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TONY TANNER
misdirecteu-"as if the seamless university knew aught of such distinc–
tions." He decides that "studentdom" is "hobbled by false distinction, crip–
pled by categories" and in his own person as goat-boy (human and
animaI
merged) he decides he is "a walking refutation of such false conceits."
Indeed at one point he decides that "all discrimination must go by the
board," but apparently that's not quite right either. What happens
is
that, in trying to juggle and relate the complex concepts by which
humans seek to assess and evaluate nature and experience, "paradoxes
became paroxysms" and he decides to "let go." One late decision seems
to be that, after all, the world simply is all that is the case, and that all
things are of equal value, or nonvalue. Indeed they simply
are.
And the
final sanctuary beyond all the harrowing divisions, separations and dis–
criminations of existence is found through love, with Anastasia in the
belly of the giant computer. "I discovered the University whole and clear.
. . . In the sweet place that contained me there was no East, no West, but
an entire, single, seamless campus." Indeed it would seem that after that
night he passed beyond the whole problem of meaning: "Sense and Non–
sense lost their meaning on a night twelve years four months ago, in
WESCAC's belly-as did every other distinction, including that between
Same and Different." Whether this wisdom, if such it be, is final is, as
usual, made unclear by the addition of a further note (perhaps spurious
--of course), which suggests that Giles finally moved toward a deeply
"tragic view of His life and campus history." His last words suggest that
he expects to die like Oedipus at Colonus.
It is, of course, possible to combine fantasy and deep seriousness, and
those who want allegories from this book will undoubtedly find them.
And yet the atmosphere seemed to me to be one of brilliant frivolity.
(Irrelevantly enough it reminded me of
The Wizard of Oz:
various odd
characters capering through fantastic landscapes in quest of wholeness,
with WESCAC replacing the old fake magician.) It might well be a
comic parable of contemporary knowledge; but since everything is called
into question, dissolved, turned into its opposite, arbitrarily made over
by Barth's all-dominating mind, the main source of interest becomes a
sort of uninvolved curiosity
as
to what Barth wiII choose to play around
with next and how he will do it. Perhaps he is saying-"look what a
scrambled wealth of mixed ideas, religions, philosophies, moralities, poli–
tical systems, etc., etc., beset the modern mind, and what a comic confu–
sion of coping is the result. The most salutary thing to do is to defend
yourself by making your own sport out of them." Needless to say, the book
contains many potentially serious issues, but they are all caught up
in
the prevailing tone of anarchy, ridicule and farce. And the exclusive
im-
