I suppose it is inevitable that, as the post-war boomers approach the big six-zero over the next decade, we will see a tidal flood of tender, soul-searching narratives. Boomers want to understand rather than simply experience life, and most have been frustrated by life's refusal to obey our expectations.

John Barth seems to have made such soul searching his life work, and I seem to have followed him book for book, life experience by life experience over the years. A clever "academic" writer (read: "he writes like a dream but his wit sometimes overwhelms the story"), Barth has addressed boomer experience and frailty .

Seeming to be five to ten years ahead of boomers, his books have ranged from the tragedy resulting from a terribly botched abortion (long before we openly spoke of this horror), through the visionary and usually misguided quest of the idealist (Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goatboy), the terrible pain of realizing one is an adult (the clever but exhausting Letters), to more leisurely and accessible mid-life reassessment as protagonists take "voyages" on the emotional seascape of middle age (Sabbatical, Tidewater Tales, Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, Once upon a Time...).

Each five years or so, I eagerly await his newest offering, devour it, and then feel frustrated when his literary games seem to detract from his story.

But, then, each time I realize (as if for the first time), the essential nature of his writing. Like the age-old games from which his writings spring (the quest/redemption stories of the Iliad and Oddessy, the "doomed" prophet stories of the Old and New Testaments, the mistaken identity games of Shakespeare and thousands of authors since, and the metaphor of story as voyage and voyage as growth from Chaucer, 1001 Nights, etc), Barth plays his games to remind us that the act of story telling *is* the experience, it *is* the reason we read: the experience of hearing ghost stories around the camp fire remains with us long long after we have forgotten the actual story.

And then I remember that, as a reader, I have no more "right" to expect neatness and closure in a Barth story than I have the right to expect neatness and closure in my own life. Try as we might, our own work, our own story is always in progress. And like Barth's beloved Tidewater, the ebb and flow of our own story defies our attempt to capture to master it.

In the end, life and Barth's stories remain as delightfully cleansing as the tide itself.

KRH www.umeais.maine.edu/~hayward

Symbols are not "mere" representations. Symbols participate in the reality they symbolize, so that a handshake actually participates in brotherhood. A symbol, such as a handshake, is translucent and reveals eternal truth in the temporal. A symbol is almost synonymous with "sacrament," in that speaking a word of forgiveness, or breaking bread and wine, are symbols that point to actions and realities outside of themselves. While allegory fades and may be deconstructed, symbols are lasting and enduring, and are all somehow united with one another and God. Thus Coleridge owes much to neo-Platonism and the early Christian writers.

As an example of the differences between mechanical and imaginative perception, Coleridge believes that the mechanical mind only sees juxtapositions and order. A doctrine such as the Trinity seems absurd when perceived rationally, but in the imagination, the three and the one may "interpenetrate." This has implications for interpretation of the Bible. Chapter 6 of Barth deals primarily with this. Coleridge believes that literalists and anti-Christian scoffers all err, because they interpret the Bible in a mechanical way. They miss truths for words. Coleridge does not deny the historicity of the Bible per se, but believes that literal interpretation asks the wrong questions. Rather Biblical symbols, such as Jesus as both priest and sacrifice, while absurd to the literal mind, enrich the Bible's testimony when perceived by the Imagination.

This book is a great primer on Coleridge's thought. I seem to have been a kind of Romantic/Platonist since birth, so what Coleridge says resonates. Barth offers a clear summary of Coleridge's thought and current implications. If you have ever thought that mechanical "rational" thought misses meanings in life that you experience, Coleridge's philosophy might be for you. If not, buy it for historical study. The chapters are:

1. Theological Foundations of Coleridge on Imagination
2. Symbol as Sacrament
3. The Poetry of Reference
4. Poetry of Encounter: Wordsworth
5. Poetry of Encounter: Coleridge
6. The Scriptural Imagination
7. Symbol and Romanticism
8. Symbol and Religion: Past and Future

The reduction of the American Cultural Revolution to a Campus is a "nifty" idea - one which almost succeeds due to Barth's overwhelming prose and typically complex plot, but ultimately falls into the same philosophical category as a couple of stoners theorizing that each atom of their finger is a world of its own.

Ultimately, this novel is dated in a way that Barth's other works are not (which is ironic, considering the specificity of some of the other works' temporal settings). One cannot separate this work from the 60's. The whole metaphor upon which the book is based is fairly trite. Of course, if you like "Earth in the Balance," "The Population Bomb," or "The Sirens of Titan," then you'll probably absorb "Giles Goat Boy" into your own worldview and then go off on a pacifist riot through San Francisco.

