Barth, John
From monstrouspossibility
Contents |
[edit] General
John Barth on Wikipedia: [1]
The John Barth Information Center: [2]
- This site was created in 1994 by David Louis Edelman and is not officially sanctioned by John Barth. It is wonderfully informative in the fact that the creator knows that there is/was(?) a lack of readily available information on John Barth and sought to change that.
- A page of frequently asked questions: [3] This has an interesting segment on whether Barth's works are 'autobiographical.' Also, there is a section on (ahem) authors that would be of a similar appeal.
Reading John Barth by Charlie Harris: [4]
A JSTOR Review by Chistopher Nash on "The Literature of Exhaustion: Borges, Nabokov, and Barth by John O. Stark": [5]
[edit] Literary Works
Fiction
* The Floating Opera (1957) * The End of the Road (1958) * The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) * Giles Goat-Boy, or, The Revised New Syllabus (1966) * Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice (stories) (1968) * Chimera (three linked novellas) (1972) * LETTERS (1979) * Sabbatical: A Romance (1982) * The Tidewater Tales (1987) * The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991) * Once upon a Time: A Floating Opera (memoirish novel) (1994) * On with the Story (stories) (1996) * Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative (2001) * The Book of Ten Nights and a Night: Eleven Stories (2004) * Where Three Roads Meet (three linked novellas) (2005)
Nonfiction
* The Friday Book (1984) * Further Fridays (1995)
[edit] Interviews
2000 - An Interview with John Barth conducted with Charlie Reilly [6]
- Referring to Lost in the Funhouse, a collection of "fictions" which are tied together by a governing idea, the interview discusses how this collection was "spawned in part as a wish to experiment with the ways the human voice can be adapted to forms of written literature," his tales emphasize narrative point of view at least as much as narrated fact."
[edit] As a Postmodernist author
Curtis White on John Barth, [7]
- According to Curtis White in his article, "Writing the Life Postmodern," John Barth "confronts postmodern problems on postmodern grounds". He demonstrates this with his novel Chimera by using supposedly exhausted ideas from the past and animating them with new life. What he finds in this mutated new life is that there is monumental monstrous possibility. White also mentions Barth's foundational essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion," and its arguement that the "usedupness" of the conventions of classical realism and modernism can become a means of helping the "best next thing" into being.
Barth supposedly took much inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges and the concept of metanarrative/metafiction, among other things. Jean-François Lyotard, a French philosopher and literary theorist, considers that Postmodern thought approaches metanarratives with skepticism in regards to its possible universality or consideration of a grand scheme of things. The idea that there is a structure to things, even a literary work, should not be trusted, according to Lyotard. There is a lot of controversy on this topic about local vs. general hermeneutics (as we've already discovered in relation to many topics of the program.)
Side note: Curtis White was a student of John Barth.
[edit] Other Links
Hyperreality, [8]
Surfiction, [13]
[edit] Questions
How would you describe John Barth's creative works? What are his obsessions/interests as a writer? Are his works monstrous (they're often quite long)?
John Barth wrote the "Literature of Exhaustion" and several follow-up essays in response to being labeled "postmodern." How do his theses about the state of literature relate to our program? White mentions the "Exhaustion" article, which was followed up by "Replenishment," in Barth's exploration of postmodernism. What's that about? What does it mean to "[confront] postmodern problems on postmodern grounds"?
Why Narratology?
Why Hyperreality?
What is Barth's take on metafiction? Why do it? (What is it, to him?)
