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Chimera
By the winner of the National Book Award and bestselling author of "The Tidewater Tales," three of the great myths of all time revisited by a modern master.
Dunyazade, Scheherazade's kid sister, holds the destiny of herself and the prince who holds her captive.
Perseus, the demigod who slew the Gorgon Medusa, finds himself at forty battling for simple self-respect like any common mortal.
Bellerophon, once a hero for taming the winged horse Pegasus, must wrestle with a contentment that only leaves him wretched.
Dunyazade, Scheherazade's kid sister, holds the destiny of herself and the prince who holds her captive.
Perseus, the demigod who slew the Gorgon Medusa, finds himself at forty battling for simple self-respect like any common mortal.
Bellerophon, once a hero for taming the winged horse Pegasus, must wrestle with a contentment that only leaves him wretched.
308 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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4,364 people want to read
About the author
John Barth
59books748followersJohn Barth briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, received a bachelor of arts in 1951 and composed
The Shirt of Nessus
, a thesis for a Magister Artium in 1952.
He served as a professor at Penn State University from 1953. Barth began his career with short The Floating Opera , which deals with suicide, and The End of the Road on controversial topic of abortion. Barth later remarked that these straightforward tales "didn't know they were novels."
The life of Ebenezer Cooke, an actual poet, based a next eight-hundred-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland of Barth. Northrop Frye called an anatomy, a large, loosely structured work with digressions, distractions, stories, and lists, such as two prostitutes, who exchange lengthy insulting terms. The disillusioned fictional Ebenezer Cooke, repeatedly described as an innocent "poet and virgin" like Candide, sets out a heroic epic and ends up a biting satire.
He moved in 1965 to State University of New York at Buffalo. He visited as professor at Boston University in 1972. He served as professor from 1973 at Johns Hopkins University. He retired in 1995.
The conceit of the university as universe based Giles Goat-Boy , a next speculative fiction of Barth comparable size. A half-goat discovers his humanity as a savior in a story, presented as a computer tape, given to Barth, who denies his work. In the course, Giles carries out all the tasks that Joseph Campbell prescribed in The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Barth meanwhile in the book kept a list of the tasks, taped to his wall.
The even more metafictional Lost in the Funhouse , the short story collection, and Chimera , the novella collection, than their two predecessors foreground the process and present achievements, such as seven nested quotations. In Letters , Barth and the characters of his first six books interact.
Barth meanwhile also pondered and discussed the theoretical problems of fiction, most notably in an essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion," first printed in the Atlantic in 1967, widely considered a statement of "the death of the novel" (compare with Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author"). Barth has since insisted that he was merely making clear that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointing to possible directions from there. He later (1979) a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment," to clarify the point.
Barth's fiction continues to maintain a precarious balance between postmodern self-consciousness and wordplay on the one hand, and the sympathetic characterisation and "page-turning" plotting commonly associated with more traditional genres and subgenres of classic and contemporary storytelling.
He served as a professor at Penn State University from 1953. Barth began his career with short The Floating Opera , which deals with suicide, and The End of the Road on controversial topic of abortion. Barth later remarked that these straightforward tales "didn't know they were novels."
The life of Ebenezer Cooke, an actual poet, based a next eight-hundred-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland of Barth. Northrop Frye called an anatomy, a large, loosely structured work with digressions, distractions, stories, and lists, such as two prostitutes, who exchange lengthy insulting terms. The disillusioned fictional Ebenezer Cooke, repeatedly described as an innocent "poet and virgin" like Candide, sets out a heroic epic and ends up a biting satire.
He moved in 1965 to State University of New York at Buffalo. He visited as professor at Boston University in 1972. He served as professor from 1973 at Johns Hopkins University. He retired in 1995.
The conceit of the university as universe based Giles Goat-Boy , a next speculative fiction of Barth comparable size. A half-goat discovers his humanity as a savior in a story, presented as a computer tape, given to Barth, who denies his work. In the course, Giles carries out all the tasks that Joseph Campbell prescribed in The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Barth meanwhile in the book kept a list of the tasks, taped to his wall.
The even more metafictional Lost in the Funhouse , the short story collection, and Chimera , the novella collection, than their two predecessors foreground the process and present achievements, such as seven nested quotations. In Letters , Barth and the characters of his first six books interact.
Barth meanwhile also pondered and discussed the theoretical problems of fiction, most notably in an essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion," first printed in the Atlantic in 1967, widely considered a statement of "the death of the novel" (compare with Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author"). Barth has since insisted that he was merely making clear that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointing to possible directions from there. He later (1979) a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment," to clarify the point.
Barth's fiction continues to maintain a precarious balance between postmodern self-consciousness and wordplay on the one hand, and the sympathetic characterisation and "page-turning" plotting commonly associated with more traditional genres and subgenres of classic and contemporary storytelling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
December 21, 2021
On the one hand John Barth threshed with the flail of his imagination many folklore and mythological archetypes to trash.
And on the other hand he sacrilegiously turned the myths into the colourful intellectual mazes.
So John Barth managed to combine the three incongruous ingredients: lion, goat and snake � the past, the present and the impossible into a real fire-breathing monster Chimera.
Polyeidus had a daughter, who knows by whom. Sibyl. Younger than we. That summer she was our friend. Deliades adored her, she me. I screwed her while he watched, in a little grove down on the shore, by Aphrodite's sacred well. Honey-locusts grew there, shrouded by rank creepers and wild grape that spread amid a labyrinth of paths.
And on the other hand he sacrilegiously turned the myths into the colourful intellectual mazes.
I've read a thousand tales about treasures that nobody can find the key to, we have the key and can't find the treasure.
So John Barth managed to combine the three incongruous ingredients: lion, goat and snake � the past, the present and the impossible into a real fire-breathing monster Chimera.
April 2, 2016
"The truth about fiction is that Fact is a fantasy; the made-up story is a model of the world."
- John Barth, Chimera
I seem to fall, often backwards into Barth. Chimera was on my radar, barely, but I didn't know much about it. So, I was lucky (I guess) to read it right after finishing Graves' . Lucky stars or indulgent gods I guess.
Anywho, John Barth re+(tales|tails|tells) two Greek myths (and one Persian frame) into an anachronistic book of three novellas. Somewhat related, but still a dance and music of prose. I thought "Dunyazadiad" was a great set up. It roared. Funny, tight, and always a bit perverse and naughty, Barth takes the story of Scheherazade from tales of the 1001 Nights and reframes the frame story, then flips and pulls it. By the end it felt a bit like watching a biche de mer (sea cucumber) vomit its intestines into a funky twin story.
I thought the second novella, Persiad, was pitch perfect. The story is that of Perseus' and the narrator's search for immortality. The language, rhythm, jokes, structure were flawless. It seemed like a ball hit perfectly that hovers, hums and hangs in space. It was a story that seemed to bend the rules of literary gravity. Like an ouroboros the tail of this story snakes around into a self-eating, circular POMO myth that ends in the stars, or perhaps not.
The third and longest novella "Bellerophoniad" bleats, bellows and tells the story of Bellerophon, another Greek hero seeking sex, drugs, adventure and immortality like Perseus and the rest of us mere mortals and wannabe demigoddamwriters. It was the emasculated goat of the trilogy, but damn what a fine wether. It didn't quite live up to its potential or my hope, but contained enough genius to cause several PhD candidates to ruminate themselves into literary pretzels and precarious dissertations for the next 50 years.
- John Barth, Chimera
I seem to fall, often backwards into Barth. Chimera was on my radar, barely, but I didn't know much about it. So, I was lucky (I guess) to read it right after finishing Graves' . Lucky stars or indulgent gods I guess.
Anywho, John Barth re+(tales|tails|tells) two Greek myths (and one Persian frame) into an anachronistic book of three novellas. Somewhat related, but still a dance and music of prose. I thought "Dunyazadiad" was a great set up. It roared. Funny, tight, and always a bit perverse and naughty, Barth takes the story of Scheherazade from tales of the 1001 Nights and reframes the frame story, then flips and pulls it. By the end it felt a bit like watching a biche de mer (sea cucumber) vomit its intestines into a funky twin story.
I thought the second novella, Persiad, was pitch perfect. The story is that of Perseus' and the narrator's search for immortality. The language, rhythm, jokes, structure were flawless. It seemed like a ball hit perfectly that hovers, hums and hangs in space. It was a story that seemed to bend the rules of literary gravity. Like an ouroboros the tail of this story snakes around into a self-eating, circular POMO myth that ends in the stars, or perhaps not.
The third and longest novella "Bellerophoniad" bleats, bellows and tells the story of Bellerophon, another Greek hero seeking sex, drugs, adventure and immortality like Perseus and the rest of us mere mortals and wannabe demigoddamwriters. It was the emasculated goat of the trilogy, but damn what a fine wether. It didn't quite live up to its potential or my hope, but contained enough genius to cause several PhD candidates to ruminate themselves into literary pretzels and precarious dissertations for the next 50 years.
