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The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 361 ratings · 20 reviews

National Book Award winner John Barth offers a rambunctious story full of narrative high jinks in this lively, inventive epic. Journalist Simon Behler finds himself in the house of Sinbad the Sailor after being washed ashore during a seagoing adventure. Over the course of six evenings, the two take turns recounting their voyages, merging medieval Baghdad and twentieth-cent

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Hardcover, 573 pages

Published 1991 by Little Brown and Company

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Jan 10, 2013 Ned Rifle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was originally interested in Barth by reading about The Sot-Weed Factor, and a glance at the descriptions of some of his other books merely deepened this curiosity. This, then, just happened to be the first one I came across, and mighty pleased I was - having, as I do, a fondness for the 1001 Nights, and Sindbad (view spoiler)...more I was originally interested in Barth by reading about The Sot-Weed Factor, and a glance at the descriptions of some of his other books merely deepened this curiosity. This, then, just happened to be the first one I came across, and mighty pleased I was - having, as I do, a fondness for the 1001 Nights, and Sindbad (view spoiler). This book promised much, but I may have misheard exactly what.

At the beginning (or slightly after it, if we want to get technical) is the frame, which is a rather delightful one. Scheherazade has outlived everyone and Death (the character, naturally) refuses to take her, ignoring her pleas as he gradually dispatches all those about her. Until, that is, she remembers her natural skill (which I assume we need not mention here) and strikes a bargain to end her life rather than save it.

Then on to the rest, which consists of a slow unveiling of this 'Somebody' in an exchange of stories with the legendary Sindbad. Somebody's voyages start in our age with warm and progressively more libidinous accounts of his life. Each voyage is interspersed with interludes (decreasing in number in relation to the rising voyages) in which we are teased with mysteries and plots, are reassured that we will soon hear about Somebody's reason for being in the time of Sindbad, and are even retold Sindbad's own voyages.

The first 4 voyages, set in the (comparatively) present day were not hugely to my liking. Though they were well enough done, I was left itching for the next set of interludes and was satisfied when, after voyage 5, all was situated in Sindbad's time. The main joy from the first 4 voyages comes from imagining them told to Sindbad's dinner guests, and Barth takes advantage of this as soon as the tales are over, with one guest declaring his loyalty to the realism of Rocs and sleeping islands, rather than the absurdity of airplanes and watches.

The Sindbad stories are the jewels here, as perfect as they already were: Sindbad learning the lessons of his voyages in a much more mechanistic way than traditionally. From observing the patterns early he learns that, after setting out on a voyage, it is imperative that a storm washes them off-course to find a paradisaical island where all of Sindbad's companions may die.

The problem I had was that the twisting and turning of the narrative is too often signposted relentlessly beforehand. The mysteries are emphasised until you have solved them, after which - he seems to decide - there is no need to hurry in getting to their unveiling, upon which, you find out, you were right. Possibly this is a clever inversion of Scheherazade's endless ability to have you dying to know the conclusions to her stories, just as he has inverted her reasons for telling.

It's fairly good fun though, and a very smooth and fast read. Get it if you really like Sindbad or Barth. I love Sindbad, but I am yet to love Barth.

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Oct 28, 2012 Nathan "N.R." Gaddis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: john-barth

At abebooks one can purchase the dust jacket for Women and Men for $US10.* Yesterday I purchased The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor for $US6.50 because my reading copy a) had no dust jacket and b) had a broken spine. With that bit of housekeeping taken care of I have now replaced one signed 1st/1st with a better signed 1st/1st. $US3.25 for a dust jacket? Sure.

This little Barthian novel is seemingly oft over-looked, overshadowed as it is by the Golden Age of Barthian Fiction--The Sot-Weed Fa...more

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May 12, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in August 1999.

John Barth's writing, though always worth reading, suffers from several faults. The most important of these is perhaps the way that everything else he has written pales into insignificance next to Giles Goat-Boy. In that novel, he handles his themes more tellingly, with a background more extraordinary, than in the other novels he has written, and by making it partly an allegorical account of the Cold War increases its interest.

A second problem...more Originally published on my blog here in August 1999.

John Barth's writing, though always worth reading, suffers from several faults. The most important of these is perhaps the way that everything else he has written pales into insignificance next to Giles Goat-Boy. In that novel, he handles his themes more tellingly, with a background more extraordinary, than in the other novels he has written, and by making it partly an allegorical account of the Cold War increases its interest.

A second problem in Barth's writing is in his obsession with his major themes. These are to do with the nature of fiction, the various people involved in narrative art (author, reader, characters), and the relationships between them and the rest of the world's literature. Thus, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor takes the form of a narrative within a narrative within a narrative within a narrative, the third story about the subject of the outermost story. (The character named Behler tells a story about Scheherezade telling a story about Behler telling a story about himself). This is inspired by the structure of the Arabian Nights, which frequently uses the device of characters in one story telling other tales.

