Lost in the Funhouse

Lost in the Funhouse
by John Barth
read: 2012

A couple years ago I was trying to start a business with my friend Mark.  The basic idea was visualizing date-based information, but Mark saw it as more than that; he saw it as part of a larger effort to replace language with something more inherently meaningful.  As you might imagine from someone who has a blog about literature, I like language, so we would often have interesting disagreements on the subject.

Mark would probably agree with the following passage from Lost in the Funhouse, John Barth's collection of loosely related short stories:

I believe literature's not likely ever to manage abstraction successfully, like sculpture for example, [...] because wood and iron have a native appeal and first-order reality, whereas words are artificial to begin with, invented specifically to represent.  [...] Well, well, weld iron rods into abstract patterns, say, and you've still got real iron, but arrange words into abstract patterns and you've got nonsense.

Barth explores this concept throughout Lost in the Funhouse: "Frame-Tale" invites the reader to literally make a Moebius strip; the Author's Note says that "Autobiography" was written "for monophonic tape and visible but silent author"; "Menelaiad" is written as a nested dialogue with seven sets of quotation marks at points; the title story is peppered with sentences like "Description of physical appearance and mannerisms is one of several standard methods of characterization used by writers of fiction."  Barth takes the rules of the short story form and twists and breaks them throughout.

I'm not normally a fan of "the novel as craft," but as Professor Amy Hungerford points out, under this exploration of narrative techniques and the nature of language is a paralyzing self-awareness that prevents "the author" (whoever that may be) from experiencing life's profound feelings in the moment.  This tension is captured best in the final line of the title story: "Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator - though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed."  This schism between artistic creation and awareness of language comes up repeatedly through the stories; it's echoed in Ambrose's detachment when recalling his sexual roleplay with Magda and in Menelais' inability to believe in Helen's love.  But then we also have "Night-Sea Journey," written from the perspective of a sperm, which reminds us that sex, too, is an act of creation.  Seen from this perspective, the linguistic gymnastics of Lost in the Funhouse are practically a cry for help, an attempt to reach understanding through exhaustive exploration when what the author really needs to do is just stop thinking and feel.

Ultimately, I didn't buy everything Barth was doing, but it was interesting, and I generally felt that the crazy techniques and structures ultimately served a purpose.  Lost in the Funhouse is a unique book.