September 30, 2018
For her part (she would go on--what a wife was this!), she took what she was pleased to term the Tragic View of Marriage and Parenthood: reckoning together their joys and griefs must inevitable show a net loss, if only because like life itself their attrition was constant and their term mortal. But one had only different ways of losing, and to eschew matrimony and childrearing for the delights of less serious relations was in her judgment to sustain a net loss even more considerable.
A number of confessions should precede any analysis of Chimera. The opening section was the most fun I have had reading since the Derrida bio in late July. I enjoyed the second and third elements of the novel more than Calasso's marriage. That may prove heretical. I'll take my chances. One of the local liquor stores offered Goose Island Summer Ale for three dollars a sixer. I bought a case. Sure, it was outdated. I did not care. I halted my reading last night and turned to youtube. This is always a precarious decision and destination. If I then turn to Conway Twitty I know to run to our bedroom. Instead I watched interviews with John Barth and eventually discussions of Leopardi's Zibaldone. Associations were threshed and threaded. I pondered the historical arc of narrative and sighed, considering Barth's taxonomy of the endeavor. That isn't an impediment to an appreciation of such. The sequence in the final section which segues from Robert Graves to an anthropological examination of the Amazons - thus linking the first section to the subsequent pair -- was astonishing.
This was a novel which needed to be read in one's 40s. Being married is also of benefit.
A number of confessions should precede any analysis of Chimera. The opening section was the most fun I have had reading since the Derrida bio in late July. I enjoyed the second and third elements of the novel more than Calasso's marriage. That may prove heretical. I'll take my chances. One of the local liquor stores offered Goose Island Summer Ale for three dollars a sixer. I bought a case. Sure, it was outdated. I did not care. I halted my reading last night and turned to youtube. This is always a precarious decision and destination. If I then turn to Conway Twitty I know to run to our bedroom. Instead I watched interviews with John Barth and eventually discussions of Leopardi's Zibaldone. Associations were threshed and threaded. I pondered the historical arc of narrative and sighed, considering Barth's taxonomy of the endeavor. That isn't an impediment to an appreciation of such. The sequence in the final section which segues from Robert Graves to an anthropological examination of the Amazons - thus linking the first section to the subsequent pair -- was astonishing.
This was a novel which needed to be read in one's 40s. Being married is also of benefit.
May 12, 2012
This is a stupid book.
John Barth has admirable goals (rejuvenating the novel) and an precise, musical command of language. But his one fatal flaw is his inability to get outside his own head. He aims for mythic significance, but the cosmic scope of his stories keeps getting mixed together with the very un-cosmic matter of John Barth, 20th century American writer, trying to think of words to put on the page. This manifests itself most obviously in two ways: his metafictional bent (he likes to write stories that are about their own telling -- a perilous endeavour, since "John Barth wrote a book" isn't a very good story), and his injection of 20th-century language and attitudes into other times and places (usually played for comedy, but not very successfully).
In Giles Goat-Boy, this all worked, because the tension between Barth's impressive craftsmanship and his silliness felt like a deliberate balancing act. The combined effect was uncanny, like the book was a religious text from some unfinished draft of our own universe. In Chimera, the same tension just feels dumb. The story is about mythology (it is a retelling of several myths), but Barth's interest in Barth obscures Barth's interest in myth almost entirely. Scheherazade, Perseus, Bellerophon and numerous other mythic figures discuss literature like grad students (some of them before the invention of writing -- they wonder aloud at this paradox, which only distances us further from their impossible situation). They parrot Barthian slogans (comparisons between literature and sex, the phrase "passionate virtuosity"). Historical accuracy is not just ignored but flouted: Scheherazade was "Homecoming Queen, valedictorian-elect, and a four-letter varsity athlete"; ancient Greeks drink Metaxa; Amazons talk like modern feminists and a gay man (in ancient Greece, yes) has a ridiculous lisp. (This list is a pretty representative sample of the book's boringly irreverent "humor.") Everyone sounds like they're from the 1970s.
Well that just sounds like a silly book, doesn't it? And what's wrong with that? Why can't I lighten up? Well, because it's not very funny, for one thing. But more importantly, Barth really has higher ambitions. He doesn't just want to joke around -- he wants to make a new kind of art that takes all the old ones into detached consideration (hence this knowing, winking attitude toward ancient myths) and spits out some trans-historical ideal (both Chimera and GGB involve computers that chew up texts and produce mechanically optimized literature). But in his desire to be knowing and metafictional and above-it-all, Barth can't bring himself to create plausible -- or even vivid or interesting -- characters. It's hard to relate to someone who's constantly in flux, arguing with the author about lit theory here, acting like some 20th-century stereotype for laughs there, never showing much of a coherent personality. Barth's most famous books have naive protagonists (Ebenezer Cooke and George the Goat-Boy), which works well with his style, since innocent characters provide a nice reference point in the weird, shifting worlds he creates. Without his innocents, the reader has nothing to grab onto -- they're left adrift in a protean world of John Barth clones, bantering about their writerly anxieties, taking on many forms but capturing none of the wild variance of the real world. (The past is a foreign country -- but in Barth's hands even the ancient Greeks are less foreign than his next-door neighbors, in that his next-door neighbors aren't him.)
I will give Barth another chance sometime. But not for a long while. (His next big book after Chimera is called LETTERS, and consists of Barth and characters from his other books sending each other letters for 800 pages. Oh, joy.)
John Barth has admirable goals (rejuvenating the novel) and an precise, musical command of language. But his one fatal flaw is his inability to get outside his own head. He aims for mythic significance, but the cosmic scope of his stories keeps getting mixed together with the very un-cosmic matter of John Barth, 20th century American writer, trying to think of words to put on the page. This manifests itself most obviously in two ways: his metafictional bent (he likes to write stories that are about their own telling -- a perilous endeavour, since "John Barth wrote a book" isn't a very good story), and his injection of 20th-century language and attitudes into other times and places (usually played for comedy, but not very successfully).
In Giles Goat-Boy, this all worked, because the tension between Barth's impressive craftsmanship and his silliness felt like a deliberate balancing act. The combined effect was uncanny, like the book was a religious text from some unfinished draft of our own universe. In Chimera, the same tension just feels dumb. The story is about mythology (it is a retelling of several myths), but Barth's interest in Barth obscures Barth's interest in myth almost entirely. Scheherazade, Perseus, Bellerophon and numerous other mythic figures discuss literature like grad students (some of them before the invention of writing -- they wonder aloud at this paradox, which only distances us further from their impossible situation). They parrot Barthian slogans (comparisons between literature and sex, the phrase "passionate virtuosity"). Historical accuracy is not just ignored but flouted: Scheherazade was "Homecoming Queen, valedictorian-elect, and a four-letter varsity athlete"; ancient Greeks drink Metaxa; Amazons talk like modern feminists and a gay man (in ancient Greece, yes) has a ridiculous lisp. (This list is a pretty representative sample of the book's boringly irreverent "humor.") Everyone sounds like they're from the 1970s.
Well that just sounds like a silly book, doesn't it? And what's wrong with that? Why can't I lighten up? Well, because it's not very funny, for one thing. But more importantly, Barth really has higher ambitions. He doesn't just want to joke around -- he wants to make a new kind of art that takes all the old ones into detached consideration (hence this knowing, winking attitude toward ancient myths) and spits out some trans-historical ideal (both Chimera and GGB involve computers that chew up texts and produce mechanically optimized literature). But in his desire to be knowing and metafictional and above-it-all, Barth can't bring himself to create plausible -- or even vivid or interesting -- characters. It's hard to relate to someone who's constantly in flux, arguing with the author about lit theory here, acting like some 20th-century stereotype for laughs there, never showing much of a coherent personality. Barth's most famous books have naive protagonists (Ebenezer Cooke and George the Goat-Boy), which works well with his style, since innocent characters provide a nice reference point in the weird, shifting worlds he creates. Without his innocents, the reader has nothing to grab onto -- they're left adrift in a protean world of John Barth clones, bantering about their writerly anxieties, taking on many forms but capturing none of the wild variance of the real world. (The past is a foreign country -- but in Barth's hands even the ancient Greeks are less foreign than his next-door neighbors, in that his next-door neighbors aren't him.)
I will give Barth another chance sometime. But not for a long while. (His next big book after Chimera is called LETTERS, and consists of Barth and characters from his other books sending each other letters for 800 pages. Oh, joy.)
