The Book of Ten Nights and a Night: Eleven Stories

by John Barth

John Barth, the postmodern master, is back with his sixteenth book and third collection of stories, which gathers for the first time in one volume stories previously published in various journals. Exploring ideas of narrative frames, stories within stories, and the uncanny power that language has in our lives, he offers the thrilling blend of playfulness and illuminating insight that has marked him as one of America’s most distinguished writers.
Here are tales of aging, time, possibility, and relationships. And in typically Barthian fashion, they are framed by the narration of a veteran writer, Graybard, and his flirtatious, insouciant muse, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). During the eleven days that follow September 11, 2001, Graybard and WYSIWYG debate the meaning and relevance of writing and storytelling in the wake of disaster, or TEOTWAW(A)KI― The End Of The World As We (Americans) Know It.
The Book of Ten Nights and a Night is vintage Barth, sure to appeal to his loyal fans and find new readers touched by his irreverent but deeply human perspective on how writers can respond to the emotional and ethical demands of tragic events.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, American, The United States Of America

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

John Barth briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, received a bachelor of arts in 1951 and composed The Shirt of Nessus , a thesis for a Magister Artium in 1952.
He served as a professor at Penn State University from 1953. Barth began his career with short The Floating Opera , which deals with suicide, and The End of the Road on controversial topic of abortion. Barth later remarked that these straightforward tales "didn't know they were novels."
The life of Ebenezer Cooke, an actual poet, based a next eight-hundred-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland of Barth. Northrop Frye called an anatomy, a large, loosely structured work with digressions, distractions, stories, and lists, such as two prostitutes, who exchange lengthy insulting terms. The disillusioned fictional Ebenezer Cooke, repeatedly described as an innocent "poet and virgin" like Candide, sets out a heroic epic and ends up a biting satire.
He moved in 1965 to State University of New York at Buffalo. He visited as professor at Boston University in 1972. He served as professor from 1973 at Johns Hopkins University. He retired in 1995.
The conceit of the university as universe based Giles Goat-Boy , a next speculative fiction of Barth comparable size. A half-goat discovers his humanity as a savior in a story, presented as a computer tape, given to Barth, who denies his work. In the course, Giles carries out all the tasks that Joseph Campbell prescribed in The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Barth meanwhile in the book kept a list of the tasks, taped to his wall.
The even more metafictional Lost in the Funhouse , the short story collection, and Chimera , the novella collection, than their two predecessors foreground the process and present achievements, such as seven nested quotations. In Letters , Barth and the characters of his first six books interact.
Barth meanwhile also pondered and discussed the theoretical problems of fiction, most notably in an essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion," first printed in the Atlantic in 1967, widely considered 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) 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.

Reviews

[David]

Barth gets to faute de mieux even faster here (p.42) than in Once Upon a Time, but only uses it about 8 times in the whole book 😉. Let’s not forget Beck’s dark beer, and “made [adjective] love”—also repeating favourites. In truth, I’m less disappointed with this one on re-reading than I have been with most of Barth’s later work. I’m not sure why, re either claim.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Barth in the early 90s (via Chimera) and plowed through his extensive published oeuvre pretty damn fast, from The Floating Opera to The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor. But by his 2001 novel. Coming Soon, I had had enough, getting tired of the same old meta-fictional techniques, finding them pretty played out. I am not sure what led me to try him again - maybe the astonishing discovery that he is still alive (at age 91), and has published four books since Coming Soon. Anyway (and boy, Barth would admire this long preamble), I am glad I did! Sure, he still is dipping into the same bag of tricks, but I forgot how much I liked these tricks - his wordplay, his obsession with Scheherezade, and especially his sense of humor, which is open, free-wheeling, self-deprecating, and generous. This is a collection of his late tales, which finds him in a more thoughtful (or as he admits, autumnal) mood. But it's not just a collection - Barth gives us a frame tale, with interstitial chapters, to stitch together the stories - unexpectedly, the frame tale takes place on 9/11 and the 11 days after, rendering the tone more somber than usual. And his final story, an original to this collection, is astonishingly moving. As I say, I am really glad I gave him another chance. And as Barth would say, on with the story.

[David Markwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never read John Barth before I this. I was drawn to try something of his because of the influence he had on DFW. The Book of Ten Nights and a Night is a compelling meditation on the function of story in a post 11/9 world. Throw in amongst these meditations are some truly phenomenal stories. 9999 and The Rest of your Life were my two favourties from the collection.

[Mugren Ohaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept, but too mentally challenging for me.

[Tania]

Parts i enjoyed but it mostly went over my head.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, Barth's writing is fun (though requiring some decent mental effort), and almost impossible to talk about. This book of framed short stories/novel/something else entirely is immensely interesting. It's like a couple fiction books had an orgy with some craft books and a series of literary criticism dissertations (along with some other shadowed participants) and a child was born out of the genetic material of all and/or some of the progenitors. Though a short one for Barth, it does not lack for material and/or complexity. I found it particularly interesting how the frame story is just supposed to serve as connective tissue for the collection but comes to more and more seem the focal point, like one of those tiny paintings set in the gigantic, thick frames. In any event, better to read the book than to hear me blather on about it.

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of eleven of Barth's uncollected stories dating from 1960 to 2001, Barth intertwines them with a frame-tale about literary inspiration and a metaphorical Muse. Some of the tales get a little repetitive (Barth has always had his long stretches of time in which he explores the same ideas in different iterations in his published works; stories are less rich than novels for this sort of writing/reading experience). The best of the stories ("The Big Shrink," "9999," "Click") are very good, but the frame tale, although beginning with some truly provocative imagery and symbolism, ends up hamstringing the collection: Barth writes himself into a corner and can't quite get back out again. Anything by Barth, though (IMHO), is worth a read.

[Jeffrey Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of fun to read. This is a book of short stories tied together by a narrative that is Barth being Barth as his finest. A lot of "Afore-isms" dot the landscape. In general this type of meta-fiction appeals to me greatly and I have a lot of fun reading it. Barth is a master of this stuff and I am always glad to read something of his I have not before. I would have to say that years of reading Barth makes a movie like The Words child's play to follow. The stories are a mixed bag spanning decades, the earliest stuff from the sixties and some later works. I enjoyed this book and would recommend to all who enjoy fiction and post-modern meta-fiction hi-jinks. On with the story.

[Paula C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The framework was great, but the stories I found tedious at times. A number of the stories are about how little story it really takes to make a story, so we're riding the boundary between sort-of-a-story and really-not-a-story all the time. I liked 9999 because it didn't have that same self-consciousness, and I liked the resolution of Click because of the concept of the Centre of Narrative Gravity. ("In a made-up story, the author's narrative viewpoint; in real life-in-the-world, however, the self itself...") Which is uncannily close to the concept of the Centre of Awareness, which is the physical place in you that feels like you, and is another unconventional way to define the self.

The end of the book redeems the rest.

[Bri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because I was really in love with the story "Click." Still my favorite, although I can't recall what any of the other stories are about.

[Justin Paszul · Rating 1 out of 5]

just really truly bad in every way

[Karyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave this book a chance but couldn't finish it. Pompous and incoherent writing.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing , fascinating read