Lost In The Fun House.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Is Lost In The Fun House worth reading?

 

[sweetness6280]

Do you like Post Modern Lit? If not, you won't enjoy it at all.

I enjoyed the book immensely, even as I was reading it for a Post Modern Lit Analysis course. I have read it several times. Barth explores the structure of narrative, and really pushes the envelope. Some of the stories are straight narrative, and the connections are easily recognizable. Some of them are commentaries, or essays, on the construction of fiction. My copy is marked up, and every time I read it I find something new. I recommend reading Barth's notes about each piece only after you have read it.

The question is really about personal taste. If you are looking for straight forward narrative, this is not the collection for you. If you enjoy being challenged to find hidden meaning, make unlikely connections, and can relish being "lost" in the labyrinth, read it. It's witty, fun, and unforgettable.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I have no idea what post modern lit is or was. 'Post modern' must be one of those cutesy-pie terms from 1969; something from John Lennon drug induced lyrics. Or maybe its unused material from Don Mclean's 'American Pie'. I hate anything I need an effing decoder ring to decipher.

David Morrell cums when he talks about John Barth, but the reviews arent good.

Post-modern must the opposite of Pre-Creation.

 

[SnoopDog]

I just gotta step in and defend the term "postmodern". I think it is a term that is very powerful and very much applicable - if used correctly however. I agree that a lot of people use it as a buzzword but that doesn't mean that the term itself is bad or arbitrary or shallow.


Haven't read the "Funhouse" but I'm very much plan on doing so. I hear great things.



Snoopy

 

[sweetness6280]

I have no idea what post modern lit is or was. 'Post modern' must be one of those cutesy-pie terms from 1969; something from John Lennon drug induced lyrics. Or maybe its unused material from Don Mclean's 'American Pie'. I hate anything I need an effing decoder ring to decipher.

David Morrell cums when he talks about John Barth, but the reviews arent good.

Post-modern must the opposite of Pre-Creation.

I won't attempt to defend postmodernism, or any other movement. I won't dive into a complex discussion of the theories and philosophies involved. Based on your highlighted statement, I can come to only one conclusion.

You won't enjoy the collection. Don't read it.

 

[trysail]

Is Lost In The Fun House worth reading?

Oh, dear. Barth. Um, lessee here.

I've had an off and on infatuation with Barth. I've collected him and enjoyed several of his books. He's a local like Anne Tyler and thus qualifies for automatic personal affinity as one who knows and writes about an all-but-destroyed regional culture. While it's not necessary to have a familiarity with the Chesapeake region, sailing, marshlands and Tidewater, it doesn't hurt. As you may or may not know, some of Barth's work is highly allusive. While an undergraduate working his way through Johns Hopkins, he was employed in the library; there he stumbled upon The Arabian Nights ( the Richard Burton translation, if memory serves) and was never the same again. Barth was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and grew up there ( before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge which had the unfortunate [ or fortunate, depending upon your perspective ] effect of bringing modernity [ and the pernicious influence of the cesspool known as Washington, D.C. a/k/a "Cancer on The Potomac" or "The District of Confusion" ] to the region). Barth is to Tidewater what Pat Conroy is to the Low Country.

Very few people today comprehend how completely isolated the Eastern Shore of Maryland was prior to the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. A friend who grew up on the Eastern Shore told me that— as a youth— his father was considered a cosmopolitan world traveler by his peers because he'd been to Baltimore.

It was through reading Barth that I first encountered the "frame tale," a literary construct that can very pleasantly stimulate the intellect when done well. There's a real cleverness to "tales within tales" and "stories within stories." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_tale Barth's allusions also enjoyably tickle the mind, if you're one who likes that sort of thing.

