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elpalmer's review against another edition
challenging
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
4.0
I gave up on the Bellerophon story and I think that signifies growth for me. The Scheherazade story though, 5 stars!
Bits I liked:
p. 9 “There’s a kind of snail in the Maryland marshes - perhaps I’ve invented him - that makes his shell as he goes along out of whatever he comes across, cementing it with his own juices, and at the same time makes his path instinctively toward the best available material for his shell; he carries his history on his back, living in it, adding new and larger spirals to it from the present as he grows.”
Bits I liked:
p. 9 “There’s a kind of snail in the Maryland marshes - perhaps I’ve invented him - that makes his shell as he goes along out of whatever he comes across, cementing it with his own juices, and at the same time makes his path instinctively toward the best available material for his shell; he carries his history on his back, living in it, adding new and larger spirals to it from the present as he grows.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
tstuppy's review against another edition
4.0
I think I liked this a lot, but it's hard to be sure. This was a very hard book to read, and I thought of quitting many times. Not sure why I didn't. Ultimately, it's a story of myth, and about the variable nature of storytelling, which ends up being mostly very interesting. Definitely not for everyone, or even most.
stm314's review against another edition
4.0
Dunyazadiad: 5
Perseid: 4
Bellerophoniad:2 (a serious struggle to get through)
It gets a 4 on the strength of the first novella and with a little help from the second one. But the last novella almost subtracts more from the overall rating. Bellerophoniad is overlong, difficult to fully comprehend, and seems like one big excuse for the author to talk about himself and his writing. He promotes himself and his accomplishments shamelessly in the last one and it's not enjoyable to read, especially 150 pages of it. He really should just focus more on the mythic elements. All that being said, the first two novellas are great. Dunyazadiad is endlessly creative and poses some really interesting questions concerning originality, authorship, reality vs. fiction, and in what world does literature/fiction exist. I especially enjoyed the discussion of "the container and the contained" and the paradoxical, impossible interchangeability of them. Besides that, it's a strong read from start to finish. Perseid is puzzling to piece together at first, but about halfway things start falling into place and the frames of the story begin to take shape. Then, at the end, the story reaches a satisfying conclusion with Perseus and Medusa in the stars as constellations endlessly retelling their tale to each other. Perseus Loves Andromedusa (I really like that bit of wordplay there). Anyway, two out of three ain't bad. If only he followed the pace and size of the first and hadn't got so self-indulgent.
Perseid: 4
Bellerophoniad:2 (a serious struggle to get through)
It gets a 4 on the strength of the first novella and with a little help from the second one. But the last novella almost subtracts more from the overall rating. Bellerophoniad is overlong, difficult to fully comprehend, and seems like one big excuse for the author to talk about himself and his writing. He promotes himself and his accomplishments shamelessly in the last one and it's not enjoyable to read, especially 150 pages of it. He really should just focus more on the mythic elements. All that being said, the first two novellas are great. Dunyazadiad is endlessly creative and poses some really interesting questions concerning originality, authorship, reality vs. fiction, and in what world does literature/fiction exist. I especially enjoyed the discussion of "the container and the contained" and the paradoxical, impossible interchangeability of them. Besides that, it's a strong read from start to finish. Perseid is puzzling to piece together at first, but about halfway things start falling into place and the frames of the story begin to take shape. Then, at the end, the story reaches a satisfying conclusion with Perseus and Medusa in the stars as constellations endlessly retelling their tale to each other. Perseus Loves Andromedusa (I really like that bit of wordplay there). Anyway, two out of three ain't bad. If only he followed the pace and size of the first and hadn't got so self-indulgent.
joeduncan's review against another edition
5.0
I was nearly ready to settle my mind on my favorite books of the year until this guy popped up. I had read a couple other books by Barth and had enjoyed both, but don’t think of them as favorites by a long shot. He has a similar voice to a lot of other writers of his generation, so is easy to compare to Barthelme, DeLillo, Bernard, Pynchon, even Saunders, which is a hard group to shine in. About halfway through the final novella of Chimera I realized what a technical marvel this work is. In terms of narrative structure, syntax, plot devices, and thematic consistency Barth is a standout. This is an incredibly accomplished novel. I feel like this one was really fun to read especially as an amateur writer, simply because of how many tricks he pulls off and with such fluency. Lots of stories within stories, future and past intruding on the present, perspective changes and so on. It’s a new favorite.
breadandmushrooms's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
dllh's review against another edition
3.0
Parts of these stories are really interesting and fun, but for me they became too clever and a bit tiresome.
swineberg's review against another edition
5.0
In this house we LOVE a novel that’s a postmodern and metafictional mythological adaptation; that’s comedic and horny and yearning; that’s alternately self-aggrandizing and self-defeating but altogether dazzling and unique. It’s heady and by its own admission something that many people won’t finish, a “beastly fiction, ill-proportioned, full of longueurs, lumps, lacunae, a kind of monstrous mixed metaphor.” But hot damn was I impressed with it, and I can’t believe that John Barth has faded into relative obscurity. And I’m not just saying that because of how Maryland-specific his writing is.
A note that your mileage may vary with the very 1974 “progressive” sex and gender politics, but other than a regrettably lisping queer man near the end (he insists that he isn’t lisping because he’s gay, he’s just lisping, which…oy) the book really seeks to interrogate the catalogue of rapes, machismo, and disposable supporting women that makes up our myths.
A note that your mileage may vary with the very 1974 “progressive” sex and gender politics, but other than a regrettably lisping queer man near the end (he insists that he isn’t lisping because he’s gay, he’s just lisping, which…oy) the book really seeks to interrogate the catalogue of rapes, machismo, and disposable supporting women that makes up our myths.
bobbo49's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Disappointing. The first story is the backstory of the Arabian Nights, told by Scheherazade's younger sister Dunyazade, and it was so good that I picked up the Arabian Nights again to enjoy the re-reading of the original. However, the other two tales - Perseus' life after he killed Medusa, and Bellerophon's after he tamed Pegasus - were just so abstract, wordy and wandering that I didn't enjoy them at all. I'll read some more Barth, hoping that it will live up to the first of these stories.