Customer Reviews

The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As I glanced over the previous reviews of this book I was struck (once again) with my own oscillating love and hate for this book. To begin with I must admit I believe this to be one of Barth's greatest novels and Barth himself to be (when at his best) one of the "technically" greatest writers of all time. He is also one of the most supremely aggravating novelists ever to put pen to paper. Yes, he deserves much of the somewhat narrow-minded criticism applied by my fellow reviewers. And yes, those who gush uncritically about this book (or most of his others) are likely letting him get away with more than he has earned.

Yes, this book SHOULD strike the reader as sexist (male chauvanistic is not really accurate) and yes, it would strike me, at least, as quite surprising if a woman were able to swallow this piece of literature without at least some digestive malaise. But (although, I speak as a male) I think it should be said that it is pretty evident (Barth's narrator admits it more than once) that Barth is really writing about his "Muse" and not literal women. The voyages of the story are the narrator's life voyages of lost and found identity and the various female characters are really one shape shifting "Lady Soul", sister, and twin. And yet, to me, this does not excuse Barth's utter usurping of these female characters. They are "men's women", not characters with any autonomous femininity and do not rightfully belong to the world of Woman or the female imagination.

In fact, I found the book to have a flavor of pornography, albeit pornography suited to a somewhat more sophisticated, middle-aged man's tastes. Half of the time I read, I balked at this lack of emotional complexity and conflict with the Other and its substitution with mid-life crisis/adolescent fantasy. But (again a but) This book is about the opposing poles of Reality and Fantasy and how one might identify their own humanity and self while moving between these poles. So one voice in me would say--That's just a cheap male fantasy-- and another voice would say--Barth knows this and has made it specifically so. And the first voice would chime in--Why is every "voyage" or stage of his life so sex-obsessed as if nothing but sex is formative.

My only reply to that is a bit intellectual and probably insufficient: in the journey of self-discovery and identity forging for a man(at least) there is a significant stage of battling with self and other which is psycho-sexually symbolic, polar, and erotically charged. It has always been portrayed this way--from folk tale to ancient alchemy to medieval romance to psychoanalysis. Barth may be trapped in his complexes and obsessions, too trapped to see all the limitations of his vision, but, on a symbolic level, his seven journeys are an important if often misunderstood (mostly by women, I'm sorry to say) part of a man's life. My only ultimate disappointment was that both Barth and his middle-aged Behler seemed to be hung up in this "psychosexual" stage a bit too long into the age of "wisdom," and that the book ends before either of them looks back on it all with a wistful but comprehending demystification.

So for psychological maturity: three stars. But, damn if this isn't maybe the most brilliantly written piece of quasi-pornography ever. It may not be his best book, but it may be his "best-written" book. The prose is frankly amazing (though not at all for either the casual or non-literary reader) and the overall creation is a master symphony where themes arise and disappear, transform, stir subterraneaously and echo with such virtuosity I was utter blown away. At times, it's a bit long-winded, but it's finally a very tight and complexly wound narrative that makes for an exquisite piece of literary art. For that, five stars at least.

Oh, and is it racist? I don't really think so. Barth is fully aware that he is not creating a legitimate Arabian world. He is more performing a tap dance with a very fantastic and very fictional and mystical world of the occidental imagination--thus the one reviewer's claim of "orientalism." Barth frequently uses the "exploded stereotype" as if to make sure we all know we are not in a world of three dimensions, but a world that exists only on the page, a world born on the page that can only move to another page and never stand up fully formed out of the book.

"Somebody the Sailor" is the great work of Barth's later career, maybe his greatest story ever. The novel is full of feeling, above all; like all his best work since "End of the Road," it makes a profound and emotional feminist argument. It creates at least three splendid women characters, while exposing the cultures and systems that limit them. And it does this within a splendid, ever-ingenious plot -- straddling fantasy and relaism, utterly devoid of cliche or secondhand thinking -- that comes finally to the powerful subject of mortality, of coming to terms with our own demise. Brilliant, provocative, soulful, far-reaching, this book will outlast nine-tenths of Amazon's current stock.

John Barth is one of America's greatest writers, a story teller on par with Twain and Steinbeck, Boyle and Bellow. As far as I can tell, however, none of them ever wrote a story about story telling, which is what Barth has done in this fantastical epic. Simon Behler (if that is, in fact, the name of the identity- and perspective-challenged narrator), for whom water has always played some central role in his life, appears to have swum through a rip in the time/space and reality/fantasy continuum, where he ultimately arrives at the doorstep of the fabled Sinbad The Sailor, and his captivating daughter Yasmin. Invited in, he and Sinbad swap tales of their respective, fantastic voyages in front of myriad household members and prospective investors for Sinbad's proposed seventh voyage, all of whom doubt the origins and suspect the motives of our narrator. Except, of course, for the delicious Yasmin, who, it turns out, has a mysterious and inexorable connection to Simon.