June 4, 2018
Delusions of Demi-Godlike Grandeur
In this collection of three chimerical novellas, the middle-aged “author� indulges his fantasies of virility and fears of impotency in the garb and guise of “Tales of 1001 Nights� and Greek mythological tales. As an exercise in “belletristic masturbation�, it’s more flop than master stroke:
"To the artist himself, however minor his talent, imaginative potency is as crucial to the daily life of his spirit as sexual potency..."
Dunyazadiad (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
"When we’d had enough of each other’s tongues and fingers, Sherry and I called in the eunuchs, maidservants, mamelukes, pet dogs and monkeys; then we finished off with Sherry’s Bag of Tricks.
"Afterwards, Sherry kissed me and said dreamily, 'Little Doony, pretend this whole situation is the plot of a story we’re reading, and you and I and Daddy and the King are all fictional characters. In this story, Scheherazade finds a way to change the King’s mind about women and turn him into a gentle, loving husband. It’s not hard to imagine such a story, is it? Now, no matter what way she finds - whether it’s a magic spell or a magic story with the answer in it or a magic anything - it comes down to particular words in the story we’re reading, right? And those words are made from the letters of our alphabet: a couple-dozen squiggles we can draw with this pen. This is the key, Doony! And the treasure, too, if we can only get our hands on it! It’s as if - as if the key to the treasure is the treasure!'
"As soon as she spoke these last words, we suddenly found ourselves amid the library-stacks of the humble tide-water abode of a genie. He didn’t resemble anything to be found in our land or in Sherry’s bedtime stories; for one thing, he wasn’t frightening, though he was strange-looking enough: a light-skinned fellow of forty or so, smooth-shaven and bald as a roc’s egg. He was tall and healthy and pleasant enough in appearance. He seemed as startled as we were. His cheeks and nose were red flushed with embarrassment - he looked at the stubby little magic wand he held in his fingers, and smiled a friendly smile. You should have seen him drop his pen, for that magic wand (which was in fact a magic quill which had shortly before contained a fountain of ink inside) had just about run dry when we appeared�
"Sherry and I looked at each other. The Genie didn’t seem dangerous. Like Shahryar’s, the Genie’s life was in disorder. Caught so blatantly in the act, he wished neither to repudiate nor to repeat his performance: he aspired to go beyond it toward a future he was not yet attuned to and, by some magic, at the same time go back to the original springs of narrative. Presently he seized my sister’s hand and dumbfounded us both by declaring his life-long adoration of Sherry and me, a declaration that brought blushes to our cheeks.
"Our bespectacled host was a writer of tales, he said, in a land on the other side of the world from ours, in which we now found ourselves. His own fictions were mimicries, pallid counterfeits of the authentic treasure of my sister’s ‘Thousand and One Nights�. He confessed, ‘I’ve made use of it a thousand times, if only to conjure up images of you both in my mind.� Evidently, he was in this condition when we first translated to his land.
"So far from harboring a grudge against womankind (like the gynocide that was ravaging our country), he was distractedly in love with us, his brace of (until now, imaginary) new mistresses.
"Sherry said to the Genie, ‘You have it in your power to save my sisters and my country, and the King too, before his madness destroys him. All you need to do is supply me from the future with these stories from the past. I imagine you expect what every man expects who has the key to any treasure a woman needs.�
"Before the Genie had time to respond, we reassured him that neither of us objected, if this was his desire. Indeed, Sherry, who was at least nominally committed to Sharyar, proposed to the Genie, ‘I have to let Shahryar take me first; after that I’ll cuckold him with you every day at sunset if you’ll tell me the story for the night to come.'
"Sherry took from her earlobe a gold ring worked in the form of a spiral shell. The Genie accepted it joyfully, vowing to spin from it, if he could, as from a catherine-wheel or whirling galaxy, a golden shower of fiction.
"Then the Genie kissed us both (the first male lips I’d felt except Father’s, and the only such till yours), and we three hugged each other excitedly all that night and for the next week, until one morning (I believe it was the seventh day) he taught us the magnificent effect of a golden shower on his stubby little magic wand.
"Sherry said, ‘Making love and telling stories both take more than good technique, but it’s only the technique that we can talk about.�
"The Genie agreed, addressing himself to me: ‘Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, Dunyazade; so does heartless skill. But what you want is passionate virtuosity.� We undressed and fell to toying with him. And so it was that later as the Genie spun his tale, that he revealed to us the marvelous Position of the Genie, as we’ll call it, that even a man who’s gone through virgins like breakfast-eggs will think himself newly laid, et cetera. What’s more, it’s a position in which the woman does everything, her master nothing - except submit himself to a more excruciating pleasure than he’s ever known or dreamed of. No more is required of him than that he spread-eagle himself on the bed and suffer his wrists and ankles to be bound to its posts with silken cords, lest by a spasm of early joy he abort its heavenly culmination, et cetera.
"To be joyous in the full acceptance of this denouement is surely to possess a treasure, the key to which is the understanding that Key and Treasure are the same. There is the sense of our story: the key to the treasure is the treasure."
Perseus with the Severed Head of Medusa
Perseid (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
‘Perseus? It’s after midnight. I’m twenty-five and scared. Will you make love to me?�
I’m a hero. I indicated with a sweep: ‘Virtuoso performance is my line of work.�
I was no poet, I reminded her; merely a man with a tale to tell. Lots of sex in this story:
I fetched her couchward...And tried Calyxa then and there on my altar-couch...I touched her lean little buttocks; she flowed at once, most womanly. She was in rapture; I don’t say this out of vanity…Used as I was, as king and mythic hero, to a fair measure of respect, I was unused to reverence. I flopped, after never once failing done Andromeda in seven thousand nights - an alarming prospect for the nymphed eternity ahead.
‘You’re leaving something out,� she ventured.
I supposed to her, not unbitterly, that nymphs like herself were accustomed to a rounder rogering from the deities they attended.
Was I really so naive as to equate love-making, like a callow lad, with mere prolonged penetration?
Calyxa flipped my flunked phallus. ‘O, you’ll be heavenly once you’re aroused, I can see that.�
‘It doesn’t matter,� she said, several times in each of the days and nights that followed. ‘It’s just being with you I love, Perseus; it really is one of my dreams come true.�
On the second morning, one finger was permitted to touch her thigh. Soon after, she removed my dexter hand, thereby putting an end to my idle handiwork, it being an article of her creed, even with deities, to allow no sheepish, merely dutiful clitorising.
‘Would it please you if I kissed your navel once again?� I asked, goblet in hand. ‘Take a chance! Guzzle and go down!� she instructed me. I blushed and did.
Dutifully she opened, but looked away the while, none of her usual frank inspection of our coupled parts.
‘A little up and to your left.� My pert priestess was an astute guide to what pleased her. Godhood was okay.
When I raised me up to watch whither hot Calyxa now, I saw the same spiral stitched in purple on the bed. And - miracle of miracles! - when the sprite sprang nimbly aspread that nether spiral and drew to her tanned taut tummy dazzled me, I perceived that her very navel, rather than bilobular or quadrantic like the two others I best knew, was itself spiriferate, replicating the infinite inward wind both above and below the finite flesh on which my tongue now feast.
She liked few pleasures more than the chains of orgasms Ammon could set her catenating.
Never since my first nights with Andromeda, so long years past, had I couched so lively, lean and tight a miss...Calyxa’s skill bespoke much prior experience. Gaily she enjoined me from pout. ‘Believe it or not, I was a virgin till twenty-two.�
I’d have moved off-top, to beside her, better to manifest our parity, but she had extraordinary grip.
She spun to me merry-faced and tear-eyed and kissed me hard enough to fetch me at last full-length into her precinct proper - if only for a moment, as I’d thresheld once again my offertory. But we were pleased.
With real appreciation I kissed her from crown to sole, which flexily she enjoyed. I stroked her out of dreams into drowsy liquefaction, here it comes again, climbed with her to our first full fillment. She held my face close for examination while we finished pulsing. I pleased her in my way quite as well as Ammon’s frisk fierce fucks.
I did; she did; there is a surfeit of sex in the story; no help for it; we verged on much and didn’t cross the verge. No more my merry priestess, Calyxa solemnly sat up and by the light of the altar-lamp watched me drip from her to the spiraled thread.
When she drifted back into the soundest of sleeps, I left my priestess leaking love, and tiptoed out. Sorry, love, and good evening.
Bellerophoniad (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
'Bellerophon can have Corinth the way he has me, by taking it, whenever he wants to.'
I [Bellerophon] rammed her [Sibyl] flat into the honeysuckle (in the grove).
In another telling our initial intercourse was a paradigm of assumed inevitability. This latter vision was my first clear evidence that I was flying now above mere panorama, into prescience. It happens that our separate ways lead to the same bed, where we spend a wordless, tumultuous night together, full of tumblings and flexings and shudders and such, exciting enough to experience but boring to describe.
