"Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state."- John Barth, America author born 1930

What’s the sound of one writer screaming? Well, what’s the sound of one reviewer screaming? Reviewing John Barth’s fourteen-page short story, Life-Story, is like playing a game of three-dimensional chess, since, I mean, what dimensions are we really dealing with here? As soon as I write down something about this story there appears to be another dimension of the story undercutting my words, pulling the metaphysical wool over my eyes at the same time as pulling the linguistic rug out from under my already not-so-steady feet.

Hey, John! What the heck are you doing? Sure, Life-Story is one story in your collection Lost in the Funhouse where you acknowledge right up front in your introduction how you were moved by Jorge Luis Borges, but do you truly expect a reviewer capable of getting their brain around a story when your brain was on Borges while walking through a hall of mirrors? And do you expect your reader to make it out of this funhouse?

Things are a bit wobbly right from the very first paragraph, as when we read: “He being by vocation an author of novels and stories it was perhaps inevitable that one afternoon the possibility would occur to the writer of these lines that his own life might be a fiction, in which he was the leading or an accessory character.” Ah, John, you weren’t joking, Jorge Luis Borges did make an impact, as in the tale Borges and I with all sorts of provocative ideas about the intertwining identity of author and character.

Perhaps we should ask: How is a fiction writer’s sense of self expanded or contracted when writing a work of fiction? In the act of writing, is an author’s identity less of a fiction than the characters created? Do these question make you feel dizzy? If so, recall how with Life-Story we are joining John Barth in his hall of mirrors funhouse.

More specifically, when Barth writes “the writer of these lines,” we may also ask: Who exactly is writing these lines? Is it John Barth himself or it is his character, the writer in his story, or perhaps both? And the plot thickens: John Barth writes about how his main character is writing about the writer C, who, in turn, is writing a short story about his main character D writing a story about character E. And that’s just for starters. We then have G (Barth’s main character?) who complains about being a fictional character concerned about J’s reaction and how he will get K through his story. And other characters make their entrées, in order of appearance: X, Y, U, T, V, L, K & M together, N and, lastly, M & O together. My guess is if Mr. Barth didn’t possess a keen sense of humor, at this point in his story he would have dropped his pen and run out of the room where he was penning Life-Story.

To pour a bit more metafictional fuel on this literary fire, the main character (along with Barth?) reflects on his story in progress: “Self-conscious, vertiginously arch, fashionably solipsistic, unoriginal – in fact a convention of twentieth-century literature. Another story about a writer writing a story! Another regressus in infinitum! Who doesn’t prefer art that at least overtly imitates something other than its own processes?” Actually, reflecting on John Barth’s Life-Story, John Gardner, author of On Moral Fiction, complained about such artistic self-consciousness and how current writers call noisy attention to themselves. Oh, lighten up, John Gardner!

More funhouse mirrors, anyone? The main character really doesn’t like overly metaphysical literature written by such as Samuel Becket’s, Marian Cutler’s, Jorge Borges’s; rather his favorite contemporary authors are John Updike, Georges Simenon and Nicole Riboud. Marian Cutler? Nicole Riboud? No such authors in our world but in this fictional world of Barth’s main character – why not? Further on: “If his life was a fictional narrative it consisted of three terms – teller, tale, told – each dependent on the other two but not in the same ways.” Goodness, I might need my textbook on logic as things are really getting complex.

And then toward the end of Life-Story, as if in exasperation, the spotlight is cast on the real culprit: “The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it’s you I’m addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction.” What’s the sound of one writer screaming? Well, what’s the sound of one reviewer screaming? Reviewing John Barth’s fourteen-page short story, Life Story, is like playing a game of three-dimensional chess since, I mean, what dimension are we really dealing with here? As soon as I write down something about this story there appears to be another dimension of the story undercutting my words, pulling the metaphysical wool over my eyes at the same time as pulling the linguistic rug out from my already not-to-steady feet . . . .

