John Barth An Introduction

The six published volumes of fiction by John Barth are examined interpretively and historically through a comparison of published texts and unpublished manuscripts, in the light of interviews with Barth, his agent, and his editors as well as examination of several of Barth's unpublished essays and letters. The result is what Dr. Morrell calls "the story of the stories, a kind of biography of fiction." All of Barth's work, it is argued here, is based on the same general situation: his characters cannot reconcile themselves to the way things are, so they imagine alternatives by treating life as a kind of impromptu play in which they can assume any personality they wish. But recently, in Chimera, Barth shows signs of taking a much more optimistic attitude toward things: the characters no longer put on masks to face intolerable situations; instead they mask the situations. The book is illustrated with a photograph of the old showboat that inspired The Floating Opera, Barth's diagram called "Adventures of the Hero" prepared while he was writing Giles Goat-Boy, the corrected first page of typescript for The End of the Road, Barth's map of Eben Cooke's adventures in Maryland for The Sot-Weed Factor, and the corrected first page of typescript for a story in Lost in the Funhouse. There also is a complete bibliography of writings by and about Barth.