Unseemly Perversions (Perpetrated or Recognised by the Author)
"Several other things also perplex us, sir...[namely] your unseemly perversion of professorial privilege to the ends of self-aggrandisement and/or -abasement. Plus it's a piece of male chauvinist phallus-worship...
"I grew bored to death with Bellerophon...It's not Mystery and Tragedy, but confusion and fiasco, d'accord? This endless story of yours. An empty temple for an imitation hero. Some dream of immortality. It's preposterous, not monstrous. Even its metaphoric power is slight. It goes without saying that this and everything else you say goes without saying.
"Not mortal me, but immortality, was the myth. To be read by a limited number of 'Americans', not all of whom will finish or enjoy it. If your immortality depends on this piece of writing, you're a dead pigeon...Got that, Dad? What marsh did you say we're falling into? That tidewater's coming up fast.
"There's the sink; there's the quag; there's the slough of my despond...Set me free of both the mire and the myth...
"Stop gnashing your teeth. Take it or leave it...It's a beastly fiction...File. Forget. Throw back in the river. No need to prosecute (or reply)...
"NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN...
"Dum dee dee. Heroes aren't what they used to be. Quit your thmirking. Thtop!
"Here's where I leave you...Goodbye."
SOUNDTRACK:
In this collection of three chimerical novellas, the middle-aged “author� indulges his fantasies of virility and fears of impotency in the garb and guise of “Tales of 1001 Nights� and Greek mythological tales. As an exercise in “belletristic masturbation�, it’s more flop than master stroke:
"To the artist himself, however minor his talent, imaginative potency is as crucial to the daily life of his spirit as sexual potency..."
Dunyazadiad (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
"When we’d had enough of each other’s tongues and fingers, Sherry and I called in the eunuchs, maidservants, mamelukes, pet dogs and monkeys; then we finished off with Sherry’s Bag of Tricks.
"Afterwards, Sherry kissed me and said dreamily, 'Little Doony, pretend this whole situation is the plot of a story we’re reading, and you and I and Daddy and the King are all fictional characters. In this story, Scheherazade finds a way to change the King’s mind about women and turn him into a gentle, loving husband. It’s not hard to imagine such a story, is it? Now, no matter what way she finds - whether it’s a magic spell or a magic story with the answer in it or a magic anything - it comes down to particular words in the story we’re reading, right? And those words are made from the letters of our alphabet: a couple-dozen squiggles we can draw with this pen. This is the key, Doony! And the treasure, too, if we can only get our hands on it! It’s as if - as if the key to the treasure is the treasure!'
"As soon as she spoke these last words, we suddenly found ourselves amid the library-stacks of the humble tide-water abode of a genie. He didn’t resemble anything to be found in our land or in Sherry’s bedtime stories; for one thing, he wasn’t frightening, though he was strange-looking enough: a light-skinned fellow of forty or so, smooth-shaven and bald as a roc’s egg. He was tall and healthy and pleasant enough in appearance. He seemed as startled as we were. His cheeks and nose were red flushed with embarrassment - he looked at the stubby little magic wand he held in his fingers, and smiled a friendly smile. You should have seen him drop his pen, for that magic wand (which was in fact a magic quill which had shortly before contained a fountain of ink inside) had just about run dry when we appeared�
"Sherry and I looked at each other. The Genie didn’t seem dangerous. Like Shahryar’s, the Genie’s life was in disorder. Caught so blatantly in the act, he wished neither to repudiate nor to repeat his performance: he aspired to go beyond it toward a future he was not yet attuned to and, by some magic, at the same time go back to the original springs of narrative. Presently he seized my sister’s hand and dumbfounded us both by declaring his life-long adoration of Sherry and me, a declaration that brought blushes to our cheeks.
"Our bespectacled host was a writer of tales, he said, in a land on the other side of the world from ours, in which we now found ourselves. His own fictions were mimicries, pallid counterfeits of the authentic treasure of my sister’s ‘Thousand and One Nights�. He confessed, ‘I’ve made use of it a thousand times, if only to conjure up images of you both in my mind.� Evidently, he was in this condition when we first translated to his land.
"So far from harboring a grudge against womankind (like the gynocide that was ravaging our country), he was distractedly in love with us, his brace of (until now, imaginary) new mistresses.
"Sherry said to the Genie, ‘You have it in your power to save my sisters and my country, and the King too, before his madness destroys him. All you need to do is supply me from the future with these stories from the past. I imagine you expect what every man expects who has the key to any treasure a woman needs.�
"Before the Genie had time to respond, we reassured him that neither of us objected, if this was his desire. Indeed, Sherry, who was at least nominally committed to Sharyar, proposed to the Genie, ‘I have to let Shahryar take me first; after that I’ll cuckold him with you every day at sunset if you’ll tell me the story for the night to come.'
"Sherry took from her earlobe a gold ring worked in the form of a spiral shell. The Genie accepted it joyfully, vowing to spin from it, if he could, as from a catherine-wheel or whirling galaxy, a golden shower of fiction.
"Then the Genie kissed us both (the first male lips I’d felt except Father’s, and the only such till yours), and we three hugged each other excitedly all that night and for the next week, until one morning (I believe it was the seventh day) he taught us the magnificent effect of a golden shower on his stubby little magic wand.
"Sherry said, ‘Making love and telling stories both take more than good technique, but it’s only the technique that we can talk about.�
"The Genie agreed, addressing himself to me: ‘Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, Dunyazade; so does heartless skill. But what you want is passionate virtuosity.� We undressed and fell to toying with him. And so it was that later as the Genie spun his tale, that he revealed to us the marvelous Position of the Genie, as we’ll call it, that even a man who’s gone through virgins like breakfast-eggs will think himself newly laid, et cetera. What’s more, it’s a position in which the woman does everything, her master nothing - except submit himself to a more excruciating pleasure than he’s ever known or dreamed of. No more is required of him than that he spread-eagle himself on the bed and suffer his wrists and ankles to be bound to its posts with silken cords, lest by a spasm of early joy he abort its heavenly culmination, et cetera.
"To be joyous in the full acceptance of this denouement is surely to possess a treasure, the key to which is the understanding that Key and Treasure are the same. There is the sense of our story: the key to the treasure is the treasure."
Perseus with the Severed Head of Medusa
Perseid (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
‘Perseus? It’s after midnight. I’m twenty-five and scared. Will you make love to me?�
I’m a hero. I indicated with a sweep: ‘Virtuoso performance is my line of work.�
I was no poet, I reminded her; merely a man with a tale to tell. Lots of sex in this story:
I fetched her couchward...And tried Calyxa then and there on my altar-couch...I touched her lean little buttocks; she flowed at once, most womanly. She was in rapture; I don’t say this out of vanity…Used as I was, as king and mythic hero, to a fair measure of respect, I was unused to reverence. I flopped, after never once failing done Andromeda in seven thousand nights - an alarming prospect for the nymphed eternity ahead.
‘You’re leaving something out,� she ventured.
I supposed to her, not unbitterly, that nymphs like herself were accustomed to a rounder rogering from the deities they attended.
Was I really so naive as to equate love-making, like a callow lad, with mere prolonged penetration?
Calyxa flipped my flunked phallus. ‘O, you’ll be heavenly once you’re aroused, I can see that.�
‘It doesn’t matter,� she said, several times in each of the days and nights that followed. ‘It’s just being with you I love, Perseus; it really is one of my dreams come true.�
On the second morning, one finger was permitted to touch her thigh. Soon after, she removed my dexter hand, thereby putting an end to my idle handiwork, it being an article of her creed, even with deities, to allow no sheepish, merely dutiful clitorising.
‘Would it please you if I kissed your navel once again?� I asked, goblet in hand. ‘Take a chance! Guzzle and go down!� she instructed me. I blushed and did.
Dutifully she opened, but looked away the while, none of her usual frank inspection of our coupled parts.
‘A little up and to your left.� My pert priestess was an astute guide to what pleased her. Godhood was okay.
When I raised me up to watch whither hot Calyxa now, I saw the same spiral stitched in purple on the bed. And - miracle of miracles! - when the sprite sprang nimbly aspread that nether spiral and drew to her tanned taut tummy dazzled me, I perceived that her very navel, rather than bilobular or quadrantic like the two others I best knew, was itself spiriferate, replicating the infinite inward wind both above and below the finite flesh on which my tongue now feast.
She liked few pleasures more than the chains of orgasms Ammon could set her catenating.
Never since my first nights with Andromeda, so long years past, had I couched so lively, lean and tight a miss...Calyxa’s skill bespoke much prior experience. Gaily she enjoined me from pout. ‘Believe it or not, I was a virgin till twenty-two.�
I’d have moved off-top, to beside her, better to manifest our parity, but she had extraordinary grip.
She spun to me merry-faced and tear-eyed and kissed me hard enough to fetch me at last full-length into her precinct proper - if only for a moment, as I’d thresheld once again my offertory. But we were pleased.