Perhaps it is somewhat disappointing to see Barth lay aside his precious nihlism in favor of sweaty luddite pot-philosophy. It is certainly nice to see Barth avoid this tendency in his later works.

Compared to the disappointing "Letters: A Kind of Novel," which is artistic to the point of unreadability, or "Chimera," which is lacking in anything but the curiosity of being a Playboy pick, "Giles Goat Boy" is irresistably entertaining. The intricacy of the plot is vintage Barth (and of course, the whole "heroic cycle" thing is present, if you choose to reflect upon it). At moments (as in The Sot Weed Factor), Barth reveals glimpses of the perversions that he is to reveal more fully in later works (Somebody the Sailor, for example), but they are not as central to the story as they might have been.

All told, I would agree with other reviewers and suggest that those new to Barth steer clear of Giles Goat Boy until they have digested some of his other works. It is a fairly useful thing to understand Barth's structural tendencies when reading GGB, and an introductory reading of this book first is too likely to convince the reader that Barth is just another 60's type who writes a good piece of filth.

can write and OH, I do love KISS just as he does.

The framing is phenomenal, mirror images abound, pairs proliferate, and while things constantly remain at the edge of confusion, Barth always reins you in just before you teeter off into chaos. So deft with words, and even more so with their meanings, Barth has written what is quite possibly my favorite book of all time.

Both The Floating Opera and The End of the Road concern love triangles of sorts, but each is developed in quite a different manner. While The Floating Opera is funny and rather light, The End of the Road is black comedy of the highest order, and in my opinion at least, it is the far superior book. I think it showcases Barth's genius in marvelous ways, with characterization and dialogue being two of the best. In both books, however, Barth is so dead-on with his artifice and eccentricity that we have to laugh at our own recognition of ourselves, reflected in his twisted characters and their strange goings-on.

In both books, Barth's characters seem to be searching for something, though what they are searching for is not made exactly clear. It could be good vs. evil, love vs. hate, war vs. peace, yet ultimately, after each character becomes ensnared in a mesh of confusion and confabulation from which he or she seems unable to extricate himself, the search is narrowed to the simple meaning of existence (or non-existence as the case may be). There are no absolutes in either book, making them all the more confusing for some, but all the more enjoyable for others.

Barth, himself, seems to be an author whose message is simple--the world is going straight to hell and we are going with it, so why not have a laugh on ourselves now and then? There really isn't much else to do.

I am afraid this review has not done The Floating Opera and The End of the Road justice, but how does an ordinary reader do justice to genius such as Barth's? I recommend all intelligent readers to buy this book, read it, enjoy it, savor it. Laugh at yourself as you laugh at Barth's characters. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. After all, there isn't much else to do.

Barth's first two novels, collected here, are witty, urbane, sophisticated and important. If you're worried about how readable they are, don't be. For anyone who has slogged through "Giles Goat-Boy" or "The Sot-Weed Factor"--or dense, inaccessible postmodern shilly-shally by other authors [Burroughs, for example, despite some masterworks, wrote some real nonsense]--it's little fun. Sometimes technical experiments do not work. For every majestic Ulysses, there are scads of tiresome, cumbersome, pointless flops.

Barth's first two novels have more in common with the author's recent work (late 80's, 90's, 00's) than with his unreadable period, however. The narratives are as gripping as they are clever and bathetic.

I highly recommend this book, both to scholars and lay (that is - good, reasonable, sane, savvy) readers. Enjoy!

I suppose it is inevitable that, as the post-war boomers approach the big six-zero over the next decade, we will see a tidal flood of tender, soul-searching narratives. Boomers want to understand rather than simply experience life, and most have been frustrated by life's refusal to obey our expectations.

John Barth seems to have made such soul searching his life work, and I seem to have followed him book for book, life experience by life experience over the years. A clever "academic" writer (read: "he writes like a dream but his wit sometimes overwhelms the story"), Barth has addressed boomer experience and frailty .

Seeming to be five to ten years ahead of boomers, his books have ranged from the tragedy resulting from a terribly botched abortion (long before we openly spoke of this horror), through the visionary and usually misguided quest of the idealist (Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goatboy), the terrible pain of realizing one is an adult (the clever but exhausting Letters), to more leisurely and accessible mid-life reassessment as protagonists take "voyages" on the emotional seascape of middle age (Sabbatical, Tidewater Tales, Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, Once upon a Time...).

Each five years or so, I eagerly await his newest offering, devour it, and then feel frustrated when his literary games seem to detract from his story.

