Ok, the 1st review in the front of my copy (actually a paperback) is from Playboy, the 2nd is from Cosmopolitan. Playboy is hardly representative of my idea of sexual politics.. & neither is Cosmo: to the editors of the latter: How many times can you rehash X # of tips for pleasing yr man? Really, it's sickening. Let's just FUCK, shall we? Remember INSTINCT for fuck's sake?!

ANYWAY, at 1st I was disappointed by this: I've just recently read "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor" by Barth & given it a positive review. I hadn't realized that it had a predecessor in "Chimera" - from 19 yrs before. SO, I thought something along the lines of: "Oh, 'Chimera' explored this retelling of tales &, therefore, "Last Yoyage" is less interesting b/c it's a remake". Well.. that's not really what I 'thought', that's a drastic oversimplification - but it's somehow relevant.

On p 20 of my edition, Barth has the "Genie" (hypothetically Barth himself) essentially reveal that: "his two-decade marriage [was:] but a prolonged infidelity to her [Scheherazade:], his own fictions were mimicries, pallid counterfeits of the authentic treasure of her Thousand and One Nights".

&, yes, it takes off from there. There are enuf levels to this to astound me. I've even given it a 5 star rating ALMOST against my 'will'. It also made me wonder (not enuf to research the question) how Barth's presumed marriage(s) fared?

It's funny: I note that the GoodReads reviews that I've skimmed thru call it "postmodern" & I reckon that's 'right' - but is it more accurately 'pre-post-modern'? Having come out in 1972 or thereabouts? Whatever. There's plenty of fucking w/ conventions of narrative, times & places mixed together, etc.. - & Barth does it wonderfully - w/, to use a cliché, 'consummate skill'.

There's also a VERY heavy dose of sexual politics - Barth tries to address issues of equality & role models, etc, but there's still a rampant male ego at work - not that I mind, mind you - I just wd like to read a feminist critique of this.. instead of a Playboy review..

& I DON'T MEAN a knee-jerk feminist review - I mean a feminist review in wch it's admitted that PMS exists, that SOME women have rape fantasies, etc. I shd know: after sex w/ a former president of a state chapter of NOW, she wrote a rape fantasy inspired by our sex for an arts journal - they denied it publication. I'm not a rapist - but describing me as such got HER off - not me.

SO, I look at some of the GoodReads reviews: women love it, women don't love it, men love it, men don't love it. I only superficially looked at the reviews but I saw nary a mention of the sexual politics of the bk - wch seem to me to be a central theme.

The bk addresses SO MANY THINGS that I cdn't help but give it a good review. Barth, why weren't we friends when you taught at Hopkins & I lived in Baltimore? B/c you lived the safe life of a well-compensated writer of fantasy & I lived the REAL dangerous life of a street adventurer? It's ok, I like you anyway. ( )

A collection of three intertwined novellas, all retellings of classical tales. I enjoyed the 1001 Nights retelling, but strangely enough, not so much the Perseus and Bellerophon ones. Or maybe it's not that strange at all; I'm fairly protective of my classical myths. Barth is clever and all in what he does with the stories, but it felt a little too...flippant for me. *shrug* ( )

Parts of these stories are really interesting and fun, but for me they became too clever and a bit tiresome. ( )

Chimera is my first introduction to John Barth. It consists of three interrelated novellas, the first based on 1001 Arabian Nights and the other two based on Greek mythology. Chimera was also, I believe, my first introduction to meta fiction, where part of the story being told is the creation of the story. There is a lot going on here, a lot to get your head around, and I will be the first to admit I only comprehended some of it.

Let's start with the basics, though. When John Barth is just telling a story, he can tell an entertaining story. He's funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny, and he creates engaging characters that seem very alive despite being derived from myths. But then he layered on the metafiction, and in some cases the metafiction added interesting twists to the story, such as when he would describe different versions of the same story or call into question the validity or accuracy of a particular version of the story. In other cases, the metafiction just seemed distracting or confusing, and I wanted him to get back to the original story.

In John Barth and his writing, I felt an incredible and unique intelligence. I have not read enough about Barth to talk knowledgeably about his intentions, but it almost felt as if he was bored by just telling the basic story, and had to do something else, something more to keep himself engaged. I for one would pay good money just to see him limit himself to the basics, but I also know that an artist has to do what an artist has to do. ( )

For her part (she would go on--what a wife was this!), she took what she was pleased to term the Tragic View of Marriage and Parenthood: reckoning together their joys and griefs must inevitable show a net loss, if only because like life itself their attrition was constant and their term mortal. But one had only different ways of losing, and to eschew matrimony and childrearing for the delights of less serious relations was in her judgment to sustain a net loss even more considerable.

A number of confessions should precede any analysis of Chimera. The opening section was the most fun I have had reading since the Derrida bio in late July. I enjoyed the second and third elements of the novel more than Calasso's marriage. That may prove heretical. I'll take my chances. One of the local liquor stores offered Goose Island Summer Ale for three dollars a sixer. I bought a case. Sure, it was outdated. I did not care. I halted my reading last night and turned to youtube. This is always a precarious decision and destination. If I then turn to Conway Twitty I know to run to our bedroom. Instead I watched interviews with John Barth and eventually discussions of Leopardi's Zibaldone. Associations were threshed and threaded. I pondered the historical arc of narrative and sighed, considering Barth's taxonomy of the endeavor. That isn't an impediment to an appreciation of such. The sequence in the final section which segues from Robert Graves to an anthropological examination of the Amazons - thus linking the first section to the subsequent pair -- was astonishing.


This was a novel which needed to be read in one's 40s. Being married is also of benefit. ( )