Comments on: The Case for John Barth

By: Russ Miller

Russ Miller — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 04:02:19 +0000

I consider myself an uneasy fan of Barth. I’ve enjoyed many of his books (especially Giles Goat-Boy), but after a while I get tired of the rather dull sailing trips (I half-expect the courses, when plotted on a chart, to spell out something, but I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass), and what’s up with all the raping? I just finished LETTERS, after several attempts, and it’s a wankfest. A rehashing (the entire book is about rehashing, in fact, as Barth keeps reminding us thoughout) of the concerns of all his books up to that time, using some of the same characters (along with a new one invented for the book, an entirely unconvincing British academic), hung on a pointless calendrical-acrostic structure that adds nothing to the reading experience. Along the way there’s a lot of winking about the various meanings of “letters,” and the usual rapes, disguises, cancers, towers, and recapitulation. The humor is strained and the endless rehearsal of “this day in history” events, begun by Jacob Horner (from The End of the Road) but eventually taken up by everyone else become quite tedious. I got the feeling, far before it was over, that Mr. Barth wasn’t enjoying the journey any more than I was. He famously spent ten years writing it. I suspect he was glad to have it over with.

By: Byron Pratt

Byron Pratt — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 03:53:15 +0000

Letters may have done Barth in. Not that it is bad or unreadable; far from it (well, Ok, a bit difficult at times..;-), but after this whirlwind of hyper-meta-fiction, his later novel seem a bit of a let down. Giles Goat-Boy was the first thing I read by him and while I found it quite funny, I was also very confused. Then again, I was also 15-16 or so. One thing in the book that rather grabbed my attention at the time was when Giles was in the library reading electronic texts where you could pick a word or phrase and get a gloss on it. And perhaps find something in that gloss that you wanted to follow up on and gloss IT. And so on. We are used to hypertext (HTML, ya know) now, but at the time, this was a completely new idea. I am inclined to think that Barth came up with this just simply because he liked the idea of ‘meta’ rather than he got it from techies or scientists. He probably deserves a round of applause here at the least!
Still, I think my favorite has to be The Sot-Weed Factor, simply because it is soooo damn funny! Letters I want to read again, just to make my head hurt (in a good way, ya know?)

By: laogui

laogui — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 04:30:17 +0000

reading Chimera 40 some years ago I was pulled to an abrupt halt by the dangling right parenthesis and had to backtrack (how many) maybe a hundred pages to find the left match; ever after I was an avid fan 老鬼

By: Anthony Palmieri

Anthony Palmieri — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:08:40 +0000

I’ve been reading Barth for 42 years now…all his books…each multiple times some dozens (Chimera) of times. He is brilliant. His new books are, perhaps, less accessible, more difficult to read. I expect that they are also more difficult to write as his pen empties out.
I’ll miss his new work while continuing to revisit his old when he’s through.

By: Michael O'Connor

Michael O'Connor — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:25:34 +0000

No one, absolutely no one that I have ever read, could write a more perfect sentence than Barth.

My personal favorite was (is) “The Sot-Weed Factor,” but I also loved “The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor.” “The Floating Opera,” “Lost in the Funhouse,” and “The End of the Road” (especially the first two), are also remembered more than fondly.

I don’t see how Barth can be left out of any discussion of the best writers of his generation.

While I don’t jump for his latest offerings I was more than thrilled to find a pristine signed first edition of “Coming Soon,” at a local library book sale (though I haven’t read it). I will be buying “The Development,” as soon as I see a paperback or a used hardcover in excellent condition.

Since he is someone often lumped in with Barth, I would also like to trumpet William Gass’s “Omensetter’s Luck”; a too neglected American masterpiece.

By: James wiseman

James wiseman — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:40:10 +0000

The first part of Giles Goat Boy; culminating in that tour de force, the play “Oedipus Decanus”, is as funny a passage of literature as any I can remember reading. Twain at his wittiest doesn’t surpass it.

