocating domestic life. Within the pages of his 'history,' Kohler unearths his own complicity, his repressed desires, his hatreds, and his disturbing past, often blurring the lines between personal pathology and historical atrocities. The narrative is a virtuosic, stream-of-consciousness torrent of philosophical musings, scatological humor, and raw psychological confession, exploring themes of memory, guilt, identity, and the insidious nature of evil.