From Publishers Weekly
Novelist Barth has often been called a postmodernist, and in these witty essays, many of which have appeared in various periodicals, he explores the hallmarks of the style?formal playfulness, narrative self-consciousness, self-reflexiveness, ironic recycling of premodern devices?in a host of writers from Laurence Sterne to Thomas Pynchon, Umberto Eco, Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Barth charts his own creative evolution from the realism and minimalism of The Floating Opera to the high-energy extravagances of The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy. He champions the terse minimalism of Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver and Frederick Barthelme and hurls ripostes at his critics, notably John Gardner and Tom Wolfe. A sequel to his first collection of essays, The Friday Book (1984), this miscellany includes a piece on the ecology and literature of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay region, a study of Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and an illustrated essay drawing parallels between postmodernism, literary arabesques and chaos theory.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Barth, author of several novels as well as the essays in
The Friday Book, draws on his several years of writing and teaching experience to provide readers with flashes of insight into the writing of fiction. The witty, intelligent essays answer such questions about creative writing as, Can it be taught? Can it be learned? and Should it be taught? with clever, anecdotal insider wisdom. Often referring to his own teaching, writing, and traveling, Barth also ruminates on the writing process, the history of writing, authors, and other aspects of the trade. Barth's wealth of experience, ready wit, and skillful writing make this important work interesting and enjoyable.
Kathleen Hughes