With real appreciation I kissed her from crown to sole, which flexily she enjoyed. I stroked her out of dreams into drowsy liquefaction, here it comes again, climbed with her to our first full fillment. She held my face close for examination while we finished pulsing. I pleased her in my way quite as well as Ammon’s frisk fierce fucks.
I did; she did; there is a surfeit of sex in the story; no help for it; we verged on much and didn’t cross the verge. No more my merry priestess, Calyxa solemnly sat up and by the light of the altar-lamp watched me drip from her to the spiraled thread.
When she drifted back into the soundest of sleeps, I left my priestess leaking love, and tiptoed out. Sorry, love, and good evening.
Bellerophoniad (as Retold by John Barth in the Style of Robert Coover)
'Bellerophon can have Corinth the way he has me, by taking it, whenever he wants to.'
I [Bellerophon] rammed her [Sibyl] flat into the honeysuckle (in the grove).
In another telling our initial intercourse was a paradigm of assumed inevitability. This latter vision was my first clear evidence that I was flying now above mere panorama, into prescience. It happens that our separate ways lead to the same bed, where we spend a wordless, tumultuous night together, full of tumblings and flexings and shudders and such, exciting enough to experience but boring to describe.
Unseemly Perversions (Perpetrated or Recognised by the Author)
"Several other things also perplex us, sir...[namely] your unseemly perversion of professorial privilege to the ends of self-aggrandisement and/or -abasement. Plus it's a piece of male chauvinist phallus-worship...
"I grew bored to death with Bellerophon...It's not Mystery and Tragedy, but confusion and fiasco, d'accord? This endless story of yours. An empty temple for an imitation hero. Some dream of immortality. It's preposterous, not monstrous. Even its metaphoric power is slight. It goes without saying that this and everything else you say goes without saying.
"Not mortal me, but immortality, was the myth. To be read by a limited number of 'Americans', not all of whom will finish or enjoy it. If your immortality depends on this piece of writing, you're a dead pigeon...Got that, Dad? What marsh did you say we're falling into? That tidewater's coming up fast.
"There's the sink; there's the quag; there's the slough of my despond...Set me free of both the mire and the myth...
"Stop gnashing your teeth. Take it or leave it...It's a beastly fiction...File. Forget. Throw back in the river. No need to prosecute (or reply)...
"NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN...
"Dum dee dee. Heroes aren't what they used to be. Quit your thmirking. Thtop!
"Here's where I leave you...Goodbye."
SOUNDTRACK:
March 25, 2021
Тъкмо си мислех, че съм изчел всичко, което може да се прочете за Сравнителната митология от книгите на Джоузеф Кембъл и после попадам на този тотален некст левъл в областта - Джон Барт и "Химера". Нямам какво повече да кажа. Дълбок поклон за това майсторско и обогатяващо четиво.
September 2, 2024
Chimera is my first introduction to John Barth. It consists of three interrelated novellas, the first based on 1001 Arabian Nights and the other two based on Greek mythology. Chimera was also, I believe, my first introduction to meta fiction, where part of the story being told is the creation of the story. There is a lot going on here, a lot to get your head around, and I will be the first to admit I only comprehended some of it.
Let's start with the basics, though. When John Barth is just telling a story, he can tell an entertaining story. He's funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny, and he creates engaging characters that seem very alive despite being derived from myths. But then he layered on the metafiction, and in some cases the metafiction added interesting twists to the story, such as when he would describe different versions of the same story or call into question the validity or accuracy of a particular version of the story. In other cases, the metafiction just seemed distracting or confusing, and I wanted him to get back to the original story.
In John Barth and his writing, I felt an incredible and unique intelligence. I have not read enough about Barth to talk knowledgeably about his intentions, but it almost felt as if he was bored by just telling the basic story, and had to do something else, something more to keep himself engaged. I for one would pay good money just to see him limit himself to the basics, but I also know that an artist has to do what an artist has to do.
Let's start with the basics, though. When John Barth is just telling a story, he can tell an entertaining story. He's funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny, and he creates engaging characters that seem very alive despite being derived from myths. But then he layered on the metafiction, and in some cases the metafiction added interesting twists to the story, such as when he would describe different versions of the same story or call into question the validity or accuracy of a particular version of the story. In other cases, the metafiction just seemed distracting or confusing, and I wanted him to get back to the original story.
In John Barth and his writing, I felt an incredible and unique intelligence. I have not read enough about Barth to talk knowledgeably about his intentions, but it almost felt as if he was bored by just telling the basic story, and had to do something else, something more to keep himself engaged. I for one would pay good money just to see him limit himself to the basics, but I also know that an artist has to do what an artist has to do.
July 4, 2021
Моят текст върху книгата:
*
И високият естет от класическата епоха, и 30-годишната циничка, но все пак и сантиментална, от женски пол от 2020 г., които съществуват редом у мен, намериха пълно удовлетворение в тази книга и в трите ѝ новели. Истинско пиршество за сетивата и ума, още повече, че така силно обичам древногръцките митове и легенди, защото детството ми бе обгърнато от тяхната мистична аура. Сега виждам друг прочит, който дори е надскочил 30-те ми години, защото все още не съм в етапа на Персей от новелата (и дано никога не го достигна, уви, май е невъзможно). Ще си позволя странен аналог - темите, които се развиват тук, са уелбековски, само дето са ситуирани в реалията на античните митове, което, от наша гледна точка, не ги прави толкова непристойни и арогантни (тези епитети не са обида, аз боготворя Уелбек).
Много има какво да се каже за новелите и за стила на Джон Барт, който ме спечели веднага и поради това незабавно си намерих още няколко негови книги. За постмодернизма са характерни върховна ерудиция и енциклопедичност, които обаче да бъдат изтръгнати от обичайното и чрез уникален авторов поглед да им се придаде изцяло нова форма и вид. Това се постига с голяма дълбочина на съжденията и безграничен мисловен хоризонт, както и чрез умения за опериране с материал, който е необозримо по-огромен от нас самите като хора, творци и отделни личности.
Препоръчвам новелите на хора, които често разсъждават за живота и върху себе си, както и ценители на експеримента, нестандартното и предизвикателното.
*
И високият естет от класическата епоха, и 30-годишната циничка, но все пак и сантиментална, от женски пол от 2020 г., които съществуват редом у мен, намериха пълно удовлетворение в тази книга и в трите ѝ новели. Истинско пиршество за сетивата и ума, още повече, че така силно обичам древногръцките митове и легенди, защото детството ми бе обгърнато от тяхната мистична аура. Сега виждам друг прочит, който дори е надскочил 30-те ми години, защото все още не съм в етапа на Персей от новелата (и дано никога не го достигна, уви, май е невъзможно). Ще си позволя странен аналог - темите, които се развиват тук, са уелбековски, само дето са ситуирани в реалията на античните митове, което, от наша гледна точка, не ги прави толкова непристойни и арогантни (тези епитети не са обида, аз боготворя Уелбек).
Много има какво да се каже за новелите и за стила на Джон Барт, който ме спечели веднага и поради това незабавно си намерих още няколко негови книги. За постмодернизма са характерни върховна ерудиция и енциклопедичност, които обаче да бъдат изтръгнати от обичайното и чрез уникален авторов поглед да им се придаде изцяло нова форма и вид. Това се постига с голяма дълбочина на съжденията и безграничен мисловен хоризонт, както и чрез умения за опериране с материал, който е необозримо по-огромен от нас самите като хора, творци и отделни личности.
Препоръчвам новелите на хора, които често разсъждават за живота и върху себе си, както и ценители на експеримента, нестандартното и предизвикателното.
April 15, 2018
"Химера", подобно на митологичното чудовище, се състои от три отделни, доста незамисими, но сякаш не несвързани части. Това ми позволи да прочета третата част след няколкомесечна пауза, деляща я от другите две.
В тези три новели, да кажем, Джон Барт нѐ препраща, а направо хвърля през глава читателя във водопад от митологични имена и сюжети. Водопад, който води към бездънен водовъртеж, общо взето.
За всеки запознат с литературната история, обаче, няма да бъде изненадващо, че книгата води до "никъде". Както се повтаря и в самите истории вътре, "ключът за съкровището е самото съкровище". Сякаш с това Барт ни намига и ни подказва, че четенето само по себе си е придобивката от тази книга. А то върви леко, не лесно, но приятно, замайващо, определено с много хумор и без да се съобразява с усолвости като поток на времето, кохерентност на пространството и разделения между реалния свят и книгата. Което все пак са типично постмодерни похвати, с които Джо�� Барт майсторски борави.
