Thread replies: 8
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1
File: 41WdYnDmxgL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg (23KB, 324x499px) Image search:
[Google]
23KB, 324x499px
took a metafiction class years ago, found an old essay. i miss writing so here you go
Carnival Codependency
John Barth’s so-called Literature of Replenishment demanded technical virtuosity in order to present ideas in ways that would appeal to the pharmaceutically-enlightened sensibilities of the hippie generation and rejuvenate the waning literature business. Less sarcastically, he sought to close the gap which had been carved out between literature and layperson by the rigid classical rules of “good” writing. The most effective (and sometimes irritating) way that Barth accomplishes this is by acknowledging within a story that it is being written and read simultaneously. The resulting codependency between author, story, and reader can give new meaning to otherwise trite material. “Lost in the Funhouse” recants a well-worn plot of coming-of-age which in the hands of convention would neither interest nor enlighten. Alternatively, Barth utilizes self-reflexivity to illuminate the autobiographical nature of stories from points-of-view other than the legal author.
Plot, perhaps the most basic literary element, is the one most liberally manipulated in “Lost in the Funhouse.” In sequence and development, the plot is tangled and dilatory. Barth openly comments that the plot is not playing out as it should: “if one imagines a story called ... ‘Lost in the Funhouse,’ the details of the drive to Ocean City don’t seem especially relevant” (77). Going so far as to include diagrams of conventional plot developments, he also gives his reason for departing from them: “[o]ne ought not to forsake it, therefore, unless one wishes to forsake as well the effect of drama or has clear cause to feel that deliberate violation of the ‘normal’ pattern can better effect that effect” (95). This departure from Freytag’s structure more accurately resembles the plots we as real people exist in. Hindsight often offers us some measure of understanding of how life events precipitate, but as life is happening it is more difficult to see these relationships. We don’t necessarily know toward what we are working, even if we think we do. Ambrose perceives in himself a freakishness-- a radically different pubescence than those of his peers. Similarly, in reading the story we experience a discomfort with the difference between the expected turns of the plot and the actual meandering path it takes. That discomfort underscores Ambrose’s state of mind and our sympathy with it. We are as lost in the funhouse as he.
>>
>>9022301
Forsaking the time-honored rule of staying put when lost, Ambrose struggles against his disorientation physically and figuratively. He starts and stops, retelling his own story as he does so. In one telling, he dies among the dimly-lit passageways recounting his tale to the dark and being transcribed by the operator’s daughter. In another, he becomes an operator himself, with the flick of a switch showing “what was up in every cranny of its multifarious vastness …” (Barth 97). In attempting to navigate the maze, Ambrose is attempting to wrest control of the story from Barth. Rather than floating down the Lazy River of his story, Ambrose strives to give it order and make sense of it. He deconstructs the pitfalls of the Funhouse, but nevertheless is not immune to their hindrances: Ambrose “explained to her, in a calm, deep voice his theory that each phase of the funhouse was triggered either automatically, by a series of photoelectric devices, or else manually by operators stationed at peepholes” (Barth 92-93). This interplay between author and character drives home one of Barth’s most perennial ideas throughout the collection: that a story is not just a collection of words arranged in a definite manner with definite meanings and definite ends. Barth at once is the story’s progenitor yet seems to have little control over its unfolding, even to the point that he exhibits open distaste for it: “Is there anything more tiresome, in fiction, than the problems of sensitive adolescents? And it’s all too long and rambling, as if the author” (Barth 91-92). This relationship can be, and is, extended to include the reader.
The maze of mirrors is a metaphor for Ambrose’s uncertainty towards who he is. On a more macro level, it is also a metaphor for the unavoidable game of Chinese Whispers that is played out during the transmission of ideas. While lost, Ambrose “wondered at the endless replication of his image in the mirrors, second, as he lost himself in the reflection that the necessity for an observer makes perfect observation impossible” (Barth 94). By using italics, Barth signals the “ ‘outside,’ intrusive, or artificial” voice which reminds us that we are observers looking upon our own imperfect reflections (72). We view the events- the cognitive dimensions of Ambrose’s situation- through the lenses of our own minds, and therefore impart our own idiosyncrasies to them: “no matter how you stand, your head gets in the way. Even if you had a glass periscope, the image of your eye would cover up the thing you really wanted to see” (85). Barth’s story is altered by Ambrose, whose story is in turn altered by the reader.
>>
reads like an undergrad paper.
>>
>>9022303
This idea is introduced in “Night-Sea Journey,” wherein a “Heritage,” ostensibly an idea, is dependent on the act of being received and results in something at once related and removed from its progenitor.
In addition to meaning lost in translation, Ambrose’s nature creates in him a detachedness which is echoed by the reader. During his experience in the tool shed, Ambrose strives “to be transported, he heard his mind take notes upon the scene: This is what they call passion. I am experiencing it” (Barth 84). The reader is in a similar predicament- striving to fully and empathetically understand Ambrose’s situation but separated by a degree of reality.
Lost in the Funhouse walks the fine line between pretense and platitude. Barth’s use of self-reflexivity meshes well with his position that the audience co-authors any story. By illuminating the “levers” that guide us through a piece of literature, he gives us the power not to avoid a story’s traps but experience them first-hand.
we also read Marquez (read by plebs, really understood by few) and the Pillowman, which I loved.
>>
>>9022301
You should read DFW's "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way," a direct response to "Lost in the Funhouse."
>>
>>9022305
it literally was, so...thanks?
>>
>>9022316
It's better than most of my undergrad papers tee bee àych.
>>
>>9022313
I'll check it out.
Thread posts: 8
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1