plots, victims and heroes

[Greg Montalbano]

On Tue, 20 Feb 96 23:30:37 CST you said:
>> characters in Barth's The End of the Road are well realized, I've always
>> had the feeling that Barth didn't really like anybody in the book.  (Of
>> course it's been 25 years since I read it, so I might be talking through my
>> hat).
>>
>
>nope, your hat's firmly atop your head.  i just read _the end of the
>road_ a couple of months ago.  barth hates them all, but i don't think he
>hates little jake horner quite as much as he does joe and rennie morgan,
>or, especially, peggy rankin.
>
>--
>brad daly              	                       bwdaly at panther.bsc.edu
>Interviewer:                                      "Why do you write?"
>Flannery O'Connor:                          "Because I'm good at it."
I wouldn't say he necessarily "hates" his characters.  Remember that END OF
THE ROAD was written at a time when he was producing books in conceptual pairs:
END OF THE ROAD was the negative treatment of the same basic story that was
handled in a much lighter way in THE FLOATING OPERA.
--- not that this relates to anything about TRP;  just thought I'd mention it.