By: whasabe

whasabe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:39:29 +0000

My pajamas have flames crawling up the sides and
those are what I wore reading DANYAZADIAD(CHIMERA) to an attentive group of backpackers
at eleven thousand feet in the Sequoia National Forest. We’ve been reading Barth around the campfire for over twenty years and inexorably return to the Danyazadiad for inspirational meta-humor. Looking forward to his latest short-story trilogy as we prepare for the Mighty middle fork
of the Kings River. Happy Trails!!

By: Alexander

Alexander — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:09:46 +0000

Hi, I’m currently writing a B.A. thesis about “The Sot-Weed Factor” which I find very interesting and worth of reading book. I’ve found Your site by “accident” because I’m looking for some interesting opinions, essays and e-books conected with Barth and his works, especially sot-weed factor, I didn’t mention yet that I’m writing to You from Poland and it’s really difficult to get any books about modern American literature…

Greetings from Poland.

By: bob r

bob r — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:36:04 +0000

I love them all–Barth, Wallace, Pynchon, Sorrentino, Gaddis, Kotzwinkle and the whole pack. Only Coover leaves me a bit cold, except for possibly GERALD’S PARTY, which IMHO has its moments. I’ve got ORIGIN OF THE BRUNISTS but haven’t settled down with it. I think Tom Pynchon went downhill after GRAVITY’S RAINBOW but all in all is something of a genius. “COMING SOON!!!” is merely THE FLOATING OPERA in another format, but I agree it’s nowhere near as fun.

By: robert nagle

robert nagle — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:44:21 +0000

I'm an ex-student of Barth's and look forward to actually getting around to Sot Weed factor. By the way, Wired for Books has two interviews with Barth from 1983 and 1991 , which are great.

By: agrimorfee

agrimorfee — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:55:50 +0000

That would be us, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnbarth/ . Activity used to be off the mark, but, yes it’s been quiet as of late. Our group readings are still archived if anyone’s curious.

By: DerikB

DerikB — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:16:06 +0000

Barth is great and one of the first “experimental” writers I really fell in love with. I think my reading of his work predates any of my blogging. I made it through all his novels up to the late 90s. LETTERS is on my list of best huge books and deserves a reread. The formal constraint alone is prodigious.

Though, I will also remain in steadfast dislike of Sot-Weed Factor. I just couldn’t stand it.

There used to be fairly active Barth Yahoo group that was doing some group readings.

By: Jenny Davidson

Jenny Davidson — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:59:46 +0000

I strongly prefer Coover to Barth, I find Coover by far the more inventive and interesting writer… (Now Ed is going to beat me up!)

By: amcorrea

amcorrea — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:28:02 +0000

And let’s not forget about the hugs…

http://outofthewoodsnow.blogspot.com/2007/03/lost-and-found.html

By: bdr

bdr — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:22:59 +0000

Doh! Robert Coover.

By: James Long

James Long — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:08:10 +0000

The first John Barth novel I read was ‘The Tidewater Tales: A Novel’, and I’ve read everything else since. Except LETTERS – I’m keeping it for my 49th year.

His essays and short stories are great too. I think his star has waned a bit because his work can be quite unapproachably playful – you gotta love, ‘cos if you don’t, dear reader, you’ll hate it.

By: agrimorfee

agrimorfee — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:37:34 +0000

There’s a lot more to Barth after LETTERS, but it does get into a sameyness…middle-aged (and beyond) sailboating author in love with the muse of literature (often in the form of Scheherezade) and his younger, bookish but oh-so-sexy lover (many of his novels are dedicated to his second wife), writing about writing. Coming Soon!! was a lazy exercise, but all of the novels and the semi-autobiographical Once Upon A Time are worthy of at least one read. LETTERS is the novel, however, that I rate second only to Joyce’s Ulysses in my list of favorites.

By: DW.

DW. — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:23:38 +0000

You should check out The Tidewater Tales, it’s a lot of fun. (And it “repurposes” the characters / situation from Sabbatical.) I must admit , though, I find his more recent stuff more mannered, convoluted. I couldn’t even get through Coming Soon.

By: bdr

bdr — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:49:26 +0000

Thanks for this. Just re-read Sot-Weed – happy coincidence.