Отначало се ядосвах защо в книгата почти няма бележки под линия, които може би за мнозина читатели биха били жизнено необходими. После си мислех, че един показалец на имената с два-три реда обяснения би бил безценене. В крайна сметка опитах да чета със справочник по митология под ръка. Но захвърлих тази идея, понеже сякаш не това е била целта на книгата или на автора.
Загубването не винаги е удобно състояние, но пък може да се окаже полезно в определен смисъл, а фригидно държаният контрол никак не е за предпочитане. Не и в литературата от този стил.
В тези три новели, да кажем, Джон Барт нѐ препраща, а направо хвърля през глава читателя във водопад от митологични имена и сюжети. Водопад, който води към бездънен водовъртеж, общо взето.
За всеки запознат с литературната история, обаче, няма да бъде изненадващо, че книгата води до "никъде". Както се повтаря и в самите истории вътре, "ключът за съкровището е самото съкровище". Сякаш с това Барт ни намига и ни подказва, че четенето само по себе си е придобивката от тази книга. А то върви леко, не лесно, но приятно, замайващо, определено с много хумор и без да се съобразява с усолвости като поток на времето, кохерентност на пространството и разделения между реалния свят и книгата. Което все пак са типично постмодерни похвати, с които Джо�� Барт майсторски борави.
Отначало се ядосвах защо в книгата почти няма бележки под линия, които може би за мнозина читатели биха били жизнено необходими. После си мислех, че един показалец на имената с два-три реда обяснения би бил безценене. В крайна сметка опитах да чета със справочник по митология под ръка. Но захвърлих тази идея, понеже сякаш не това е била целта на книгата или на автора.
Загубването не винаги е удобно състояние, но пък може да се окаже полезно в определен смисъл, а фригидно държаният контрол никак не е за предпочитане. Не и в литературата от този стил.
May 22, 2020
This is, quite simply, one of the best novels I’ve read.
Modern readers will miss some of its texture as it needs to be understood within its proper context. This book came out of the Novel is Dead debates of the late 60s and early 70s and can be partly interpreted as a shot across the bows on behalf of the Novel Is Still Alive and Kicking crew.
For starters, it was an experiment in form � three intertwined novellas adding up to a novel worth way more than its parts. Then there was the playing with time and the very meta juggling of story types and tropes (my favourite being the Golden Rectangular Freitag).
But it can also be read as a rollicking yarn � the terrible plight of Scheherazade; the adventures of Perseus and Medusa; retold in a playful modern sense and involving even the author as a character.
Funny, brilliant, and for a would-be novelist like me � very humbling to see how far I am from the genius of the masters.
Modern readers will miss some of its texture as it needs to be understood within its proper context. This book came out of the Novel is Dead debates of the late 60s and early 70s and can be partly interpreted as a shot across the bows on behalf of the Novel Is Still Alive and Kicking crew.
For starters, it was an experiment in form � three intertwined novellas adding up to a novel worth way more than its parts. Then there was the playing with time and the very meta juggling of story types and tropes (my favourite being the Golden Rectangular Freitag).
But it can also be read as a rollicking yarn � the terrible plight of Scheherazade; the adventures of Perseus and Medusa; retold in a playful modern sense and involving even the author as a character.
Funny, brilliant, and for a would-be novelist like me � very humbling to see how far I am from the genius of the masters.
November 19, 2017
Мислех си, че съм прочела не една-две странни книги до този момент, но след "Химера" съм възторжено вдъхновена, че винаги зад ъгъла те дебне някое литературно гурме!
March 5, 2018
Barthian "treatments" of mythological mainstays - and ends up himself, he the myth after all.
December 21, 2020
This was a hoot - three linked novellas each drawn from much older traditions, one from The Arabian Nights and two from Greek mythology (the careers of Perseus and Bellerophon, respectively). There's too much deconstructionist wankery in here for me, personally; I'm not all that interested in theories of narrative, texts that are aware of themselves, et cetera, and the author's occasional appearances in his own story come off as indulgent, but then again... a chimera is after all a conjunction of three animals and there are three interrelated stories here, hmmm. And the grand finale does feature slaying of said creature by Bellerophon, although whether it actually exists in the story is another matter, but then again maybe the actual chimera is ontologically less significant than the myth of one, seeing as how countless people know of the story but how many have actually encountered one? So... yeah. A bit too much for me, very dense. But I reserve the right to a reread, whereafter I may come back and announce how beautifully it all fits together and how clever John Barth really is. I bet he would really like that.
Okay, but strip away that extra stuff and still you are left with three dazzling stories. It's best to put a little effort into it up front; look up the dozen or so character names he deals out when a story starts, reread little bits early on if you have to, because once Barth gets going he really is the virtuoso he describes. Somehow he can balance modern language with mythic settings in a way that makes the legend grow larger in the telling. I had some passing acquaintance with these stories before Chimera but now I feel like I really know them, and in this respect I really have to give kudos to Mr. Barth. In fact if you are genuinely interested in mythology than I'll call this out as a must-read.
Oh and let's not forget that Chimera is full of wild sex and laugh-out-loud humor without breaking any of its legendary context. I will never look at Amazons the same way again.
Okay, but strip away that extra stuff and still you are left with three dazzling stories. It's best to put a little effort into it up front; look up the dozen or so character names he deals out when a story starts, reread little bits early on if you have to, because once Barth gets going he really is the virtuoso he describes. Somehow he can balance modern language with mythic settings in a way that makes the legend grow larger in the telling. I had some passing acquaintance with these stories before Chimera but now I feel like I really know them, and in this respect I really have to give kudos to Mr. Barth. In fact if you are genuinely interested in mythology than I'll call this out as a must-read.
Oh and let's not forget that Chimera is full of wild sex and laugh-out-loud humor without breaking any of its legendary context. I will never look at Amazons the same way again.
June 9, 2024
As soon as I began reading Chimera I put all the other books I was reading on hold until I finished it. A wonderful novel made from three linked novellas (linked by structural brilliance more than anything else). Exactly the kind of fiction I like best. Ingenious, funny, complex, earthy, boisterous, absurdist, verbally coruscating and recursively wise. I tried to read it when I was 19 years old and thought it was very good but for some strange reason I never finished it. In fact I think I only got halfway through. This second attempt at reading has been much more successful. I now believe that the book is better than just very good...
Having said that, I do understand why many readers might not like it and might even feel irritated by the novel. 'Immersion' isn't the main priority of the author of this text. We are constantly reminded of the fact that we are readers, sitting in a chair and reading this book, which concerns narrators who themselves are readers (and tellers) of tales that are clearly untrue. The book's structural complexity is something I admire and enjoy, but not everyone regards such complexity as desirable or amusing or even instructive.
I rate John Barth as one of the greatest writers of fiction in the past century. But I rarely hear people talking about him these days.
Having said that, I do understand why many readers might not like it and might even feel irritated by the novel. 'Immersion' isn't the main priority of the author of this text. We are constantly reminded of the fact that we are readers, sitting in a chair and reading this book, which concerns narrators who themselves are readers (and tellers) of tales that are clearly untrue. The book's structural complexity is something I admire and enjoy, but not everyone regards such complexity as desirable or amusing or even instructive.
I rate John Barth as one of the greatest writers of fiction in the past century. But I rarely hear people talking about him these days.
October 11, 2017
Особена среща. Изключително зле подготвена се усетих за тази книга, защото познавам старогръцката митология доста повърхностно. От друга страна адски ми допадна идеята на Барт за мъжа герой, който, потънал в унеса на собствената си история и глас, отрязва всички достойни жени край себе си.
Мъчна за четене ми беше, но изобщо не съжалявам за предизвикателството.
За пореден път поздравявам "Лист" за интелигентния избор на заглавия и хармоничността между текст и корица. Много е освежаващо издателство да не робува на жанрове и стилове в оформлението.
Мъчна за четене ми беше, но изобщо не съжалявам за предизвикателството.
За пореден път поздравявам "Лист" за интелигентния избор на заглавия и хармоничността между текст и корица. Много е освежаващо издателство да не робува на жанрове и стилове в оформлението.
April 6, 2019
"Химера" на Джон Барт е постмодерен роман, който преобръща представите за митологията и кара читателите да се чудят откъде започва историята и къде свършва. Може ли реалността да се размие и човек да живее в своята измислена история, да не е самият себе си, а подобие на имагинерен образ
Трите части "Дунязадиад", "Персеида" и "Белерофонтиада" могат да се четат относително самостоятелно, макар на моменти да се преплитат.
Всяка една от тях е разказ в разказа, а понякога и повече, Дунязад слуша и разказва приказките от "Хиляда и една нощи, Персей и Белерофонт са разказвачи и герои в своите истории, но всеки присъства в историята на другия. Разказът е представен като интимен акт и емоционален и сексуален.