Barth's most intense literary experiments— Giles Goat-Boy for example— IMNSHO, aren't worth the paper they're printed on. For the mainstream reader, the novels that most are likely to find easily accessible and enjoyable are:
Sabbatical, A Romance
The Tidewater Tales, A Novel
The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor
The End Of The Road
The Floating Opera
The Sot-Weed Factor
Chimera

The works that fall into the experimental category and which many will either not enjoy or will find frustrating are:
Giles Goat-Boy
Lost In The Funhouse
LETTERS
The Friday Book, Essays and Other Nonfiction


An excerpt from a privately printed monograph in my possession ( "A Conversation with John Barth", Frank Gado, Ed., Schenectady, N.Y., 1972 ):

Panel Moderator: When asked what his criterion was for including a writer in his book The Southern Renaissance, John Bradbury used to say that anyone born below the Mason-Dixon line was fair game. He admitted it was arbitrary, but said he needed a definition which would not exclude John Barth.

Barth: The Eastern Shore of Maryland actually is Deep Southern. The real Mason-Dixon Line which divides North and South isn't the east-west surveyor's line across the top of Maryland; it runs north and south down the Chesapeake Bay. The Western Shore, Baltimore and all that, resembles Pennsylvania in its geology and topography and in the character of its people, but the area where I grew up is rather different. During the Civil War, when Maryland was a border state, all the Eastern Shore uniformly supported the Confederacy.

Panel member: Ambrose, the character in some of your Lost In The Funhouse stories, spends his childhood in the same place. Do you and he have the same background?

Barth: Not really. Ambrose's family is a kind of traumatic ideal, the sort of family I might have enjoyed having had. My own family was much more ordinary— less hung up on things and, therefore, maybe less interesting, though more serene. My father owned a lunchroom and restaurant in Cambridge, Maryland; none of my family had very much education, although they were intelligent people.

My grandfather, a stone-carver by trade, moonlighted as a ticket agent for North German Lloyd's and also dabbled in rural real estate in Dorchester County at the turn of the century. He sold marshy acreage to his fellow German immigrants who had gone out to the Middle West, found it too cold and unfamiliar, and come to the more temperate clime of Maryland. It was the only land they could afford, but they drained it and it became quite valuable farmland.

Panel member: Was it your early education, then, that fed your ambitions?

Barth: Hardly. I came out of a rural Southern public school during the Second World War, and there were few books at home. Do you know— can you even imagine— what those three circumstances add up to? Perhaps you can't.

*****​

1987 New York Times review of The Tidewater Tales by William Pritchard: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/28/books/between-blam-and-blooey.html?n=Top/Features/Books/Book

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

TRYSAIL

I'll see if our library has a copy of Barth.

My grandfather was born in Annapolis, plenty more ancestors came from the counties around DC, and many more were from the Eastern Shore. Johnson used to be a big name in Maryland. The first MD ancestor arrived with Lord Baltimore in 1634. 'Cecil' appears on the family tree a few times, but I havent connected it to MD.

If Barth went to a real Southern school he likely speaks plain English and the pinheads imagine its post modern.

 

[Stella_Omega]

TRYSAIL

I'll see if our library has a copy of Barth.

My grandfather was born in Annapolis, plenty more ancestors came from the counties around DC, and many more were from the Eastern Shore. Johnson used to be a big name in Maryland. The first MD ancestor arrived with Lord Baltimore in 1634. 'Cecil' appears on the family tree a few times, but I havent connected it to MD.

If Barth went to a real Southern school he likely speaks plain English and the pinheads imagine its post modern.

Do let us know, won't you?

 

[Handley_Page]

I just gotta step in and defend the term "postmodern". I think it is a term that is very powerful and very much applicable - if used correctly however. I agree that a lot of people use it as a buzzword but that doesn't mean that the term itself is bad or arbitrary or shallow.

Haven't read the "Funhouse" but I'm very much plan on doing so. I hear great things.

Snoopy

I don't mind someone defending a position or term, but the question still remains; what does "Post Modern" mean, please ?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its like the opposite of everything thats like pre-creation, only different; you gotta be a perfesser to really get it.

 

[sweetness6280]

I don't mind someone defending a position or term, but the question still remains; what does "Post Modern" mean, please ?

My limited knowledge comes from a couple of classes, and I know there are others on this board with more extensive knowledge, but I can tell you what I know.