The Arabian Nights form one obvious part of the relationship of this novel with world literature in general. The innermost story juxtaposes the tale of Sindbad the Sailor's seven voyages with the life of the American author William Behler, who has found himself stranded in the world of the Nights after nearly drowning in a sailing accident. Each section has a series of interludes which tell the story of the developing relationship between Behler and Sindbad's household, and contain the tales told by Sindbad of his own voyages. Each is then followed by Behler's retelling of part of his story - and thus the narrator of the outside level is also a narrator of the innermost stories. The structure is further complicated by resonances between Behler's life and aspects of Barth's, making the whole thing a commentary on the storytelling process and the way in which the author is usually both part of and separated from the stories s/he tells, particularly in a first person narrative.

The use, and retelling, of the stories of Sindbad from the Arabian Nights is similar to the adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in Giles Goat-Boy. Like Barth's earlier reworking, Sindbad's tales are twisted, used to produce moral lessons distinctly reminiscent of Tristram Shandy (Sterne is clearly an influence on Barth) and show the main characters of the tales in a far less positive light than in the original.

Another important theme in Barth's writing is the character of the innocent. He is of course the stock in trade of the satirist, enabling the writer to point out the absurdity of human affairs with ease. Behler is not quite such an innocent as the central character of Giles Goat-Boy or The Sot-Weed Factor, yet he has a naivete shared with both of them.

The third problem in Barth's writing is its lengthiness. The complex structure of The Last Voyage needs a considerable length to work itself out; to tell Behler's story straight would probably require many fewer pages than the five hundred and seventy actually filled with twenty-eight interludes, two introductory sections, and a conclusion. In Giles Goat-Boy the length does not feel like a problem, yet here, and even in The Sot-Weed Factor, it is tempting to begin skipping pages.

It is really, then, the grandeur of the design and the fact that it does not succeed as well as the author's best work that stand against this novel. It contains entertaining ideas, such as the description of a dancer speaking by her art rather than words (another facet of Barth's fascination with the mechanics of narration), Sindbad's duplicity, and Behler's revelation to his then wife of his infidelities not through his guilty appearance but by writing a series of best selling articles about it.(less)

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Feb 07, 2009 tENTATIVELY, cONVENIENCE rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

Strange that I read 3 or 4 of Barth's bks & then? Waited 30 or more yrs to read another one? He taught (or teaches? - don't even know if he's still alive?) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore but I never tried to meet him?! Even though I lived in Baltimore City for 18 yrs?!

At 1st, this bk was almost a sure 5-star. It was almost uncanny reading about an environment I didn't exactly grow up in but close enuf. What really cinched it was learning that "Chinese Cigar" trees (aka just "Cigar...more

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Mar 15, 2009 Lawrence rated it 3 of 5 stars

You cannot think of the "campus novel" without thinking of Giles Goat-Boy or the historical epic without The Sot-weed Factor. Barth uses classical story and form to play with the notion of story telling. Here he uses the 1001 Arabian Nights and, in particular, the voyages of Sinbad to do just that. The novel's modern day reality story becomes myth as at the same time the mythic story becomes reality. While perhaps not as great a novel as the previous mentioned Giles or Sot-weed Factor, it is sti...more

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Feb 08, 2012 Nancy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: maritime, fantasy

This book was not an easy read. It had sooo many different factors going on that at times it felt like I was in 'uncharted' waters with no form of navigation.

I picked it up because I was intrigued about the concept of merging the infamous voyages of Sindbad the Sailor with a modern day variation. But honestly I just couldn't get into it.

Sindbad's stories are funny, witty and adventurous, he took your imagination someplace. Simon Baylor's stories were dull and I could not meld his life-stories w...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Mjhancock rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pro: A tour-de-force of postmodern story structure, drawing endlessly on Arabian fantasy and contemporary concerns, intertwining them so thoroughly it's nearly impossible to determine where one leads off and the other begins.
Con: 600 friggin' pages, ow which the last 200 or so were spent wondering why the book hasn't ended yet.

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Feb 28, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This one was actually pretty straightforward for a Barth novel. The complexity is there, but it doesn't make for such troublesome reading as usual. Interesting to have Sinbad tales interwoven with the story of a Maryland man born shortly before WWII, and then have those stories further intertwine until meeting. Definitely an interesting one.

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Apr 09, 2012 Will rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Vintage Barth, he is the master at weaving one story into another and another and another. John Barth is one of my very favorite American authors. His storytelling is wonderful and dreamlike in the way that the storylines weave around each other and tie up in the end.

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Apr 07, 2012 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a fascinating blend of the modern and the medieval, and in this case, medieval Bagdad, as in the Arabian Nights, and specifically Sindbad the Sailor. Following, Somebody, Simon, Baylor, the readers navigate with Somebody through his childhood in rural America, several awkward relationships and love trials, struggles with his (writing) career, and (the fun part) time and space. It has some wonderful central themes including the nature of storytelling, imagination, and even coming to...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Rudra rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can't get through it. Since it was introduced to me two years ago, I have tried to penetrate its mystery. But until I have solid time to devote to it, I have to put it back in the to-read shelf.