Героите са едновременно класически митични образи, но и имат особен модерен глас, в който се усещат въпроси и колебания за собствения им смисъл и предопределение. В атмосферата също се усещат много съвременни нюанси, без това да звучи фалшиво, сякаш разказваните истории са някъде извън времето, заседнали са между класиката и съвремието и героите звучат много близо до нас. След изпълнението на предопределението следва едно монотонно съществуване, в което митичният герой е обикновен мъж и съпруг, но това не му е присъщо, дори и остарял той (Персей и Белерофонт - в това отношение малко си приличат двете части като структура) копнее да си припомни и да се сблъска с нови предизвикателства.
Книгата е доста особена и въпреки че не е преразказ на митологията и само частично се опира на събитията, предполага поне основно познаване на героите и сюжетите, което да служи за пътеводна светлина през оплетените словесни еквилибристики.
Трите части "Дунязадиад", "Персеида" и "Белерофонтиада" могат да се четат относително самостоятелно, макар на моменти да се преплитат.
Всяка една от тях е разказ в разказа, а понякога и повече, Дунязад слуша и разказва приказките от "Хиляда и една нощи, Персей и Белерофонт са разказвачи и герои в своите истории, но всеки присъства в историята на другия. Разказът е представен като интимен акт и емоционален и сексуален.
Героите са едновременно класически митични образи, но и имат особен модерен глас, в който се усещат въпроси и колебания за собствения им смисъл и предопределение. В атмосферата също се усещат много съвременни нюанси, без това да звучи фалшиво, сякаш разказваните истории са някъде извън времето, заседнали са между класиката и съвремието и героите звучат много близо до нас. След изпълнението на предопределението следва едно монотонно съществуване, в което митичният герой е обикновен мъж и съпруг, но това не му е присъщо, дори и остарял той (Персей и Белерофонт - в това отношение малко си приличат двете части като структура) копнее да си припомни и да се сблъска с нови предизвикателства.
Книгата е доста особена и въпреки че не е преразказ на митологията и само частично се опира на събитията, предполага поне основно познаване на героите и сюжетите, което да служи за пътеводна светлина през оплетените словесни еквилибристики.
November 30, 2017
If the collected works of Barth, Mailer, Roth, Updike, etc., were launched into the sun tomorrow I'm pretty sure the world would be better off. There's just something about this "playfully chauvinistic sex-obsessed American male writer who peaked in the 1960s-1970s" thing that is incredibly offputting. Obviously Barth isn't precisely aligned with this group, but he's certainly reminiscent of them.
I sincerely doubt that even Barth himself thought this book was actually funny or clever in any way ... beyond a basic talent for shaping prose there's just nothing of interest here. Even his early stuff didn't actually break any ground in terms of postmodern literature (Gaddis and various others had gotten there first).
I sincerely doubt that even Barth himself thought this book was actually funny or clever in any way ... beyond a basic talent for shaping prose there's just nothing of interest here. Even his early stuff didn't actually break any ground in terms of postmodern literature (Gaddis and various others had gotten there first).
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June 21, 2020През читателските ми години, особено в последните две-три такива, водех една твърде безумна и на моменти дори ожесточена борба със себе си да не изоставям книги, които веднъж вече съм започнал, но ето, че нещата се променят. Просто вече осъзнавам ясно, че животът е твърде кратък и ако не разполагам с времето да изчета всички книги, които искам и които някога ще поискам, то поне не си струва да се насилвам с истории, които не са ми съвсем по вкуса. Тривиално, но факт.
"Химера" не е никак лоша, ако трябва да съм честен - увлекателна е, интересна, но и страшно объркваща за човек, който не познава митовете в дълбочина. И поради липсата на разяснения за много от събитията, се поражда една отвратителна демотивация.
Купих си я преди почти две години заради "Хиляда и една нощ", тъй като обожавам приказките, историята на Шахразад и Шахриар ми е много любима, казвал съм го неведнъж. Новелата, която е вклюена тук - "Дунязадиад" ми хареса със сигурност, еротиката също беше на ниво, но при "Персеида", независимо колко красиво бе написано всичко, започнах д�� срещам трудности. За "Белерофонтиада" нямам сили, едва ли и ще намеря, затова спирам тук.
Оценка няма да дам, защото не мисля, че имам право на такава.
"Химера" не е никак лоша, ако трябва да съм честен - увлекателна е, интересна, но и страшно объркваща за човек, който не познава митовете в дълбочина. И поради липсата на разяснения за много от събитията, се поражда една отвратителна демотивация.
Купих си я преди почти две години заради "Хиляда и една нощ", тъй като обожавам приказките, историята на Шахразад и Шахриар ми е много любима, казвал съм го неведнъж. Новелата, която е вклюена тук - "Дунязадиад" ми хареса със сигурност, еротиката също беше на ниво, но при "Персеида", независимо колко красиво бе написано всичко, започнах д�� срещам трудности. За "Белерофонтиада" нямам сили, едва ли и ще намеря, затова спирам тук.
Оценка няма да дам, защото не мисля, че имам право на такава.
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January 11, 2018dnf - not a big fan of mythology or metafiction so it appears CHIMERA and I were not meant to be together. Ah, it's alright, Mr. Barth, THE FLOATING OPERA was fantastic and I'll be reading END OF THE ROAD and SOT-WEED soon.
August 12, 2011
Well, here is another book that I have owned forever and just now got around to reading fully. This requires a bit of background.
The first time I started reading Chimera I got through the first novella, and gave up halfway through the second. The second time, I got a tad bit further... this time, I nearly gave up through the third story. Nonetheless, I did plow through. Yes, that is the right terminology. Plowed through. Finishing Chimera felt a bit like one of the 12 tasks of Hercules, unfortunately. I wanted to like this book better, I really wanted to like it.
The first story is brilliantly constructed, a tale within a tale within a tale. The different portions wind up together, every little diversion is a pointed one that lends itself towards a deeper understanding of the frame story. The second story begins the falling apart of it all. The second story, Perseid, becomes a lot more dense. The plot twists are not fully spelled out until somewhere near the end where we figure out who exactly is doing the bulk of the speaking. The third story, Bellophorniad, is where you just want to give up. Everything is meta this, meta that, who is telling the story, where is the story headed - wait, everyone is dead? While the end more or less ties everything up nicely the first two acts of the third story are so bloody dense it doesn't feel worth it.
Essentially, Barth should have stuck to the commentary that he did so well in Dunyazadiad - who is reading the story, how do they inform the story, who is narrating it and what do they change? Frame of reference was better suited for a story with a generally likable protagonist. There was nothing likable about Bellerus, again, unfortunately.
The first time I started reading Chimera I got through the first novella, and gave up halfway through the second. The second time, I got a tad bit further... this time, I nearly gave up through the third story. Nonetheless, I did plow through. Yes, that is the right terminology. Plowed through. Finishing Chimera felt a bit like one of the 12 tasks of Hercules, unfortunately. I wanted to like this book better, I really wanted to like it.
The first story is brilliantly constructed, a tale within a tale within a tale. The different portions wind up together, every little diversion is a pointed one that lends itself towards a deeper understanding of the frame story. The second story begins the falling apart of it all. The second story, Perseid, becomes a lot more dense. The plot twists are not fully spelled out until somewhere near the end where we figure out who exactly is doing the bulk of the speaking. The third story, Bellophorniad, is where you just want to give up. Everything is meta this, meta that, who is telling the story, where is the story headed - wait, everyone is dead? While the end more or less ties everything up nicely the first two acts of the third story are so bloody dense it doesn't feel worth it.
Essentially, Barth should have stuck to the commentary that he did so well in Dunyazadiad - who is reading the story, how do they inform the story, who is narrating it and what do they change? Frame of reference was better suited for a story with a generally likable protagonist. There was nothing likable about Bellerus, again, unfortunately.
January 16, 2016
When we talk about postmodern literature and metafiction, it would appear at first that we are talking about a fairly low-stakes arena of activity. Most often we are. Barth at his best, however, takes metafiction to a place of wild cosmological insight. And Chimera is emphatically Barth at his best. We are looking at text. Three texts. The idea of metafiction is to approach the text as text. But a text is a thing in itself as well as a nest of contexts. Contexts that reach across time and space. It is not until fairly late in the third piece, "Bellerophoniad," where Barth takes us deep through the concentric layers of the business of myth and literature to the heart and crust of the thing, and it is far more staggering (and a profundity worthy of laughter and merriment) than I would have imagined possible. The stuff that starts to happen two-thirds of the way into "Bellerophoniad" is amongst the most brazen and brilliant stuff in American literature, with a debt definitely being paid to Borges, whom in surpasses in both scope and fiendish comedy. The book starts great. "Dunyazadid," is important not just for its cleverness, but for the message it imparts upon having arrived at its destination. It is wonderful. The best ending to a story you could ask for. But it does not prepare us for where we are going. Books that truly reveal (in the sense of revelation) are rare. This is such a book.