Postmodernism is not easy to define, mainly because Postmodernists deconstruct everything. There is no universal truth because all reality is a personal reality, constructed as the mind perceives and interprets the world. Ambiguity is not only accepted, it is expected. Everything has multiple meanings, and these are seen as integral to the design of reality. Even the principles of Postmodernism itself are treated as suspect and questioned.

The term has been used to describe literature, art, music, and architecture. It began as a reaction against modernism almost a century ago, but really came to prominence in the last 30 - 40 years. Humans have a need to categorize and classify everything, hence the need to have a term. It has been much over-used, and yes, it is now a "buzzword," but that does not negate the term in every instance.

There are a lot of complex arguments within Postmodernism from Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Kafka, Beckett, and so many more with whom I am less familiar. As I said before, I am far from well-versed, just having dipped my toe in the waters, but I do enjoy the genre.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Is Lost In The Fun House worth reading?

No, it's not. But it might hold some obscure, unfathomable meaning for certain throwbacks so you'd better read it just in case.....there's always hope and as long as you obsess about my attraction (or lack thereof) to you; there is definitely hope....Hope is an audacious emotion but good to engage in from time to time.....Much hope to you, JBJ, in the new year....you'll need it.....(Sweaty embrace, fade to black)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

My limited knowledge comes from a couple of classes, and I know there are others on this board with more extensive knowledge, but I can tell you what I know.

Postmodernism is not easy to define, mainly because Postmodernists deconstruct everything. There is no universal truth because all reality is a personal reality, constructed as the mind perceives and interprets the world. Ambiguity is not only accepted, it is expected. Everything has multiple meanings, and these are seen as integral to the design of reality. Even the principles of Postmodernism itself are treated as suspect and questioned.

The term has been used to describe literature, art, music, and architecture. It began as a reaction against modernism almost a century ago, but really came to prominence in the last 30 - 40 years. Humans have a need to categorize and classify everything, hence the need to have a term. It has been much over-used, and yes, it is now a "buzzword," but that does not negate the term in every instance.

There are a lot of complex arguments within Postmodernism from Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Kafka, Beckett, and so many more with whom I am less familiar. As I said before, I am far from well-versed, just having dipped my toe in the waters, but I do enjoy the genre.

Its more academic navel gazing and a ticket to the show for the untalented....like affirmative action. Tires and roses are as acceptable for soup as cabbage is.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I went to the library yesterday, stuck my nose inside 2 novels by John Barth, and closed the covers quicker than I opened them.

Barth is likely the sort of 'author' perfessers love, and love to inflict on innocent & docile coeds, but youre forced to wonder who in Hell buys his books! It seems to be schizophrenic word salad served up as cheeseburger & tater tots.

 

[SnoopDog]

My limited knowledge comes from a couple of classes, and I know there are others on this board with more extensive knowledge, but I can tell you what I know.

Postmodernism is not easy to define, mainly because Postmodernists deconstruct everything. There is no universal truth because all reality is a personal reality, constructed as the mind perceives and interprets the world. Ambiguity is not only accepted, it is expected. Everything has multiple meanings, and these are seen as integral to the design of reality. Even the principles of Postmodernism itself are treated as suspect and questioned.

The term has been used to describe literature, art, music, and architecture. It began as a reaction against modernism almost a century ago, but really came to prominence in the last 30 - 40 years. Humans have a need to categorize and classify everything, hence the need to have a term. It has been much over-used, and yes, it is now a "buzzword," but that does not negate the term in every instance.

There are a lot of complex arguments within Postmodernism from Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Kafka, Beckett, and so many more with whom I am less familiar. As I said before, I am far from well-versed, just having dipped my toe in the waters, but I do enjoy the genre.

I agree, you can't define it in one post or even one thread on a discussion board. Then again, there is not THE ONE definition.

So if I tried to discuss what postmodernism is, I'd only draw criticism from people who'd object and/or want to add certain other elements.

My safest bet to define it in one or two sentences is to see it as opposed to modernism.

