Barth, John (1930-2024), was one of the most experimental novelists in American literature. Barth revolted against the realistic or formal novel. He favored a return to storytelling or mythmaking. Most of his works emphasize artificial literary devices to underscore that they are fiction, not a mirror of social reality.
Barth was born on May 27, 1930, in Cambridge in eastern Maryland, the locale of much of his fiction. His early novels, The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958), are darkly humorous and embody what he considers the absurdity of modern life. His later works use parable, anecdote, parody, and satire, which give them a wildly comic flair.
Barth’s best-known novel, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), is written in the style of a novel of the 1700’s. It punctures romantic views of history. Giles Goat-Boy, or The Revised New Syllabus (1966) is an elaborate parable of the computerized world represented as a university. His other novels include Letters (1979), Sabbatical (1982), The Tidewater Tales (1987), The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991), Coming Soon!!! (2001), and Every Third Thought (2011).
Barth’s short stories have been collected in Lost in the Funhouse (1968), On with the Story (1996), The Book of Ten Nights and a Night (2004), The Development (2008), and Collected Stories (2015). Chimera (1972) is a playful retelling of three legendary stories, including the first of several variations Barth wrote on tales from the Arabian Nights. A collection of three short novels was published as Where Three Roads Meet (2005). Barth’s nonfiction writings appear in The Friday Book (1984), Further Fridays (1995), Final Fridays (2012), and Postscripts (2022). Barth died on April 2, 2024.
