Well, and Your Humble Blogger finally finished The Tidewater Tales. I’m a fan of John Barth, in part because of a lot of the things he does in this book that would annoy anybody who doesn’t like them. In other words, if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like. More than that isn’t really worth saying.
On the other hand, the four points of John Barth’s storytelling compass (or at least of the compass of the stand-in for John Barth within the story, or at least of that character’s own self-portrayal in his story within The Tidewater Tales) are probably worth arguing about. They are: Huck Finn, Scheherazade, Don Quixote and Odysseus. Are these the four points of your own compass? Honestly, I never liked Huck Finn, even when I like Twain, that’s not the Twain I like. I read a couple hundred pages or so into Don Quixote and not liking it, gave up. I’ve never actually read the thousand and one nights, and only know what everybody knows: the frame, Ali Baba, and Aladdin. As for the Odyssey, well, um, there’s a copy lying on top of my bookshelf. I’ll get around to it soon.
On the other hand, I do understand that, back when there was a canon, and when people diagrammed sentences, and when Derrida was not only alive but controversial, these four stories did form a good deal of the groundwork for stories that I do know and love. As civilization settles, the earlier stuff sinks underground, and we get to it only through the basement level of stories written on top of them, already a level or two beneath the stuff that immediately comes to mind. It’s a good idea to have a foundation—heck, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on it—but when I go in through the front door of literature, I’m not seeing Cervantes.
If, on the other hand, I wanted to name my own four compass points, what would they be? Alice, probably. Yossarian? Woody Allen? I don’t really know. I’ll think on this a while, and get back to you.
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-Vardibidian.