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Literature Criticism
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From:St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers"A story with nothing fantastic in it lacks something essential," declares Fenwick Turner, the author figure from John Barth's Sabbatical, to his young wife Susan Seckler, as they navigate the familiar and beguiling—yet...
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From: Passionate Virtuosity: The Fiction of John Barth[(essay date 1983) Harris is an American educator and critic who specializes in modern American literature. In the following excerpt, he analyzes the relationship between sex and language in Lost in the Funhouse.] One...
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From: "The True Bones of My Life": Essays on the Fiction of Jim Harrison[(essay date 2002) In the following essay, Smith compares the instinctive desire of Harrison's Brown Dog (in the novellas Brown Dog,The Seven-Ounce Man, and Westward Ho) to return to the frontier with that of Mark...
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From: Studies in Short Fiction[(essay date spring 1997) In the following essay, Martin maintains that the protagonist's identity crisis in Lost in the Funhouse is a central point within the work and that the creation of the text itself becomes a kind...
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From: Studies in American Fiction[(essay date spring 1984) In the following essay, Edelstein argues that Barth addresses "linguistic and artistic self-consciousness" as well as "human self-consciousness" in Chimera.] Much recent American fiction has...
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From: Critique[(essay date summer 1997) In the following essay, Stokes considers Amis's recent work within the context of postmodern fiction and claims that the author's fractured narratives reflect his anxiety over a possible global...
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From: Modern Fiction Studies[(essay date autumn 1990) In the following essay, McMullen explores the use of language to evoke historical power struggles in LETTERS.] Were he French, John Barth might have titled his 1979 novel LETTERS with a...
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From: Publishers Weekly[(review date 22 August 2005) In the following review, the critic responds favorably to Where Three Roads Meet.] Teller, tale, torrid (and torpid) inspiration: Barth's 17th book [Where Three Roads Meet] brings these...
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From: Twentieth Century Literature[(essay date April 1973) In the following essay, Hinden remarks on Barth's treatment of the dilemma of "exhausted" possibilities faced by contemporary writers, and by modern culture in general, in Lost in the Funhouse.]...
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From: New Statesman[(review date 1 April 2002) In the following review, Thorne lauds Coming Soon!!! as an innovative and exciting novel.] The great American postmodernists--Pynchon, Coover, Barth--are in an unenviable position. Having...
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From: Comparative Literature Studies[(essay date 1992) In the following essay, Barbosa underscores the importance of ambiguity and the impossibility of discovering life's meaning in Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis's Dom Casmurro and Barth's The Floating...
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From:Twentieth Century Literature (Vol. 54, Issue 3) Peer-ReviewedDespite hailing from and frequently setting his fiction on the Eastern Shore of Maryland--a region whose history includes slavery, plantation agriculture, widespread support for the Confederate cause during the Civil...
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From:Twentieth-Century Romance & Historical Writers (3rd ed.)No 20th-century American novelist has had more influence on the shape and scope of recent fiction than has John Barth, who in practice and in theory has named and exemplified the `literature of exhaustion'—literature...
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From: Review of Contemporary Fiction[(essay date summer 1990) In the following essay, Weisenburger provides a history of black humor, comparing it to and differentiating it from conventional satire.] In his 1988 essay "Postmodernism Revisited," John...
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From:Reference Guide to Short FictionJohn Barth is no doubt best known as a novelist, but his one collection of short stories, Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice, is so startling in its virtuousity that Barth's place in the history of...
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From: Review of Contemporary Fiction[(essay date summer 1990) In the following essay, Greer analyzes the motif of abortion in Barth's work from a linguistic and compositional perspective.] With Sabbatical, Barth's eighth novel, the image of abortion...
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From:Mosaic: An interdisciplinary critical journal (Vol. 50, Issue 3) Peer-ReviewedThere are three texts before me, like the law. Each possesses letters; discusses letters; explores epistolary traditions; inquires after the relevance of letters, in philosophy and literature; is aware of letters as...
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From: The Review of Contemporary Fiction[(review date summer 2004) In the following laudatory review of The Book of Ten Nights and a Night, McLaughlin declares that in this collection Barth "makes a valuable case for the importance of self-conscious fiction as...
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From:Studies in Short Fiction (Vol. 34, Issue 2) Peer-ReviewedThe author examines the life of fictional characters in author John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. Topics include self-identity, protagonists, and sexuality. Many of John Barth's works are marked by an attempt to sort...
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From:Short Stories for StudentsElisabeth Piedmont-Marton teaches American literature and writing classes at the University of Texas. She writes frequently about the modern short story. In this essay she suggests that readers can enjoy the funhouse...