But, then, each time I realize (as if for the first time), the essential nature of his writing. Like the age-old games from which his writings spring (the quest/redemption stories of the Iliad and Oddessy, the "doomed" prophet stories of the Old and New Testaments, the mistaken identity games of Shakespeare and thousands of authors since, and the metaphor of story as voyage and voyage as growth from Chaucer, 1001 Nights, etc), Barth plays his games to remind us that the act of story telling *is* the experience, it *is* the reason we read: the experience of hearing ghost stories around the camp fire remains with us long long after we have forgotten the actual story.

And then I remember that, as a reader, I have no more "right" to expect neatness and closure in a Barth story than I have the right to expect neatness and closure in my own life. Try as we might, our own work, our own story is always in progress. And like Barth's beloved Tidewater, the ebb and flow of our own story defies our attempt to capture to master it.

In the end, life and Barth's stories remain as delightfully cleansing as the tide itself.

KRH www.umeais.maine.edu/~hayward

I suppose it is inevitable that, as the post-war boomers approach the big six-zero over the next decade, we will see a tidal flood of tender, soul-searching narratives. Boomers want to understand rather than simply experience life, and most have been frustrated by life's refusal to obey our expectations.

John Barth seems to have made such soul searching his life work, and I seem to have followed him book for book, life experience by life experience over the years. A clever "academic" writer (read: "he writes like a dream but his wit sometimes overwhelms the story"), Barth has addressed boomer experience and frailty .

Seeming to be five to ten years ahead of boomers, his books have ranged from the tragedy resulting from a terribly botched abortion (long before we openly spoke of this horror), through the visionary and usually misguided quest of the idealist (Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goatboy), the terrible pain of realizing one is an adult (the clever but exhausting Letters), to more leisurely and accessible mid-life reassessment as protagonists take "voyages" on the emotional seascape of middle age (Sabbatical, Tidewater Tales, Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, Once upon a Time...).

Each five years or so, I eagerly await his newest offering, devour it, and then feel frustrated when his literary games seem to detract from his story.

But, then, each time I realize (as if for the first time), the essential nature of his writing. Like the age-old games from which his writings spring (the quest/redemption stories of the Iliad and Oddessy, the "doomed" prophet stories of the Old and New Testaments, the mistaken identity games of Shakespeare and thousands of authors since, and the metaphor of story as voyage and voyage as growth from Chaucer, 1001 Nights, etc), Barth plays his games to remind us that the act of story telling *is* the experience, it *is* the reason we read: the experience of hearing ghost stories around the camp fire remains with us long long after we have forgotten the actual story.

And then I remember that, as a reader, I have no more "right" to expect neatness and closure in a Barth story than I have the right to expect neatness and closure in my own life. Try as we might, our own work, our own story is always in progress. And like Barth's beloved Tidewater, the ebb and flow of our own story defies our attempt to capture to master it.

In the end, life and Barth's stories remain as delightfully cleansing as the tide itself.

KRH www.umeais.maine.edu/~hayward

I am a 27-year-old woman and I did not realize that I was supposed to be bothered by the sexism and orientalism, etc. that other women who read this book were. I loved this book. I had no preconceived notions about it except that I remembered reading another Barth book years ago and enjoying it, so I picked this one up.

To be fair, it did take me a long time to get through it, but I kept coming back to it. Even though I would read other books in the middle, I definitely wanted to see it to the end. Perhaps I did not get offended by it because in the very first scene was a conversation with Death, so I realized that it was not going to be exactly, uh, based on reality.

Maybe at the time it was published this brand of metafiction was revolutionary, but it has not held up well over the intevening years. Some modern metafiction has revealed important, enduring truths about the problems of reading and writing, but Barth's convoluted first steps into the genre read as needlessly complicated tellings of very simple stories.

His prose style is certainly unique and evocative, and some of his stories are amazingly inventive ("Ambrose His Mark" most notably) but as a whole this collection comes off very badly. When he launches off into syntax-less prose poetry he reveals all of his style's weaknesses in exchange for no noticeable strengths. All in all, not very good.

This book is a series of essays, meditations, short stories and jokes that examine the creative process as ontogeny. Barth is funny and melancholy at the same time. He is skeptical, but also to some degree hopeful, about the possibility of writing anything that could be useful to someone else.

His enthusiastic and hilarious references made me want to read or re-read many classic pieces of literature including Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and the Iliad and "1001 Arabian Nights". And he made me believe that I could get a lot more out of them, if I would just question a few more of my presumptions.