Taking Sides: John Barth versus Donald Barthelme versus Roland Barthes

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Where to start? D. Barthelme's one of the best American short story writers ever, but Barth's "The Anonymiad" is worthy of the Greek literature it's based on. Barth is one of the great innovators of the novel in American letters. But call me perverse if D. Barthelme's The Dead Father isn't The Great American Novel. Okay, Barthes's here as kind of a straw man. Still, if you rate him (and his critical corpus might be a better how-to-write than any number of advice books touted on Amazon), stand up, people.

― otto, Thursday, 26 February 2004 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Karl Barth.
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

― Phil Christman, Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Karl Barth's fair game, too. Sorta like the anti-Barthes.

― otto, Thursday, 26 February 2004 18:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok, Derrida isn't God -- Barthes is!

― SRH (Skrik), Thursday, 26 February 2004 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread makes me want to Barth. Specifically, Giles Goat-Boy, which rocked the three times I've read it. I've read everything up until On With the Story, where he finally disappeared up his own butthole; I wrote my final Big Project paper in high school on The Floating Opera; I made my mom read Sabbatical; I almost went to Johns Hopkins because JB was teaching there. I was a big fan.

That having been said, I pick Barthelme, if but just for the endings to his stories, which, I mean, DAMN.

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Thursday, 26 February 2004 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyone who expects me to chose between Barthelme and Barthes is going to have to buy me many drinks and transcribe my rashly conclusive judgement on a train from Charing Cross to New Cross at around half past midnight.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 27 February 2004 00:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"Giles Goat Boy?" Really? The world as college campus metaphor is sophmoric (literally). The messianic conceit tedious. I liked the character of Giles (Barth really understands goats) but the good stuff is just smothered by the heavy-handed stuff.

I'm a huge fan of "The Sot Weed Factor," though.

― Not That Chuck, Friday, 27 February 2004 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I blame Everton.

― the blissfox, Friday, 27 February 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

The Sot Weed Factor is fucking phenomenal. The Great American Novel. Every now and again his stuff kind of meanders into too-cutesy territory but Sot-Weed makes up for it. Barthelme I've only read one or two little collections of--entertaining. My pretentious roommate loves Barthes so I avoid avoid avoid.

― adam (adam), Saturday, 28 February 2004 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread makes me want to barþ. Or is it barð?

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 12 March 2004 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never read the first two. but the last! O the last! he could be first.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 19 March 2004 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Good Lord, Cozen, you need to cover Barthelme; "At the End of the Mechanical Age" and "The Great Hug" at the very least (if you're me); after which I must warn that your whole concept of post-1975 American literature might change, seeing as 99.8% of white male writers in particular have more or less -- usually more -- of a thread of Barthelme sucked up into them.

Barth recommended as well -- a bit more of an investment for those doorstop novels, but I think you can get just as much out of him with something as brief and friendly as Chimera (still possibly my favorite of the Barth I've gotten through).

― nabiscothingy, Sunday, 21 March 2004 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean, possibly I would choose Barth, of the three, but that might in fact be because the Barthelme-influence is so diluted through everyone else that I sometimes feel slightly unattached to Barthelme himself.

Can we work his sons in here, too? I used to like Frederick okay.

― nabiscothingy, Sunday, 21 March 2004 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, Nabisco is here... can ILB get any better?

I would like to factor Albert Goldbarth into the equation, too.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 21 March 2004 22:13 (twenty-two years ago)

(Hey J.) Incidentally the thing that's striking me about Barthelme (I'm re-reading bits this week) is how there are bits of his work that seem so oft-imitated that they don't even seem like him -- and then two paragraphs later they take these turns that completely show up most of those who have bothered to imitate. I'm thinking specifically of "The School," which feels very much like what an undergrad workshop kid might write for sheer humor; and but the turn in the end ties the whole thing so neatly up into beautifully unironic meaning, which is I think the bit of Barthelme that no one Except George Saunders much bothers with.

― nabiscothingy, Sunday, 21 March 2004 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

You are right: I think people imitate the krazy formal stuff with Don B., but they don't get the big sappy sentimental heart/seriousness parenthesized beneath the unlimited levels of irony. The two posthumous volumes (The Teachings of..., and Not-Knowing) - especially the interviews and essays - were key in me realising this.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 21 March 2004 22:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Incidentally: how excited are you that Saunders is writing a film for B Stiller?!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 21 March 2004 23:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm actually more "scared" than "excited" -- it's Civilwarland, correct? And somewhat like the Barthelme problem it strikes me as possible that that particular concept could get played up for its absurdity in ways inimical to it being, you know, any good.

― nabiscothingy, Monday, 22 March 2004 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

:-D hey nabisco! OK, I'm on barthelme. synchronicity: my friend who I just converted to lorrie moore ('omg I love her she's just so honest') said she has 60 barthelme stories fr me to read in exchange!

― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 22 March 2004 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

("maybe she smokes!")

― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 22 March 2004 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Where do you find these women, Coz?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 22 March 2004 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Did you guys see that issue of the Believer that had Donald Barthelme's syllabus in it? It was a list that he would give his students of books they should read. I wish it were on-line. I don't know if i want to transcribe it all. It's a pretty cool list.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 22 March 2004 14:24 (twenty-two years ago)

You know, i think i will transcribe it for the good of all net-denizens. I'll put it on a seperate thread.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 22 March 2004 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

The reading list was good yes, but the article accompanying it was as half-baked as quite a few Believer pieces (that thing about 'Smallville': good grief!)

