Donald Barthelme’s 1972 story Swallowing speaks to the dramatic political and cultural shift occurring in the United States during those tumultuous times when Richard Nixon was president and the country was still very much involved in the bloody war in Vietnam.

Before delving into the story, a word regarding bread and cheese. We can all enjoy our own delicacy of taste by taking a moment to view the above painting by British artist Julian Merrow-Smith. Our aesthetic experience can be enhanced even further by listening concurrently to beautiful music – in keeping with the duet of bread and cheese, here is a link to a duet for flute and clarinet by composer Casper Kummer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuXcfUGFC4o

I thought partaking of some beauty at the outset would be a good idea since, to my eye, most regrettably, much of the subject matter of the author's story is ugly in the extreme. Here's the opening paragraph: “The American people have swallowed a lot in the last four years. A lot of swallowing has been done. We have swallowed electric bugs, laundered money, quite a handsome amount of grain moving about in mysterious ways, a war more shameful than can be imagined, much else. There are even some people who believe that the President does not invariably tell us the truth about ourselves – he tells us something, we swallow that."

Donald Barthelme lets us know in the history of swallowing there’s one case study which can perhaps prove instructive: the enormous piece of cheese the state of Wisconsin contributed to the 1964-1965 New York World Fair. In keeping with the long-standing Americanism that bigger is better, Wisconsin’s prize entry (as pictured below) tops the scales at nearly 35,000 pounds. Now that’s one gargantuan hunk of cheese. So much for subtlety and nuance. By the way, the reason for its cuboid shape rather than the more traditional cylindrical is strict pragmatics: eighteen tons of cheese in the shape of a disk would be simply too wide to fit on a truck or train.

Once the fair ended and something had to be done with all that cheese, we are given to understand a bit of haggling transpired between the governors of Wisconsin and New York that quickly devolved into nasty name-calling. A brief encapsulation runs as follows: New Yorker: Your cheese has to go. Wisconsinite: Take it as a gift – you could do something useful with it, maybe even eat it. New Yorker: No thanks. Wisconsinite: You are insulting us. New Yorker: Your “gift” probably has more to do with transportation costs. Wisconsinite: Well, you could help feed all those many rats you have in New York City. And, also, you might consider switching your name from the Empire State to the Rat State. New Yorker: And you could likewise switch from the Dairy State to the Curd State. A downhill slide from there; meanwhile, with the further elapse of time, the colossal cheese was really beginning to stink.

A solution was found! Problem solved. Puzzle unscrambled. Ah, the arts to the rescue. The titanic cheese was presented as a gift, free of charge and no strings attached, to a young starving poet. The poet straightaway made his way to the fair fairgrounds and promptly took up residence in the middle of his gorgeous Gouda.

In truth, Donald Barthelme, as if spreading cheese on bread, spread poetic license on this World Fair event in coming up with his vivid instance of interstate vitriol. Likewise, changing the shape of the immense cheese from cuboid to round as per the photo at the very bottom. Actually, more than a photo, I dearly love the black-and-white sketch of the young poet composing poetry in his cheese that Edward Gorey created to accompany the author’s story when published back then in The New York Times (link below).

So, the young poet lived off his cheese for slightly more than two years. Our versifier grew outward in body weight - I mean, imagine swallowing all that cheese! As he chimed: I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. And said well-fed portly poet also expanded in wisdom and beauty. Such a happy ending. One moral of the story we can take away: lots of swallowing can lead to heavyweight literary and artistic achievement. For example, all the swallowing citizens of the United States did during those Nixon years lead to such hefty works as Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions and the film Apocalypse Now.

Finally, since Donald Barthelme’s story concludes by returning full circle, ending with a slight modification of the first short paragraph, I will likewise return to an instance of beauty – below is another delightful Julian Merrow-Smith rendering of cheese and bread. Bon appétit.

Link to Donald Barthelme's Swallowing: http://jessamyn.com/pics/giantcheese.png
And you can also listen to the author read Swallowing: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=donald barthelme reading swallowing



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