While this is a tale filled with mystery and adventure, love and sex, betrayal and death, and an endless supply of conflict, the underlying theme is the role that stories play in our lives, both as literal archives and moral instruction. Barth's trademark wordplay makes every passage worth a second and third reading, and his characters are impressively believable given their unbelievable context. Like his other masterpiece, "The Sot-Weed Factor," this is a sprawling and ribald epic, showcasing the enormous intellect and imagination of an American master in his prime.

...by a previous reviewer who was quite put off by what he/she saw as macho male fantasy elements. I think that point is not dreadfully farfetched and I made something of a mental note along those lines upon reading the book. However, I enjoyed this romp quite a bit. The several angles of history/myth that were explored, the stories within stories within stories (ala the Arabian Nights themselves), the parallel universes, and the different versions of what "really" happened truly mad this an engaging book.

I'm still not quite sure to think of this book, having now finished it. I enjoyed it but I don't know how I'm going to think of it six months from now, if at all. It's an interestingly told tale, using the voyages of Sinbad to frame the story of a middle aged man's life in the present day . . . and I liked the ruminations on growing up and getting older (and older) and the Arabian setting, accurate or not, was certainly entertaining at least. For all its length the book is actually very tightly written, the voyages and interludes remaining pretty close to the point and with very few actual digressions, the plot falls apart and comes together neatly (as neat as it gets) and unfolds at nearly the right pace. Still, this does feel a bit like the work of a craftsman and not the work of someone really pushing . . . the prose although well written doesn't leap out at me except at certain moments and the story very rarely engaged me emotionally, the main character Simon was fairly three dimensional and Sinbad is displayed warts and all but everyone else was basically there to move the plot forward . . . I guess I'm comparing this to the Tidewater Tales, which why that book was frustrating at times because it was all over the place and rambled every other page, there was a sense of exuberance to it that I found myself responding to. Here I watch all of Barth's literary tricks and don't find myself that moved at all. The early scenes are probably the best, showing Simon's young life and a time long gone and some of the later Arabian voyage scenes are fun and the whole story is well constructed as a piece, his mediations on growing old alternate between humor and resignation, it's populated with loads of interesting set pieces and never fails to be anything less than interesting . . . and yet there's something missing here that I can't put my finger on, a quality that I know is in the other books of his that I've read. What it is, I really couldn't tell you. Though I do think it's a telling sign that the most riveting sections are the sparsest (the beginning and the end, in particular). I do recommend this though even if new Barth fans should start elsewhere . . . veterans of the author will find much of what they like about him distilled into a dense but decently compact novel, the contents of which they may find both moving them and leaving them cold, sometimes on the same page. But it's a worthy read, at any rate.

Very simply put - My favorite author's best story ever! Without even putting this book down I turned from the last page to the first to reread it. I have read it aloud to more than one lover. Truly a story to be shared. As a devotee and companion of Barth for thirty years I often been drawn into his layered approach to story telling, but this story of stories within stories is definitely the most readable; jumping seamlessly from one era and character set to another.

Do not approach this book thinking you will come away feeling satisfied. You won't. You will be impressed by the writing. Every sentence is well-crafted. You will be impressed by the wit. Parts of this book are truly funny. You will be taken with the author's fertile imagination, and tickled by what other reviewers are calling the "pornographic" parts--that's much too harsh a word, I think.

But...you will find it tedious reading at times. You will easily enjoy parts of it--the parts set in modern times and wish there were more of them. You will be amused, for a time, with Sinbad's adventures. But you will, I think, decide that there are too many of them, they go on for too long and they don't contribute as much as the author thinks they do.

And when you put the book down, you will, if you're like me, utter the single comment: "Argh!" You will find the ending ambiguous and unsatisfying. We are led by the hand to one last great trip. The trip begins...and then the book runs out of pages.

This is not, I am afraid, the Sot-Weed Factor. The author is a fine, even great writer, but this is far from his best work.

I don't think I need to repeat the praise that has already been given this book by, sadly, only men. But to sum up: the tale is ingeniously well crafted. Although it was not a mystery per se, I had no idea where it was going to wind up. And after I closed the book, I was sorry to see the characters go. I would have liked to start it again, but it was just so long! If I remember correctly, some other reviewers complain that it is all over the place. Yes, it is! But if you're able to keep track of several different story lines at once, you'll be fine. Although probably, like me, you will probably enjoy one of the story lines most and wish that there was more of it. But the book could not be what it is if the entire work itself were not different tales interwoven. No, it is not a straight story that leads from point A to point B. But I had no problem keeping them all straight, and I read it over a long period.

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.

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

Nobody can weave a tale like John Barth. This tale is a tapestry. I'd give it 6 stars if I could.