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about the relationship between the words he invents, and the world he
shares.
"Lost in the Fun House" approaches this problem again, with Barth
never allowing us to forget the foreground presence of the typing man
who, lost in the freedom of his inventions, can put down any words he
likes in any order. "This can't go on much longer; it can go on for–
ever." There is no pressure to keep the words in order, and they can
start reversing their tracks and dissolving their statements as easily as
they can advance to new stages in the account of Ambrose's family and
the day they spent at the seaside. "Is there really such a person as Am–
brose, or is he a figment of the author's imagination? ...
Are
there
other errors of fact in this fiction?" In such ways does the story destroy
its own sustaining conventions. In addition, Ambrose, the boy who
gets lost in the funhouse, is not clear whether what he is experiencing
at anyone moment is a private fantasy or a public fact, so the uncer–
tainty surrounding any sequence of words is multiplied, leaving us with
a sense of fictions within fictions within fictions. At the same time, an
anguished sense that meanwhile "the world was
going on!"
just occasion–
ally intrudes into this lexical paralysis: unvexed by reflection and possi–
bility, in dark comers couples wordlessly copulate. One senses Barth's
own dissatisfaction with the feelings of exclusion which beset the fiction–
maker.
The funhouse itself seems to represent a variety of structures - in
particular, that pseudo-world which man invents for his own amuse–
ment, the edifice of fictions with which we distract ourselves at all
levels. Ambrose in the funhouse can imagine various endings to his ad–
venture: Barth at his typewriter can imagine various endings to his
story. There is a close connection between the character's situation in
the story and the author's position among his words. "The climax of the
story must be its protagonist's discovery of a way to get through the
funhouse. But he has found none, may have ceased to search." Both
Ambrose and Barth may be destined to remain confined in their own
fictions. "He died telling stories to himself in the dark." Thinks Am–
brose about himself. Writes Barth about Ambrose. Says Barth about
Barth. Unfixed in anyone frame and unlocated in anyone plane, the
words float before us - in multiple perspective, in no perspective at all.
But the closing narrative statement about Ambrose is clearly a refracted
statement about the author. "He dreams of a funhouse vaster by far
than any yet constructed . . . he wiII construct funhouses for others and
be
their secret operator - though he would rather be among the lovers
for whom funhouses are designed." Barth has certainly built some fun-