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 22 March 2004 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

JtN, I walked into her room last night and she had a 2 copies of 'birds of america' ('I kinda ruined your copy in the reading'... it to death) and sitting on top of it ('are you bibliostalking me?') was a copy of barthes' 'mythologies'! I know!

― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 22 March 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I just saw Starsky and Hutch! I am darin' to hope that Cilvilwarland will be Stiller's 'Punch Drunk Love'.

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 23 March 2004 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Where do you find these women, Coz?

Look who's talking!

― the bluefox, Tuesday, 23 March 2004 12:31 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

see Barth read if you can

― W i l l, Friday, 9 March 2007 02:36 (nineteen years ago)

ive been reading these books:
http://www.donpendleton.com/executionerseries.html
and they remind me of post modern metafiction, because of the blankness

― pinkmoose, Thursday, 15 March 2007 09:03 (nineteen years ago)

silly question, but how does one pronounce barthelme?

― anonymous_celebrity, Friday, 23 March 2007 14:27 (nineteen years ago)

i've mostly heard people say bart'-ul-may or barth'-ul-may or something in between

― W i l l, Saturday, 24 March 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

I think of it as bart'-ul-may but I don't know for sure.

― Casuistry, Saturday, 24 March 2007 19:39 (nineteen years ago)

i love barth

what's a good place to start with barthelme, though?

― cutty, Sunday, 25 March 2007 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

60 Stories is pretty terrif and collects from across his career.

― max, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

yes, 60 stories is the place to begin

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:30 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

taking up again the Michael Wood discussion from FAP thread:

it's just struck me that the reason MW starts YEATS & VIOLENCE with a quotation from S/Z is that he's hinting or jesting that this book is to WBY's poem what S/Z was to Balzac's novella.

Not that it's really similar, in most ways (though it's very segmented and pretty thorough) - but the idea of talking about one short text for a whole critical book (short, in this case), as an exercise. I think something of that notion must be in MW's mind.

I promise to ask him when I meet him later this year.

[as for the earlier portions of this thread - well. "All we can say is that life ran very high in those days."]

― the pinefox, Friday, 7 January 2011 22:17 (fifteen years ago)

Taking Sides: John Gardner vs. John Gardner vs. John Gardner vs. John Gardner vs. John Gardner

― alimosina, Friday, 7 January 2011 23:47 (fifteen years ago)

five months pass...

What are the greatest Roland Barthes essays?

Not books, just essays. I'm not sure. I like 'Flaubert and the Sentence', 'The Eiffel Tower' and his Inaugural Lecture. I now feel there must be a lot I don't know.

― the pinefox, Friday, 1 July 2011 12:57 (fourteen years ago)

"The Face of Garbo", "The Rustle of Language", "The Grain Of The Voice", "Longtemps je me suis couché de bonne heure". I like the essay about Brillat-Savarin!

― Stevie T, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:09 (fourteen years ago)

Garbo would be a Mythology? I wasn't quite counting them but certainly lots of them are good in their own brief right.

I'm not sure I've ever read 'Rustle of Language' - is it that essential? I should! Maybe I should try to get it today.

'Grain' - feels important but close up a lot of it is about kinds of music that are obscure to me. There is a quite interesting one called, I think, 'Listening' that was co-written with someone, a bit like Dylan with Jacques Levy a la meme fois.

Never read 'Longtemps' but have a feeling it's the one Wood quotes at the end of 'The Kindness of Novels', as RB's return to sentiment?

I don't know who Brillat-Savarin is or is that are.

― the pinefox, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:19 (fourteen years ago)

'Buffet finishes off New York' is fun, Mad Men era I suppose.

― the pinefox, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:21 (fourteen years ago)

The collection entitled The Rustle Of Language contains both that and the Brillat-Savarin (B-S was one of the OG 18c gastronomes, the essay is quite funny on food writing) and lots of other good stuff.

I have often wondered what the original French of the phrase the R of L is/was. B says it "is the sound of language working well, like a well-oiled machine" or something. In which case, shouldn't the word be "whirring" or "humming" or something? I suppose he needs "rustle" to tie it up at the end when he compares himself to a Greek poet listening to the sound of the wind in the branches etc etc, but I wonder if this is less forced in the French?

― Stevie T, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:28 (fourteen years ago)

I thought it was ... Bruissement. Did I imagine this?

― the pinefox, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:35 (fourteen years ago)

Mais non, j'ai eu raison!

http://www.evene.fr/livres/livre/roland-barthes-le-bruissement-de-la-langue-8042.php

― the pinefox, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:38 (fourteen years ago)

It is bruissement, yes. Which seems to have a richer sense than rustle? "le bruissement des vagues" = the murmur? susurration? of the waves?

― Stevie T, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:40 (fourteen years ago)

In fact I am going to start calling it The Susurration Of Language from now on.

― Stevie T, Friday, 1 July 2011 13:42 (fourteen years ago)

don
ro

― Ward Fowler, Friday, 1 July 2011 14:10 (fourteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.