It’s funny – I was thinking about the Utah coal mine incident and John Coover’s *Origin of the Brunists* and then about Coover in general (I think *John’s Wife* brilliant, his best, much better than the more famous *Public Burning*), wondering why in all the litblogs is Coover’s name (and Elkin’s) rarely evoked.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:16:00 +0000

I’ve never read Barth, Ed, so thanks for this. I’ll go and knock on some publisher’s doors and see if I can get my hands on some titles and then report back on ReadySteadyBook anon. I’ll no doubt take James’ advice and start with the old stuff. Thanks again for the nudge.

By: James

James — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:37:16 +0000

I’ve read M&D and Sot-Weed; I can’t be alone in that, can I?

I agree that Barth is all that and a bag of Funyuns, but I have to say that the reason he’s not sung to the rafters more often is that he has in fact gone to the well too often. His books of the past couple of decades feel a bit recycled. Although I’m sure they’d still seem fresh and great to the right kind of reader who hadn’t encountered the earlier books, who is that reader? That is, who appreciates metafictional playfulness who doesn’t know about Lost in the Funhouse? If there’s someone like that out there, I’d still say to start with the old stuff.

Where Three Roads Meet is actually a darn good distillation of the Barth sensibility, though. Heck, start there if you want. Just start somewhere.

By: Jenny Davidson

Jenny Davidson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:13:44 +0000

I read “Giles Goat-Boy” once again as a hyper-obsessive teenager in thrall to Anthony Burgess (it’s another one of those 99 Best Novels, isn’t it?). But though I read that and several others with considerable enjoyment, I don’t feel much urge to revisit–it all feels too much like work, there is a heavy-handedness or almost pedantry to my ear now in much of that Sot-Weed-type stuff, and I think that I remember even at the time finding “Lost in the Funhouse” too, what?, inward-looking. I guess I’m not against him, but I’m not passionately for him either. And I think the “we have X, Y and Z” line of argument might not be quite right–it’s more like we have only so many slots for certain kinds of novelists, and for some contingent reason I do not quite understand (I agree with you that Barth deserves a place alongside those others on the basis of quality) Barth didn’t get one of the slots. (That Pynchon takes up a lot of air for instance–don’t you think people are going to read EITHER Mason & Dixon OR Sot-Weed Factor?!?)

By: semanticdrifter

semanticdrifter — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:44:48 +0000

I agree with you about the greatness of John Barth. He is not only the cat's pajamas, he may even be the bee's knees. I'm not sure why he remains so under-appreciated. I think it has something to do with the fact that he seems to be having more fun than a proper novelist should. His writing has a playfulness to it that may turn off the more serious-minded critics. He also has a tendency to return to the metafictional well a bit too often, frequently writing stories about authors writing stories, or about stories writing themselves. I love it, but can see why it might turn some readers away. My personal favorite is The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, but I'm also fond of the Menelaiad from Lost in the Funhouse, with the brackets within brackets within parentheses within parentheses. His most recent work has been a turnoff to many Barth purists, but I have enjoyed it. I humbly submit my thoughts on Where Three Roads Meet.

By: JMW

JMW — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:30:38 +0000

I’m with you, in as much as I loved The Floating Opera and The End of the Road when I read them many years ago. I haven’t read anything else by him — though I’ve often meant to give The Sot-Weed Factor a shot.

By: S

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:48:26 +0000

No question about it: John Barth is the man. I like the three volumes he published between Sot Weed Factor and Letters best: Giles Goat Boy, Lost in the Funhouse, and Chimera. Funhouse, especially, deals with problems of self-awareness and ‘meta-fiction’ in a particularly sober and thoughtful manner. Not that that’s why anyone reads Barth. People read Barth because he’s freakin hilarious. (David Foster Wallace has a nice homage to Barth in Girl with Curious Hair. The story is called ‘Westward the Course of Empire Makes its Way’ or something similar.)

By: CBO

CBO — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:42:33 +0000

Letters is a wonderful book. So is Lost in the Funhouse. One of the first great post WW2 American writers. Foster Wallace & The Gang owe him a tip of the hat.