John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” analysis PDF

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Summary

Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is not Barth’s first work; it is a short story collection which to be understood – just like in Pynchon’s case – we must register a trajectory Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is not Barth’s first work; it is a short story collection which to be understood – just like in Pynch...

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JOHN BARTH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION: Just like Pynchon, John Barth is a still living author (1930-). Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is not Barth’s first work; it is a short story collection which to be understood – just like in Pynchon’s case – we must register a trajectory (a different one but still a trajectory). With Pynchon we read the trajectory as engaging with the two dominants, whereas here with Barth it’s different because apparently, he has never been interested in the epistemological issue. His literary production has always been deep into the postmodernist field, not so much in terms of ontology as we’ve seen it at work in The Crying lot of 49 , but as a metafictionist. Therefore, with Barth we enter a subdivision of postmodernist fiction writers that are interested in reflecting on the art, the making of the stories, on the intertextuality, on characters that return and reverse what they wear in the following novel…

LITERARY WORKS: • The Floating Opera (1956) & The End of the Road (1958) • The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) • Giles Goat-Boy (1966): “novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by an author who imitates the role of Author” (from LitofExh)  The way in which Barth defines these two books: novels which imitates the form of the novel by an author who imitates the role of author. In this definition is condensed the gist of Barth’s art. Barth in emersed in the notion of imitation, of reappropriation, of rewriting, of inventing from within something which has already been explored, in kind of ripping on and thinking out loud imaginatively about what a novel is and what an author is. NOVEL CAPITALIZED + AUTHOR CAPITALIZED are in themselves a form of a master narrative. We could say: - postmodernity debunks the notion of the novel as realist or modernist writers conceived of it. and postmodern. - postmodernists debunk the notion of author as the two capitalized objects/persons (this is treated in The Literature of Exhaustion).

• Lost in the Funhouse (1968) • Chimera (1972): Barth was interested in mythology, in forms of literature which are crystallized and entrenched in people’s perception of themselves that belong in the gold mine of our communal narrative about bygone times (how we are as human beings etc.…). • Letters (1979) • Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994): is something Barth had written thirty years earlier and he returns reshuffling the characters belonging to that earlier piece.

POETICS

Something we’ve stressed during our introductory remarks on postmodernism, and which is highly relevant in Barth’s case (this is exactly what he does) is the reuse, the rewriting, and the imitation. This rewriting happens within the awareness of the fact that he is using something which has been abused and used up several times. In this sense, Barth’s poetics respects Umberto Eco’s reflections on what you can do when you cannot bypass the past, and the type of awareness needed when it comes to our history and literary traditions. History cannot and should not be destroyed, it must be reproduced and repainted in different colors through irony .

“The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her ‘I love you madly’, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say ‘As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly’. At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent, both will have accepted the challenge of the past, of the already said, which cannot be eliminated; both will consciously and with pleasure play the game of irony... But both will have succeeded, once again, in speaking of love.” Eco, Umberto Reflections on The Name of the Rose; trans. William Weaver, London: Minerva, 1994, pp. 67-68

There is this notion of double coding, of speaking against, building on, being on the shoulders of your ancestors and starting from there, of acknowledgment of what came before us. We cannot do as they did is basically the sense of this postmodern vein, and and this is a really important part and parcel of what Barth explains in The Literature of Exhaustion.

The Literature of Exhaustion The Literature of Exhaustion is an essay which goes hand in hand with Lost in the Funhouse. Many of the reflections that went into this essay are relevant towards the content of the collection, therefore we should try to think always of what writers are writing not simply fictionally speaking. This essay also provides us with a microscopical reflection of the cultural and literary landscape of the 60s, as it’s essential for us to immerse ourselves in the cultural and literary debate of the 60s. Collaterally, this essay describes pretty interestingly the avant-gardism of the time. Therefore, this manifesto has a double function: on the one hand we can relate with what Barth is doing in Lost in the Funhouse and on the other see how this is the product of a broader debate that belonged in the 60’s. Interestingly, this essay is a cultural landmark: in the literary landscape The Literature of Exhaustion represents a highly influential declaration that everyone refers to it, but everyone typically misreads it. Postmodernism as the literature of exhaustion is an affirmation that was interpreted in the sense that postmodernist literature is not a lively one, suffering from a dying. Of

course, we know this is not the case, and this is the reason why a Barth feels the need to write another essay explaining what he truly meant: from The Literature of Exhaustion, he goes on to write The Literature of Replenishment, hoping this new rephrasing of the title would give the hoped effect. Then again Barth wasn’t happy with the reaction to this last essay and wrote another couple: Postmodernism Visited and Postmodernism Revisited, and with the latter – 12 years later – he said that it was his final word about what he thinks about Postmodernism. The Literature of Exhaustion is the leading essay that opens a series, and as far as we are concerned it could already be enough, even if The Literature of Replenishment is much more a focused on defining, on producing his precise definition of what postmodernism is as far as he's concerned. We should also keep in mind that in Postmodernism Revisited Barth asserts: «Postmodernist is what I am, postmodernist is whatever I do, so let me define it».

