Customer Reviews

On With the Story: Stories

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Barth is truly one of the most intelligent fiction writers inAmerica today. While his recent novels have been a bit too convoluted (and perhaps repetitive), this series of short stories is truly Barth at his best. Of the twelve stories, four are beginnings, four are middles, and four are ends. While each story is, on the surface, about narrative (as is the case with most of BArth's fiction), the stories also touch on the passing and the immortality of love in modern society. It takes some thought to get through this book, but the effort is well-rewarded.

the intricate intertwining of these short stories was so good that after finishing I didn't just recommend it to everyone, I bought 25 copies to force on friends so they almost HAD to read it. lots of literary games going on, but not at the expense of the story in general. the main story focus of a married couple, their struggles, and exactly what's wrong with the health of one of them gives these stories a dark edge.

This collection of stories is really a collection of ingenious essays -- on narrative, fiction writing, and stories themselves -- masquerading as fiction. Witty and inventive. Great fun for grad-student aspiring fictioneers.

I'm not somebody who has trouble reading writing that is more on the abstract side. It doesn't have to be spelled out and cut and dry for me to understand it. I hate to say this because I know somebody is gonna think I'm just too dumb to "get" this book or something, but seriously, the whole time I was reading this all I could think was "WHAT THE HECK* IS GOING ON??!?!" (*heck replaces the preferred word here because I don't want my review getting rejected due to non family friendliness.) I had to read and re-read over and over again to understand just one sentence. Each sentence goes into something else, into something else, and wanders on and on til you have no idea what he's even talking about and it's nothing remotely related to the thing he was talking about at the beginning of the sentence. There is way too much "meta" going on here. there is meta out the meta-meta and it ain't pretty.

After one too many endless run-on rambling sentences that I can't even mock properly here because they are so ridiculous and manage to make so little sense with so many words I just had to stop and ask myself if it was worth it to keep reading because I just ...kept...going...thru the desert of WAY TOO WORDY PROSE, hoping desperately to get to the oasis of even slightly readable sentences and just not getting anywhere close. Abstract, a little "cerebral" or whatever...I can handle that. I can deal with a little bit of 'thinking out loud' and a break from the story here and there for some 'notes from the narrator'. But this is just ridiculous. I seriously had no idea what was going on half the time. I'm gonna attempt to write my review in the style of the book for a paragraph to give you some idea of what you'd be "missing" if you pass up this book:

As I read, (which, as we begin here, it would be appropriate to note that we are entering the beginning of the beginning of our review, a process which will be unfolding shortly, however , to mention anything further would defeat our purpose since this is about beginnings and to continue on past the beginning, would be to move onto middles, which is a subject for discussion once we arrive at the middle, therefore, which will be left for review at a later time in this review) I found, confusingly, that the writing was rambling and incoherent. Seeming to have no purpose or final destination (Aha, but, is the destination obscured from view at this time? Is it, it being the beginning of the beginning, still yet to be revealed? Surely the truth will come to light, or, if not intended by the writer, the possibility also exists that, like many of the great mysteries of life, this also will be left unexplained and uncertain, alas, as so much of the human condition remains.) Seeking some form of enlightenment, I trudged through the endless terrain of this nonsensical desert, the desert, of course, being a metaphor, and on the subject of metaphors, perhaps this review could be considered a metaphor in itself, vis-a-vis the way it rambles on pointlessly in reflection of the original text, but I fear I am getting ahead of myself, or maybe the middle has been reached. The middle of the desert would be a pleasant place to reach indeed, as, it being the middle, would seem to indicate that there is a concrete point at which it ends, and having reached the middle it is possible to ascertain that the next step taken would bring one closer to the end than the beginning. having taken that step, it perhaps would be more fitting to discuss the ending, but really, it's not the end yet, as it's only the end of the middle or perhaps the beginning of the end, at la....Oh my god, somebody shoot me in the head....bllaaaa...bla...bla..blaaaaaaaaaahhhh.

