The Tale of Tyrone's dick

[Joaquin Stick]

On Mon, 4 Aug 1997, Tom Stanton wrote:

> I second that enotion. I've never understood why novels like GR that deal
> directly with politics have to be written as "realism" to be taken
> seriously. The surreal satire is the whole point anyway, isn't it? And I
> guess I'm old school, but I never read Barth as anything other than a
> writer's writer writing about writing (but then I never was a fan). 

While I can agree with you that writers like Barth and Calvino can be read
as writers pissing into the wind for other writers to read and marvel at
their complexity and skill, I think that (especially in a book like
_Chimera_) Barth is addressing more than just what it means to write and
create. Metafiction, when done poorly, can certainly be a sort of
intellectual wank-a-thon, but Barth and Calvino (esp. _If on a Winter's
Night a Traveler_) seem to be addressing more than just the issues
involved with text. The satire of Campbell's mythical model in the
"Bellerophoniad" portion of _Chimera_ or the rather emotionally involved
relationship between the Author and Scheherezade in the "Dunyaziad," I
think can and must be read not only as discussion of literary/critical
technique but as an allegory. Witness Calivno's comparison of reading and
sex, just for one. I think there's quite a bit more going on with Barth
(although only at certain times, I concede...there are several instances
where your charge of being a writer's writer writing about writing is dead
on the money--Letters, Lost in the Funhouse come to mind immediately) than
is readily ascribed to him by mainstream criticism. 

But then, I am a fan

D. Alfred Fledermaus

P.S. Any thoughts on this, Dr. R?