The Literature of Exhaustion - 1967 By exhaustion I mean: the used-upness of certain forms or the felt exhaustion of certain possibilities – by no means necessarily a cause for despair The intermedia arts: tendency to eliminate the most traditional notion of the artist I am inclined to prefer the kind of art that not many people can do: the kind that requires expertise and artistry as well as bright aesthetic ideas and/or inspiration. I suppose the distinction between things worth remarking and things worth doing – excellent writers who are also technically contemporary. Technically up-to-date artists: the few people whose artistic thinking is as au courante as any French New Novelist’s, but who manage nonetheless to speak eloquently and memorably to our human hearts and conditions, as the great artists have always done. Beckett, Nabokov, Borges – their work in separate ways reflects and deals with ultimacy, both technically and thematically. After Beckett’s ‘last word’*, it might be conceivable to rediscover validly the artifices of language and literature – such fat-out notions as grammar, punctuation ... even characterization! Even plot! – if one goes about it in the right way, aware of what one’s predecessors have been up to. (*we have lost our innocence with Beckett because he explores the notion of having announced the last word. We can’t do nothing but accept silence  nihilism)

Borges’s artistic victory is that he confronts an intellectual dead end and employs it against itself to accomplish new human work. Borges’s work illustrates how an artist may paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and means for his work – paradoxically, because by doing so he transcends what had appeared to be his refutation, in the same way that the mystic who transcends finitude he said to be enabled to live, spiritually and physically, in the finite world.

Macroscopically, Barth presents the context as far as literature is concerned, then he plunges into one of the examples he wants to follow, Luis Borges. Indeed, Barth had been fiddling with short fiction narrative because of his admiration towards Borges and Lost in the Funhouse is the concrete result of this «happy fiddling». In a few words this essay covers two topics: - why Borges is interesting - what are the consequences of considering Borges interesting for avant-gardism?

Moreover, there is a prologue too in which he explains in a sense what he wants to do with this piece, and interestingly it opens with an anecdote and then the second paragraph says, «Not for that reason», therefore introducing an episode the author isn’t even going to use in the very first place.

The preface comes simply to give a certain context because this essay has been picked to be republished in a collection of essays in 1984 (15 years after the first publication of the essay).

The final paragraph of this introductory chapter text says:

In a few words, he asserts that he can be read to understand his opinion on literary landscape, but it is more important to read his fiction books because that is where he thoroughly expresses his opinion about art. Moreover, he makes sure to highlight that his essay is not a Swan Song of literature.

By exhaustion, Barth says, he does not mean despair, rather a certain feeling of exhaustion of certain possibilities: that it to say that in the 60s there is the impression that artists do not have all the possibilities in front of them because most of these have already been used up. So, there is the sense that certain forms have been almost abused, trodden and they bear the marks and the signs of that trodding.

In a few words, postmodernism is exhaustion, however by no means necessarily a desperate exhaustion. Barth reckons the presence of intermedia and performative arts, collage and pastiche, pop art appropriations and so on. The aesthetics of intermedia arts is a tendency to eliminate the most traditional notion of the artist: the figure of the Author with the capital A is one of the master narratives that postmodernism debunks, by killing the Aristotelian notion of the artists seen as a superior being, an elitist figure among uncultivated people. Intermedia artists are more of a democratic kind, they open up to the notion of writing and creating to and with everyone, refusing the idea of the poeta vate. However, Barth is not on the same page with the intermedia artists, as he does not disregard completely the aristocratic aura artists might be relegated in; he says he would be more inclined to prefer the kind of arts that not many people can do, the kind that requires expertise and artistry as well as right aesthetic ideas and or inspiration. Barth, in an old-fashioned way, rephrases the idea of the elitist artist that must be distinguished from the mass, because their art should be synonym of a certain artisanship and particular inspiration. He also adds an important distinction, between things worth remarking and things worth doing: the ones worth remarking means are things that may surprise us for their brilliance and wit, but they catch our attention simply for their superficiality ( this is not art, it's simply experimentation for its own sake. i.e., Barth’s opinion on the balloon, but also any type of collage like the Campbell soup or Marilyn Monroe); on the other hand, the artist should concentrate on things worth, and these are for example excellent writers who are also technically contemporary. To explain better this concept, Barth advances a tripartite model, made up of three kinds of writers: 1. the technically old-fashioned artist: the one who writes music in the vein of Beethoven, so he goes back to work what they used to do before and simply does the same, as if bypassing tradition. 2. technically up to date non artists: they are experimenters, they do remarkable things, but they are not artists. 3. technically up to date artists: these artists recognize they cannot tread the aesthetic grounds of their ancestors, so they experiment through reason. The few people whose artistic thinking is au courant, as any French new novelists but who manage nonetheless to speak eloquently and memorably to our human hearts and conditions, as the great artists have always done. What we’re trying to stress here is the fact that experimentation might be intriguing as in its inventiveness it challenges us abstractly and be cognitively demanding, because they activate and mobilize the mind. Experimentation in itself is mind activating because you've got to come to terms with those novel cases. However, if we leave experimentation at that level, it is just being technical up to date, because an artist to speak eloquently and memorably to our human hearts and conditions must be emotionally engaging. As well as challenge our minds, they have to intersect, speak to, cross paths and interact with our human side and needs (≠ Rubik cube experimental fiction often is simply solving an intricate riddle). Barth does speak about mingling emotion with experimentation; however, many complain that he does not manage to engage the human being with both mind and heart. In this sense, Barth introduces Beckett, Nabokov, and Borges, who reflect and deal with ultimacy both technically and thematically in very different ways. Barth here opens a window on the notion of ultimacy, and this is one of the reasons why this piece has been read as a death note of the novels. Indeed, if we are concerned with ultimacy and the sense of used upness, it might be possible to wonder whether what we are depicting has something to do with the sense of decaying and coming to an end.