Ugh, it gives me a headache to even try to write like that, and I can assure you, the book's style of writing made the stuff I just wrote there look clear, concise, and to the point. Seriously, it could not possibly be more dense, thesaurus-a-riffic, and difficult to follow.

I have been struggling with this book for the past few days and still can't quite figure out where the (heck) the STORIES are actually happening here, since the entire thing up to this point (and I am over halfway done with the book) seems to just be some incredibly pretentious old windbag blathering on endlessly to hear himself talk. I think I would have enjoyed reading the instructions from a tampon box more, actually. Glad I got this from the library book sale for 20 cents. Sad that my 20 cents could have brought me more joy spent on laughing at and writing dumb notes in the margins of the Bill O Reilly book they had there. That should tell you something, because usually reading any book by him or his group of similar "pundits" I make it through 3 pages and want to punch myself in the face. This book, unfortunately, makes an afternoon spent reading Bill&co. and punching myself into unconsciousness with rage, look like a morning spent under a warm blanket and a pile of kittens. Seriously, don't say I didn't warn you if you get this book, try to read it, and your family finds you passed out in a pile on the floor from having to concentrate so hard on deciphering one 2-paragraph-long sentence that you gave yourself an aneurysm.

"Check-in"--dinner is more pensive than festive. The couple chooses the buffet restaurant. In "The End" the narrator must continue the introduction until the guest speaker, a female poet, delayed by security measures, appears. It is the innauguration of the Last Lecture Series, endowed by someone who died rather quickly afterwards, and is an end of sorts for the narrator who is retiring from his professorial position.

History is a Mandelbrot set, infinitely divisible. The story of our life is a story, not our life. Elizabeth's father died in the corridor of the county hospital while she was on a book tour. In the draft of a letter to an old friend Elizabeth writes that since time out of mind she had been absorbing stories. Her father was a born story-teller. Elizabeth, in her forties, develops into one of the memorable voices of her generation.

Alice is in flight crossing the Mississippi River. She wonders where the money had come from in those "Leave It to Beaver" years, the 1960's and 1970's when she grew up. In a story Alice is reading the malaise is called the Boomer Syndrome. Alice thinks of the Uncertainty Principle holding that the more we know about a particle's position the less we know about its momentum. It turns out Alice's seat companion is the author of the story Alice is reading.

Do people think of their lives as stories from birth to death? Mimi assumes a supporting role when her husband Rob is found to have AIDS. One of the characters believes that not enough has been written about happy marriages.

John Barth has proven his ability to create interesting, fantastical yet plausible worlds with a deft magical realism. But I found this, his most recent collection, severely lacking and even cannibalistic--there are passages repeated from earlier stories of his verbatim! A sorely disappointing collection, in comparison to his eariler works.

In an era when men try hard to understand the popular prose of nuclear physicists, here is a book of stories that women can barth on. Whereas most authors have a thesaurus of words, Barth has a thesaurus of thoughts, which he uses ad nauseam, like he's trying to enact Heisenberg's uncertainty theory. Can't leave a sentence alone for the life of him. A real collection of string theories, he actually seems to know what the word ontological means. But it doesn't help in the least. Barthward to barthwords. Promising at first sight, (I was never a fan, actually chucked "Sot-Weed Factor" out the door of a Huey when I was in Nam--my contribution to spreading American propaganda), though did read some early barthwords in college, a form of writing called metafiction, cantilevered by a tricky opening that promised barthing out a breakthrough in the way we think, the anchor is nothing more than a story within a story, old as the hills idea. An author narrating a story of himself meeting a flirt on a plane reading a story he had written in an in-flight mag. Barth's prowess makes the reader think there's something more profound than that, but there's not. Women take heart. Your man reading quantum mechanics doesn't have a clue either.

Book arrived safely and in good condition. Shipping was rapid, perhaps supernaturally so. I'm amazed and humbled.