July 28, 2008
I don't even know really where to begin with this book, except to say that it is the epitome of "meta-" if there ever was one. Judging by what I've read about Barth's other works, "meta-" seems to be his thing.
In Chimera, he retells 1001 Nights, the myth of Perseus, and the myth of Bellepheron with the intention of exploring why we continue to study the myths while simultaneously recasting them in a post-freudian language that tries to flesh out how such things could actually come to pass (which can't really be done) . . . and thus this becomes a comedy.
Highly amusing at times. and for writers, since the purpose of the meta-fiction here is to study the significance of literature, this is well worth your while. But unfortunately, all of this examination is very esoteric, and without any interest in such philosophic quandries, I would think the humor would get old (the same themes and jokes are repeated through each of the three novellas in this book, where only the characters change and the meta- gets more sophisticated)
In Chimera, he retells 1001 Nights, the myth of Perseus, and the myth of Bellepheron with the intention of exploring why we continue to study the myths while simultaneously recasting them in a post-freudian language that tries to flesh out how such things could actually come to pass (which can't really be done) . . . and thus this becomes a comedy.
Highly amusing at times. and for writers, since the purpose of the meta-fiction here is to study the significance of literature, this is well worth your while. But unfortunately, all of this examination is very esoteric, and without any interest in such philosophic quandries, I would think the humor would get old (the same themes and jokes are repeated through each of the three novellas in this book, where only the characters change and the meta- gets more sophisticated)
July 15, 2009
This book is a very mixed bag for me. The first of the three parts is beautiful, funny, witty and insightful. It's also by far the shortest and most successful. Part two, focused on Perseus, is an enjoyable little romp, if perhaps not as poignant as the opening story and certainly not as tightly written. Part three, however, is what knocks stars off my ranking for this book, as Barth launches into a cascade of silliness and post-modern literary pyrotechnics that, while intellectually stimulating, don't offer much in the way of keeping one's heart and soul as invested in the story. The final feeling is one of having gone on a long ride to nowhere with someone very smart but emotionally too cold to do more than wow you with his extensive vocabulary.
February 6, 2022
A collection of three intertwined novellas, all retellings of classical tales. I enjoyed the 1001 Nights retelling, but strangely enough, not so much the Perseus and Bellerophon ones. Or maybe it's not that strange at all; I'm fairly protective of my classical myths. Barth is clever and all in what he does with the stories, but it felt a little too...flippant for me. *shrug*
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December 1, 2013This is a meta-book connecting three novellas, all three of which are rewritten versions of ancient stories: The Thousand and One Nights, followed by the Greek myths of Perseus, then Bellerophon. There is more than one narrator, and sometimes there is some comic disagreement about whose story it is, anyway. This is clever and very amusing, though in my humble opinion, there were parts that went on a bit long--but then, the author does seem to be pointing out that--some tales do go on too long.
It's a fascinating read, nothing like I've read before, and I'm not going to attempt to give this a star rating, since it seems to stand out there all alone. (Besides, Pegasus and Perseus are already constellations).
It's a fascinating read, nothing like I've read before, and I'm not going to attempt to give this a star rating, since it seems to stand out there all alone. (Besides, Pegasus and Perseus are already constellations).
April 11, 2019
Every time I read Barth I find myself absolutely giddy with the feeling that anything is possible within the pages of a book. No higher compliment exists for an author; very few writers can make their readers feel like this.
May 18, 2022
This book was both fascinating and annoying. What a combo!
It's very clever, with snappy dialogue, humor, plays on words, modern times references, asides the the audience, etc. One gets the sense that the author was quite pleased with himself -- for me, that's insufferable.
Also, it's dialogue heavy -- not my favorite kind of book -- I like lots of descriptions and efforts to make readers viscerally feel like they're there, but that was ok.
What I found most annoying is that all 3 sections (separate novellas based on the Arabian Knights, Perseus and Medusa, and Bellerophon) concentrated on propping up sagging male egos of these mythic heroes. Of course, these men craved validation from women most of all. The women who were often sexually used and abused in mythology -- by them!
It wasn't so much the theme, but how it was treated that irritated me. It was obviously supposed to be a push-back against that trope, but there was so much irony, it seemed a joke. Lots of sniping between mostly unrepentant men, and women trying to reclaim their independence and autonomy, but still toying with the men. Both parties were insecure and immature.
It was as if the author wanted it both ways, to be perceived as a feminist, yet admitting that the differences between the sexes often end up with men dominating women. He stops short of real understanding of the wound that lies beneath that pattern. Instead it feels like he's saying, oh well, move on.
It's very clever, with snappy dialogue, humor, plays on words, modern times references, asides the the audience, etc. One gets the sense that the author was quite pleased with himself -- for me, that's insufferable.
Also, it's dialogue heavy -- not my favorite kind of book -- I like lots of descriptions and efforts to make readers viscerally feel like they're there, but that was ok.
What I found most annoying is that all 3 sections (separate novellas based on the Arabian Knights, Perseus and Medusa, and Bellerophon) concentrated on propping up sagging male egos of these mythic heroes. Of course, these men craved validation from women most of all. The women who were often sexually used and abused in mythology -- by them!
It wasn't so much the theme, but how it was treated that irritated me. It was obviously supposed to be a push-back against that trope, but there was so much irony, it seemed a joke. Lots of sniping between mostly unrepentant men, and women trying to reclaim their independence and autonomy, but still toying with the men. Both parties were insecure and immature.
It was as if the author wanted it both ways, to be perceived as a feminist, yet admitting that the differences between the sexes often end up with men dominating women. He stops short of real understanding of the wound that lies beneath that pattern. Instead it feels like he's saying, oh well, move on.
July 30, 2011
I couldn't finish this book. Barth tries too hard to be the next Gregory Maguire (yes, I realize "Chimera" was published before "Wicked"--it's just for comparison's sake), and needs to learn the difference between putting a different take on a story and outright bastardizing a tale. I got a few pages into Scheherazade's story and then finally just slammed the book shut and never opened it again. His writing is very unclear, and his "twists" on the stories are there for the shock value and have no basis. apparently Scheherazade and Dunyazad are lesbian lovers, and Scheherazade somehow attends a university in a time when universities probably weren't even thought of, let alone herself being a woman and actually being allowed to attend one. And I know this is likely a publishing mistake, but in the Belerophon story, a few of the pages were partially covered, totally obscuring a good half or more of the words. That story was the reason I got the book, but when I reached those pages, I just thought "really?" and didn't even attempt to finish it. I didn't even attempt to read Perseus's story, as the other two completely ruined any hope I had for it. I also thought his self-inserts throughout the stories and the fact that he takes credit for giving Scheherazade her ideas is a tad pompous.
July 6, 2015
I've started my Barth-reading with LETTERS and proceeded backwards to this one, and can conclude that I love him in full on meta-fictive/structural complexity-mode (which not everyone seems to favour, judging from the reviews on this one here on GR.)
The book consists of two perfectly composed (and very different) short stories and one quite insane novella so densely intertwined I would more or less count this as a novel in three parts. The first shorter ones are great in themself, but it is the last part, Bellerophoniad, is where it goes five stars for me in a funhouse of shifting narrative positions, mirrorings and reenactments reflecting backwards through the first two parts as well as forward towards LETTERS (including a 3 page synopsis of some of its major plot strands.)
All in all greatly recommended - and a perfect warm up to LETTERS (which everyone should read, dammit, as is it one of the most perfect novels of the last 50 years!)
The book consists of two perfectly composed (and very different) short stories and one quite insane novella so densely intertwined I would more or less count this as a novel in three parts. The first shorter ones are great in themself, but it is the last part, Bellerophoniad, is where it goes five stars for me in a funhouse of shifting narrative positions, mirrorings and reenactments reflecting backwards through the first two parts as well as forward towards LETTERS (including a 3 page synopsis of some of its major plot strands.)
All in all greatly recommended - and a perfect warm up to LETTERS (which everyone should read, dammit, as is it one of the most perfect novels of the last 50 years!)
July 6, 2015
John Barth's Chimera is a playful, oblique set of three linked novellas. I have a fondness for Scheherazade/The Thousand and One Nights, so the Dunyazadiad was a perfect literary appetizer. It's fun, thoughtful, well crafted and easily accessible. I recommend it to anyone who loves reading. Beyond that, the novellas become increasingly obtuse, more analytical and more rewarding. That being written, the Perseid is a mostly straight forward examination of middle-aged mythic hero stuck in a rut. The Bellerophoniad, while similar to the Perseid, is the real jewel of the book. It's a fun, no-holds-barred, deconstructed, post-modern mess of a novella. Be prepared to fight with it, but enjoy the struggle. I'm happy I found and took a chance on this book.
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