Beckett, Nabokov, and Borges reflected a lot about this turning moment. For instance, Beckett explores the notion of the last words: his silences ( vedi U. Eco) recognize the loss of innocence, because after pronouncing the last word, there is nothing else to express except silence. After Beckett it might be conceivable to rediscover the artificers of language and literature; notions such as grammar, punctuation, even characterization and plot need to be rethought, rediscovered, and expressed in new and different forms (you can’t say “I Love You” as if none had said it before). “Rediscovering validly”, then, means being aware of what one’s predecessors have been up (we need to ask ourselves “what now?”  “What do we do after the Holocaust). Back to Eco’s words, through double coding we can ask ourselves “how do we go about with the plot now?”. The answer remains always through irony and awareness. N.B. Barth became interested in short fiction thanks to Borge’s Ficciones (previously he was into longer novels).

When Barth speaks about “going about it in the right way right”, this right way is a rather opaque notion. In Borges case, there is referentiality and intertextuality as he works on what his processors did, by rewriting art. the Mystic  a mystique that does not forget nor transcend the physical world, it juxtaposes what is spiritual to what is physical. This means that Borges appears to refuse the ultimacies he is deep into, but actually he transcends them and plays on them by reinventing and reappropriating them. that go in the same direction and that in a sense kind of articulate what doing it in the right way needs or so Writing regularly his Ficciones (1941-1956), Borges turned his narrative means into part of his message, the happy marriage of form and content. This is what intrigued Barth and that he tried to recreate with his Lost in the Funhouse. «Turning his narrative means into part of his message» means being a metafictionist ( a reflection on fiction in your fiction) «The result was Lost in the Funhouse».

AMERICANNESS Barth’s materials are autobiographical and American. Indeed, reading Lost in the Funhouse means going on a trip with an American family on the 4th of July. This Americanness is one of those ways in which he tries to speak to the heart; because he provides his audience with measurable, recognizable bits and pieces of life as they know it. This already indicates that it is not an up in the sky kind of experimentation; yes, there is innovation, but it is deep into something which is highly recognizable as belonging to an American, typical narrator. This is important because as we'll see with The Balloon, we might lose that important mimetic anchorage. The problem with metafiction, the heavy experimentation and aesthetician is working on the inventive, imaginative component forgetting the emotional, memetic one.

This is a very specific way in which Barth wants us to reflect on the fact that there is a blurring in this never ending, circular thing (what it's outside? What is inside?). What's interesting about this is not simply the framing, but the fact that he wants us to do it with our hands, so there is a certain materiality involved.

THE TITLE Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice The title has a subtitle which reads Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice, suggesting the invocation of the oral sphere. More precisely musical storytelling upfront. We can’t help but notice that Barth is already 1) reflecting on the implication of authoring something that can be then performed starting from the paratext; 2) he is interested in the process of composition: he gives instruction to cut the dots; 3) he is interested in the relationship between author and reader along the dotted lines.

We have a story and a meta story. The blue arrow is Ambrose and his family's trip to the Funhouse. The red arrow refers to the meta story in which the author intrudes, making comments about the making of stories in general (what it means to write fiction) and the making of this very story. The meta story bifurcates and can be read along two slightly different trajectories, because we have very general comments about the making of stories that have nothing to do specifically with the main short story, and more specific comments about Ambrose’s trip (italicized parts). Another metafictional move is the fact we are the ones getting lost as we read the story and its intricacies. We are asked to reproduce Ambrose lostness as readers and it is not as easy as it might seem.

Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice For those familiar with American literature, there is yet another important reference in this title. Another important house in American fiction (or in the reflection about fiction in American fiction) which is Henry James’ The House of Fiction where James presented his notion of figural narrative or focalized perspective. The idea is that The House of Fiction has many windows, and the fiction depends on the window the writer picks from which to look at events. A window in itself indirectly suggests a viewer, eyes that look at events from a given perspective. So, what is what is a funhouse? A funhouse is an amusement place where one can go through dark alleys, you are frightened by mirror effects, you get lost because it is labyrinthine, but the point is that ultimately you have fun. But what if you actually get lost in a funhouse? Getting lost is of course part and p...