Lost in the Funhouse (The Anchor Literary Library)

Somehow I have missed this book, but it is a must-read if you are at all interested in the development of self-reference as a trope in postmodern fiction. Barth's commitment in this volume to write narratives that are aware of their role as such makes this quite a read (and a blueprint for later pomo heavy-hitters such as DFW in that it is interested in using these devices as means to an end, not as ends in themselves like so much dead-end, pyrotechnic writing). This book is an obligatory passage point.

When you start reading this, you will be confused. Very confused. The first chapter is from the point of view of a (try reading it first, then google it). After that, the stories get immensely more readable and relatable. This is a fun little collection of loosely related short stories. and is certainly worth the read.

Wonderfully twisted fiction.

A great introduction to postmodernism for anyone who is interested in this literary period - the term is thrown around a lot these days, but John Barth is the real deal.

Experimental, very confusing and boring. Definitely, not a light summer read. I actually enjoy metafiction, but it was really very hard to keep reading this absurd collection of stories. Don't even attempt to read it if you have not read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. I believe the effort of trying to make sense of this text doesn't pay off.

Everything arrived quickly and as advertised. Very satisfied.

Literary experimentalism has rarely been practiced so consciously and creatively. This book is one of those that are in the canon for a multitude of good reasons. Don't overlook this gem.

JB is brilliant and always worth reading. This is him at perhaps his best, although Sot-Weed Factor is a staggeringly brilliant book.

Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is a short story collection by American author John Barth. The postmodern stories are extremely self-conscious and self-reflexive and are considered to exemplify metafiction.Though Barth's reputation rests mainly on his long novels, the stories "Night-Sea Journey", "Lost in the Funhouse", "Title" and "Life-Story" from Lost in the Funhouse are widely anthologized. The book appeared the year after the publication of Barth's essay The Literature of Exhaustion, in which Barth said that the traditional modes of realistic fiction had been used up, but that this exhaustion itself could be used to inspire a new generation of writers, citing Nabokov, Beckett, and especially Borges as exemplars of this new approach. Lost in the Funhouse took these ideas to an extreme, for which it was both praised and condemned by critics.

Preso per un corso universitario. Una lettura senza dubbio interessante e stimolante, ma alla fine non sono riuscita ad apprezzarlo tanto quanto speravo. Alla lunga annoia.

good