I'm about 1/2 way through and it's been 8 months since I last picked it up. By now, what I remember of the story within a story is fractured and broken. Useless information to go back to the book with.

It's an intriguing tale of loss and love and narrative construction. But I'm unsure what the story is a...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I struggled a bit with the number of stars to give this book. I love Barth's books. And this book was certainly unlike anything I've read. But that was almost a problem. It's so imaginative and so out there, that at times it's close to being a mess. However, Barth does keep it from going over that edge and becoming a complete mess. In a lot of ways I really liked it. In other ways it frustrated me and took a long time to finish. But I still say that Barth is one of the most amazing and funniest...more

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May 04, 2008 Barbara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: My hard core fiction/fantasy lovers

Recommended to Barbara by: I liked the picture on the cover

I have read this book twice. It is not an easy read. It is very complicated, but if you like a literary challenge then I highly recommend it. I thought the Sinbad parts were hilarious and the narrator parts were more serious. There are some really great contrasts. It is a really "out there" tale. Warning: some women feel that is is very sexist. I can see how that might be taken but I loved the story anyway. Read it and be prepared for one hell of a voyage.

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Sep 16, 2009 Christopher Sutch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I suffered a severe disaffection during the middle portion of this book, the sheer genius of the thing didn't strike me until about 2/3 of the way through, once the final character and plot twists finally began to become clear. Truly an awesome work, Barth's own _Thousand Nights and a Night_. The ending is especially moving. My favorite Barth work is still _The Tidewater Tales_ but this is very good stuff indeed.

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Nov 03, 2007 Matt Oglander rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like stories

I really enjoyed it. Imaginative blend of modern novel with a fantastic retelling of Sindbad's seven voyages. Not perfect, but very good. Makes me want to read more of Barth's work.

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Dec 10, 2007 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not my favorite Barth, but rather nice, especially in it's use of the structure of the tales of Sinbad as a structure for the tales of the narrator.

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Jun 12, 2009 Mandy added it · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up-without-reading

I don't remember why I quit reading this book, but it's been so long that I'll have to start again if I ever decide to pick it up.

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Oct 25, 2007 Lawrence A rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Absolutely delightful modern retelling of the Sindbad and 1001 Nights legends.

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May 28, 2008 Dan Herman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe my favorite Barth book. Fantasy.

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Dec 22, 2007 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

this is the greatest book i've ever read.

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Jul 04, 2012 Laura M. marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Recommended by Myron S.

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May 20, 2013 Jennifer is currently reading it · review of another edition

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About John Barth

"John Simmons Barth (born May 27, 1930) is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.

John Barth was born in Cambridge, Maryland, and briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, receiving a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1952 (for which he wrote a thesis novel,...more "John Simmons Barth (born May 27, 1930) is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.

John Barth was born in Cambridge, Maryland, and briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, receiving a B.A. in 1951 and an M.A. in 1952 (for which he wrote a thesis novel, The Shirt of Nessus).

He was a professor at Penn State University (1953-1965), SUNY Buffalo (1965-1973), Boston University (visiting professor, 1972-1973), and Johns Hopkins University (1973-1995) before he retired in 1995.

Barth began his career with The Floating Opera and The End of the Road, two short novels that deal wittily with controversial topics, suicide and abortion respectively. They are straightforward tales; as Barth later remarked, they "didn't know they were novels."

The Sot-Weed Factor, Barth's next novel, is an 800-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland based on the life of an actual poet, Ebenezer Cooke, who wrote a poem of the same title. The Sot-Weed Factor is what Northrop Frye called an anatomy — a large, loosely structured work, with digressions, distractions, stories within stories, and lists (such as a lengthy exchange of insulting terms by two prostitutes). The fictional Ebenezer Cooke (repeatedly described as "poet and virgin") is a Candide-like innocent who sets out to write a heroic epic, becomes disillusioned and ends up writing a biting satire.

Barth's next novel, Giles Goat-Boy, of comparable size, is a speculative fiction based on the conceit of the university as universe. A half-man, half-goat discovers his humanity and becomes a savior in a story presented as a computer tape given to Barth, who denies that it is his work. In the course of the novel Giles carries out all the tasks prescribed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Barth kept a list of the tasks taped to his wall while he was writing the book.

The short story collection Lost in the Funhouse and the novella collection Chimera are even more metafictional than their two predecessors, foregrounding the writing process and presenting achievements such as seven nested quotations. In LETTERS Barth and the characters of his first six books interact.

While writing these books, Barth was also pondering and discussing the theoretical problems of fiction writing, most notably in an essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion" (first printed in the Atlantic, 1967), that was widely considered to be 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) wrote 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."

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barth (less)

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