The Tidewater Tales, A Novel [Hardcover]

John Barth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 1987

"Tell me a story!" Katherine Shorter Sherritt Sagamore orders her husband Peter Sagamore -- and so lets loose a flood of tales that floats them both past encounteres with their own lives and loves, entanglements with the CIA and toxic waste, and fantastically inventive brushes with some of the greatest characters of all time, including updated versions of Don Quixote, Odysseus, and Scheherazade.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Peter Sagamore, novelist, has come down with a bad case of minimalism. Ruthless self-editing leaves him with works only a few words in length, and no readers. His wife is a "maximalist" oral historian with an MLS. In June 1980 they spend two weeks sailing around Chesapeake Bay in their boat Story, telling stories. The result is familiar Barthean fare: "lost episodes" of the Odyssey, the Arabian Nights, and Don Quixote interspersed with lectures on Maryland history, the CIA, and toxic waste. (Librarians will wince at the incoherent review of cataloging procedures on Day 5.) A strong addition to the Barth canon, Tidewater Tales is probably the only piece of experimental fiction that can double as summer beach reading. An essential purchase for all collections of contemporary literature. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Charting ever more daring fictional waters, John Barth here sets sail on a huge voyage of a book—part myth, part fantasy, part history, part sheer exuberant wordplay.

(Washington Post Book World )

What is so moving about The Tidewater Tales is its frequent and frequently incidental richness as a love story—marital, filial, domestic—and also in its love of a place, of a country, even as place and country are scarred by depredation.The newest edition of the most complete introduction to the vital security issues facing the United States returns to the book's classic organizational format.

(William Pritchard New York Times Book Review )

The Tidewater Tales takes the form of a narrative encyclopedia, a pre-natal crash course in the politics, social life, literature, history, and mythology of late-twentieth century America... It sits... on the map of modern American fiction as a gigantic memorable construction.

(Jonathan Raban Times Literary Supplement ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 655 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (June 22, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399132473
• ISBN-13: 978-0399132476
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,021,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like the tide, Barth's stories cleanse and refresh our life, July 11, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Tidewater Tales (Paperback)

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

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What he's done is what he'll do, October 31, 2002

By 

Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tidewater Tales (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Paperback)

Of the maybe five novels of Barth I've read so far in my young life, this is probably my favorite of them all (Sot-Weed Factor does run a close second, however) if only due to the laziness factor since I didn't feel I needed a doctorate in English literature or mythology to understand everything that was going on. All told, on the surface this is probably one of the lighter books he's done . . . it's basically about a couple (teh wife's eight months pregnant) going out sailing in Cheaspeake Bay and to pass time they start telling stories. Except it's about everything else too and slowly the novel starts to incorporate local history, the knots of the characters' lives, mythology, plays, short stories . . . you name it. For someone not of Barth's skill this would come off as a tedious academic exercise merely to show the author's genre bending abilities. Once in a while it teeters toward that but manages to stay on the right side of the line. What helps is the sheer exuburance of the book, the people all seem to like each other (not that there isn't conflict), folks are happy with their lives, never before has Barth managed to create a more three dimensional set of people or given them a more realistic world to inhabit. It's just genuinely enjoyable to read, especially as the stories and stories-within-stories start to bounce off each othere. There are echoes of several of Barth's earlier works here, I spotted definitely Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera (and the Sot-Weed Factor is mentioned) so for long time readers it's a bit of a revisit with old friends. Is the book probably longer than it needs to be? Yeah, but if long books are your problem than you shouldn't be reading Barth. The main couple Peter and Katherine are sometimes a bit too precious for words (the constant renaming of the babies got annoying real fast) and in spurts there is just too much love going around but I can't really level that as a flaw now, can I? Politics does threaten to creep in every so often but it's dated eighties style politics now so I didn't pay much attention to it. Overall, it doesn't break any vibrant new ground for Barth but serves as a fine summing up of his strengths and his skills, the man can tell a decent story and he can write the pants off just about anybody (and no, those aren't the same thing) so if you want a fun "literary" novel that won't overwhelm you with all those nasty post-modern tricks those oh so erudite authors love to pull on unsuspecting readers, this might just be what you're looking for. Just stay away if you're allergic to mythology, if you want to read Barth it's not something you can easily escape from. But I like it anyway.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Set me a task!, March 27, 2007

By 

surfer461 "Pura Vida!" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tidewater Tales (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Paperback)

Set me a task indeed! It has become the catch phrase my wife and I use to pull ourselves out of a funk... and reading this book will pull just about anyone out of theirs. Following Peter and Kate's sailing adventure over the course of the last 14 days of their pregnancy (with twins) is a celebration of life. Don't be daunted by it's length! It's like reading multiple books in one: a travel book, a play, throw a little espionage and environmentalism into the pot and meet some of literature's greatest characters along the way. Get through the first 50 pages, then sit back and enjoy the ride. By the end you'll find that you just don't want it to end.