When "modernism" (again, a term that can't be defined that easily) is something along the lines of breaking with the past and everything that is conventional as well as do things differently, i.e. apply modern techniques, then "postmodernism" is BOTH a continuation/exaggeration of this (i.e. using modern techniques to their extremes) and also a break with this (i.e. not breaking with the past/conventions and rejecting it but instead using the past/the conventions, reapply them, reinterpret them, esp. with irony, so as to create something new out of it.

Here goes....



Snoopy

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I looked at several definitions for 'post-modern.' Using my Official Bull Shit Decoder Ring here is what I discovered.

Its a conspiracy of the lazy & untalented for making easy money without work or producing anything anyone wants. DO YOUR THANG! Then bribe a bureaucrat to buy it. It naturally appeals to perfessers hot for tenure, plus they can force stoopid coeds to buy it for their couse. No one buys this shit unless they have to or you bribe them. Their wares make VELVET ELVIS seem like Leonardo di Vinci.

 

[Stella_Omega]

As Sweetness remarked in the very first post; "if you don't like post modern lit, you won't like Barth at all."

 

[trysail]

As Sweetness remarked in the very first post; "if you don't like post modern lit, you won't like Barth at all."

I don't fully agree with this. Some of Barth's works such as Sabbatical, A Romance and The Tidewater Tales, A Novel are all but indistinguishable from mainstream prose. In fact, I'm not certain it's appropriate to place the post-modern appellation on them at all. In their day they did, after all, make appearances on "Best Sellers" lists; while that is no particular endorsement, it does at least suggest a modicum of mainstream appeal.

I'll be the first to admit— with no hesitation— that Giles Goat-Boy, while nowhere near as thoroughly impenetrable as Finnegans Wake, fully qualifies as post-modern and, even worse, should properly be consigned to the dustbin.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You're right, Trysail, and I misquoted.

I like the way he explains that "Sabbatical" is a Romance, and "Tidewater Tales" is a Novel.

I looked at "Giles GoatBoy" during a perusal of metafiction. It wasn't as much fun as i had expected, and i never tried reading anything further-- so many authors so little time-- but looking at the description of Tidewater tales, I would guess it's a successful postmodern novel?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STELLA

Postmodern is like sniffing your own farts; its all roses and gardenias to you, and crap to everyone else.

 

[Stella_Omega]

STELLA

Postmodern is like sniffing your own farts; its all roses and gardenias to you, and crap to everyone else.

This is true of so many things, jimmy.

 

[SnoopDog]

STELLA

Postmodern is like sniffing your own farts; its all roses and gardenias to you, and crap to everyone else.

Just today I read a sentence about postmodernism that (I thought) would get your bullshit-decoder-ring to shine:

"To define postmodernism is not really possible because a clear definition of the term would be very un-postmodern itself."

=D LOL


(I can see why you're having problems with the concept/the term, still I like it)



Snoopy

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Just today I read a sentence about postmodernism that (I thought) would get your bullshit-decoder-ring to shine:

"To define postmodernism is not really possible because a clear definition of the term would be very un-postmodern itself."

=D LOL


(I can see why you're having problems with the concept/the term, still I like it)



Snoopy

The lit perfessers have all the bases covered.

 

[trysail]

Some of Barth's "frame tales" are real brain-teasers; in order to enjoy them, the exercise of some grey matter is required. They're really quite clever. As such, they're not unlike an absolutely deliciously dry, lip-curling Bordeaux premier cru.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

If you think Little Red Riding Hood is about talking wolves, and the best you can do beyond that is see a moral in the story, then you're definitely not PoMo. Isn't literalism dull?

But PoMo can become very, very self-indulgent. I once read (well, most of it) a doctoral dissertation on "the absent mother" in Whitman's Leaves of Grass; turns out what was absent was the PhD candidate's personal notion of what a mother was. Too bad old Walt didn't realize that.

Now, I won't complain that the 'antiperfesser' is wrong; he's just limited. Let him have the fun he wants, in or out of the funhouse, but I can't see why he needs other to be wrong. Does he doubt his own veracity? Can he only find comfort and joy when there are none to disagree with him? Perhaps someone will imagine a dissertation on the absent post-modernist in his tropes...