ON BARTH
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presario of this vaudeville, this floating opera of a book, is John Barth.
If
we take a seat we may well be entertained (though I thought some of the
effects a bit labored, quite a few of them puerile, and parts of the book
pretty tedious) ; but we should be clear that what we are paying to see
are the freewheeling inventive prestidigitations of his mind. Clearly a
mind like Barth's is well worth the entrance fee and at times we get a
dazzling display for our money. But I am nonetheless left with a vague
feeling that there is a point at which the arbitrary unimpeded sport of
sheer mind damages rather than nourishes a novel, and that in
Giles
Goat-Boy
John Barth sails, determinedly, clear past it.