Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Speaking of Maryland

I'm reading The Sot-Weed Factor now. Which seems like an awfully odd choice for sparking some kind of attention-span renaissance, but whatever. Maybe my brain just needs, nay, craves! some pseudo-17th century English?

(Things I thought I'd never hear myself say.)

Anyway. I haven't read much of his stuff (his first two books, and now part one of Sot-Weed), but yeah, in any case, I'm all for making the case for John Barth. I mean, set aside questions of motive and satirical intent and other fifty-cent questions: the bedchamber meeting of Ebenezer Cooke and Joan Toast is straight-up ha'penny funny shit. (The Great Tom Leech, indeed.)

So yeah. We'll see how long I stick with this. I'm angling for all of it right now. (I'm itching to take another crack at Giles Goat-Boy. Next year, maybe. Maybe.)

1 comment:

Norm said...

Well, I read The End of the Road at, like, age 17 and really ,really wanted to kill myself when I was done. So, yeah, Barth's effective. ofn