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UPDATED REVIEW, FULL REVIEW

"Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state."- John Barth, America author born 1930

What’s the sound of one writer screaming? Well, what’s the sound of one reviewer screaming? Reviewing John Barth’s 14-page short story, Life-Story, is like playing a game of tri-dimensional chess, since, I mean, what dimensions are we really dealing with here? As soon as I write something about this story there appears to be another dimension of the story undercutting my words, pulling the metaphysical wool over my eyes at the same time as pulling the linguistic rug out from under my already not-so-steady feet. Hey, John! What the heck are you doing? Sure, Life-Story is one story in your collection Lost in the Funhouse where you acknowledge in the introduction how you were moved by Jorge Luis Borges, but do you truly expect a reviewer capable of getting their brain around a story when your brain was on Borges while walking through a hall of mirrors? Full review to follow . . . if I make it out of this funhouse, that is.

This time I think made my way out of the funhouse. So, I can add -

Things are a bit wobbly right from the very first paragraph, as when we read: “He being by vocation an author of novels and stories it was perhaps inevitable that one afternoon the possibility would occur to the writer of these lines that his own life might be a fiction, in which he was the leading or an accessory character.” Ah, John, you weren’t joking, Jorge Luis Borges did make an impact, as in the tale Borges and I with all sorts of provocative ideas about the intertwining identity of author and character. Perhaps we should ask: How is a fiction writer’s sense of self expanded or contracted when writing a work of fiction? In the act of writing, is an author’s identity less of a fiction than the characters created? Do these question make you feel dizzy? If so, recall how with Life-Story we are joining John Barth in his hall of mirrors funhouse. (On further reflection, I guess, in truth, I'm still in the funhouse.)

More specifically, when Barth writes “the writer of these lines,” we may also ask: Who exactly is writing these lines? Is it John Barth himself or it is his character, the writer in his story, or perhaps both? And the plot thickens: John Barth writes about how his main character is writing about the writer C, who, in turn, is writing a short story about his main character D writing a story about character E. And that’s just for starters. We then have G (Barth’s main character?) who complains about being a fictional character concerned about J’s reaction and how he will get K through his story. And other characters make their entrées, in order of appearance: X, Y, U, T, V, L, K & M together, N and, lastly, M & O together. My guess is if Mr. Barth didn’t possess a keen sense of humor, at this point in his story he would have dropped his pen and run out of the room where he was penning Life-Story.

To pour a bit more metafictional fuel on the literary fire, the main character (along with Barth?) reflects on his story in progress: “Self-conscious, vertiginously arch, fashionably solipsistic, unoriginal – in fact a convention of twentieth-century literature. Another story about a writer writing a story! Another regressus in infinitum! Who doesn’t prefer art that at least overtly imitates something other than its own processes?” Actually, reflecting on John Barth’s Life-Story, John Gardner, author of On Moral Fiction, complained about such artistic self-consciousness and how current writers call noisy attention to themselves. Oh, lighten up, John Gardner!

More funhouse mirrors, anyone? The main character really doesn’t like overly metaphysical literature written by such as Samuel Becket’s, Marian Cutler’s, Jorge Borges’s; rather his favorite contemporary authors are John Updike, Georges Simenon and Nicole Riboud. Marian Cutler? Nicole Riboud? No such authors in our world but in this fictional world of Barth’s main character – why not? Further on: “If his life was a fictional narrative it consisted of three terms – teller, tale, told – each dependent on the other two but not in the same ways.” Goodness, I might need my textbook on logic as things are really getting complex.

And then toward the end of Life-Story, as if in exasperation, the spotlight is cast on the real culprit: “The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it’s you I’m addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction.” What’s the sound of one writer screaming? Well, what’s the sound of one reviewer screaming? Reviewing John Barth’s 14-page short story, Life Story, is like playing a game of tri-dimensional chess since, I mean, what dimension are we really dealing with here? As soon as I write something about this story there appears to be another dimension of the story undercutting my words, pulling the metaphysical wool over my eyes at the same time as pulling the linguistic rug out from my already not-to-steady feet, et cetera.

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