John Barth is the fucking reincarnation of Cervantes

>>9775211
Don't bother, there's only like 3 people here who have read any of his work, and the old-bias here is strong. I agree though, he's one of the best writers of the past 100 years.

>>9775222
what's your favorite work by him? I'm partial to Letters and the Sot Weed Factor

>>9775253
I haven't read LETTERS yet, but The Sot-Weed Factor is one of my favorite novels of all time. I thought Lost in the Funhouse had some of the best short stories I've ever read. I'm working up to LETTERS now, I have a feeling it will be a new favorite.

>>9775253
I wanna read Sot Weed but I'm afraid I'll be BTFO, there's no translation in my language and I couldn't follow Mason & Dixon in english., wat's some easier 18th century stuff so I can get acquainted?
Also, Chimera is fucking dope and I quite liked most of Lost in the Funhouse, but that Menelaus story was too weird for me, sorry for being a pleb.

Oh shit, I'm reading The Sot-Weed Factor right now!

I live in MD too, so I'm wondering if I should try to reach out to him and talk to him about life and writing and stuff while he's still alive.

>>9775288
Just try it, man. Take your time and work through it, you'll come out a better reader. Also, you're not a pleb for struggling, you're a pleb if you give up and never go back. Seriously, everyone here struggled with shit like that at first.

>>9775301
Worth a shot. You'd be living out a dream of mine. What can you lose?

The Revisionist America Trilogy:

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
The Sot-Weed Factor
Mason & Dixon

I didn't like Lost in the Funhouse. I find Barth irritating.

>>9775320
I didn't like it that much either, to be honest. Try reading his other novels, though, they're very different

Can someone share Giles Goat Boy in epub (or similar)? I can only find the pdf don't matter where I look

>>9775309
>>9775308
>One of my favourite Dylan songs
>my favourite book

alright lads I'm doing it, wish me luck

>>9775211
Read and enjoyed Sotweed after having read The End of the Road for a class. Have read a few others since then-- Opera, Funhouse, Sabbatical. He's very good, but he's no Thomas Pynchon. That's just a fact.

>>9775373
You're going to fucking love it.

>>9775222
>>9775253
>>9775267
>>9775288
>>9775301
Starting Sot Weed as soon as I finish Hamlet. Mason & Dixon is my favorite book and I'm currently growing tobacco so I think it's safe to say I'm gonna like it. Pretty hyped.

>>9775211

I tried reading Giles Goat-Boy, but it was just trying too hard to strike a balance between measured wit and irony and full blown Pynchonian antics (not that I think he is Pynchonian, but sometimes his antics in his books are).

Lost in the Funhouse however is genuinely one of the best collection of short stories I've read. Brilliant

>>9775552
Are you a Marylander?

>>9775211
Barth is the man.

True story I have his wife Shelly's old copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Third Edition. Too late a printing to have been reference material in writing Giles Goat-Boy, but it was part of their library. Get mad plebs.

>>9775602
Are YOU a Marylander?

>Stories last longer than men, stones than stories, stars than stones. But even our stars' nights are numbered, and with them will pass this patterned tale to a long-deceased earth.

Man what a master stylist

>>9775628
I lived there for four years, near Severn. Went out to the peninsula to see a girl and buy used books. I live in Texas now.

>>9775579
>>9775628

I'm neither of them and I'm a marylander

I eat old bay with my eggs and I can eat a dozen crabs in 15 minutes or less

I'm also black and homeless

quintessential marylander

>>9775348
it's on ligben

>>9775579
New England

>>9775211
> a fucking reincarnation
A zombie with a hardon? No thanks, that's nightmare fuel.

>>9775645
>>9776560
>>9775643
I was gonna say we should organize some kind of /lit/ meet up and somehow convince 87 year old Barth to come hang out.

>>9776783

I'm an hour driving distance from everything populated in Maryland, so if Barth showed up I would definitely join

But he's a busy old man so I doubt he'd gaf or even read the letter asking him

>>9775211
If you enjoy Barth you should kill yourself. His work is annoying bullshit.

And why exactly would you chose Cervantes to compare him with of all people? Is all satire "post-modern" now?

>>9777224
what a stupid fucking post

>>9777224
>he's too dumb to understand Barth
Stop taking it out on others, it's okay to be dumb.

>>9775628
Tidewater, Va (now Norfolk) but very familiar with Eastern shore til as far north as Salisbury. Have never visited Cambridge, however. Have (you) or any other anon? If so, impression?

>>9778124
Both Salisbury and Cambridge are crime ridden, heroin infested shitholes. It's sad too, considering how beautiful the Eastern Shore is.

>>9775211
He's the shit, The Sot-Weed Factor is a work of almost incomperable virtuosity.

The End of The Road and The Floating Opera are seriously underrated, I wish I could find more books with the acerbic, swift ethos of these two.

Giles Goat Boy is simply fun, it seems like a more playful work, but is nonetheless rewarding.

Barth is one of my favourite authors, and I love whenever someone brings him up on here. I hope some Anon's take the praise in this thread as an impetus to read him, and enjoy him even a fraction of the amount I do

>>9775267
I'm 150 pages away from the end of LETTERS. It is far and away the most difficult book I've ever read, it easily eclipses Ada, Gravity's Rainbow, J R, and lots of other "hard" books I've read in terms of difficulty.

The A.B. Cook chapters were particularly hard for me, there is so much fucking shit going on, everyone has the same given and surnames, everyone imposes as eachother, the histories are told out of order, and everyone is a double or triple agent. I felt genuinely stupid for a couple chapters, it also doesn't help that there are virtually zero online resources.

But to be clear I don't want to just shit on it, it's very enjoyable, and probably up there with TSWF for Barth's funniest. I remember early on he describes a girl as a "vigorous felationist" and I still look book at the phrase and chuckle.