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The Floating Opera
Barth's first novel chronicles one day in the life of Todd Andrews, a day on which he makes a very important decision.
240 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
68 people are currently reading
4049 people want to read
About the author
John Barth
75 books786 followersJohn 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.
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.
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November 1, 2021
As there are existential novels there should be anti-existential novels and The Floating Opera is one of a kind… It’s a place where my acquaintance with John Barth has begun and ever since my mind was conquered by him for good…
Some are born to create and some are born to destroy.
Harrison – a fine, muscular, sun-bronzed, gentle-eyed, patrician-nosed, steak-fed, Gilman Schooled, soft-spoken, well-tailored aristocrat – to his family's understandable alarm was a communist at the time. Not a parlor communist, either: an out-and-out leaflet-writing revolutionary who had sold his speedboat, his Stutz automobile, and God knows what else, to live on when his father disinherited him.
Some are born to create and some are born to destroy.
September 6, 2016
Whether to Exit if Not Entranced? That is the Question
Time is a river. And all the world's a stage...in this case, on a steamboat, a showboat, no less, plying up and down the river.
Life itself is an entertainment, a comedy, a circus, a play, an opera performed on this floating stage, hence a floating opera.
To top it off (so to speak), all men and women are merely players in their own shows, although they might also be spectators in the shows of others. They have their exits and their entrances.
Some exit by their own hands, while others remain entranced, alive.
Which players are right? To be or not to be, to live or not to live, enquires the Bard, as channelled by John Barth.
A Primer in the Moral and Refined
Despite his undertaking, Barth's vessel doesn't just stick to the channel. He navigates a meandering stream, much in the style of Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy".
This was his first novel, completed when he was just 24, but it betrays a mastery of his craft. It purports to be the work of a literary ingenu, who is concerned that the plot might sail in and out of view, but it's extremely carefully planned, plotted and executed. He "simply carries out [his] premises completely to their conclusions." It's a delightful piece of meta-fiction, even if it contains more evidence of realism than its successors.
Like "Adam's Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera" (the source of the novel's title), Barth's work boasts DRAMA (!), MINSTRELS (!), VAUDEVILLE (!), a gas-driven Calliope (!)(aren't they all?) and a Panithiopliconica (!), as well as promising to be Moral & Refined!
A Would-Be Annihilist Stares Into the Abyss
Barth cites not just Shakespeare and Sterne as influences, but James Joyce, the Brazilian novelist Joachim Machado de Assis and Albert Camus.
The latter informs both the style and the concerns of the novel. Indeed, it's structured as a philosophical inquiry into issues both profound and profane, such as life and death, cause and effect, free will and determinism, friendship and parenthood, adultery and adventure, mortality and suicide, anarchism and Marxism, sophistication and cynicism, stoicism and existentialism.
The first person narrator, Todd Andrews, in many ways a comic, smiling nihilist (once bent on destruction of both Self and Others), explains:
Barth very eloquently summarises two key preoccupations of civilisation: contradiction and time.
I Found a Reason (In Parentheses)
En route along the river, Todd resolves the tension. Having stared into the abyss, he manages to conclude (if not necessarily prove rationally) that life is worth living, even if it might ultimately be meaningless.
In other words, the fact that life might be objectively meaningless doesn't mean it can't be subjectively meaningful. (Or to further parenthesise, just because there might be no "reason" to live doesn't mean there is a "reason" to die.)
This conclusion would be reason enough to read Barth's novel, but he also gilds his entertainment with abundant exuberance, a wry sense of humour and shrewd story-telling.
Time is a river. And all the world's a stage...in this case, on a steamboat, a showboat, no less, plying up and down the river.
Life itself is an entertainment, a comedy, a circus, a play, an opera performed on this floating stage, hence a floating opera.
To top it off (so to speak), all men and women are merely players in their own shows, although they might also be spectators in the shows of others. They have their exits and their entrances.
Some exit by their own hands, while others remain entranced, alive.
Which players are right? To be or not to be, to live or not to live, enquires the Bard, as channelled by John Barth.
A Primer in the Moral and Refined
Despite his undertaking, Barth's vessel doesn't just stick to the channel. He navigates a meandering stream, much in the style of Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy".
This was his first novel, completed when he was just 24, but it betrays a mastery of his craft. It purports to be the work of a literary ingenu, who is concerned that the plot might sail in and out of view, but it's extremely carefully planned, plotted and executed. He "simply carries out [his] premises completely to their conclusions." It's a delightful piece of meta-fiction, even if it contains more evidence of realism than its successors.
Like "Adam's Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera" (the source of the novel's title), Barth's work boasts DRAMA (!), MINSTRELS (!), VAUDEVILLE (!), a gas-driven Calliope (!)(aren't they all?) and a Panithiopliconica (!), as well as promising to be Moral & Refined!
A Would-Be Annihilist Stares Into the Abyss
Barth cites not just Shakespeare and Sterne as influences, but James Joyce, the Brazilian novelist Joachim Machado de Assis and Albert Camus.
The latter informs both the style and the concerns of the novel. Indeed, it's structured as a philosophical inquiry into issues both profound and profane, such as life and death, cause and effect, free will and determinism, friendship and parenthood, adultery and adventure, mortality and suicide, anarchism and Marxism, sophistication and cynicism, stoicism and existentialism.
The first person narrator, Todd Andrews, in many ways a comic, smiling nihilist (once bent on destruction of both Self and Others), explains:
"My Inquiry is timeless, in effect; that is, I proceed at it as though I had an eternity to inquire in...
"So, I begin each day with a gesture of cynicism, and close it with a gesture of faith; or, if you prefer, begin it by reminding myself that, for me at least, goals and objectives are without value, and close it by demonstrating that the fact is irrelevant.
"A gesture of temporality, a gesture of eternity. It is in the tension between these two gestures that I have lived my adult life."
Barth very eloquently summarises two key preoccupations of civilisation: contradiction and time.
I Found a Reason (In Parentheses)
En route along the river, Todd resolves the tension. Having stared into the abyss, he manages to conclude (if not necessarily prove rationally) that life is worth living, even if it might ultimately be meaningless.
In other words, the fact that life might be objectively meaningless doesn't mean it can't be subjectively meaningful. (Or to further parenthesise, just because there might be no "reason" to live doesn't mean there is a "reason" to die.)
This conclusion would be reason enough to read Barth's novel, but he also gilds his entertainment with abundant exuberance, a wry sense of humour and shrewd story-telling.
May 24, 2023
اومبرتو اکو داستان کوتاهی دارد در باره ی مردی که در دوره ی دانشجویی چند سال در یک تاًتر کار می کرده. او مجبور بوده پیش از بسته شدن درِ خوابگاه خود را به آنجا برساند، بنابر این نتوانسته بیست دقیقه ی آخر هیچ کدام از نمایش هایی که آن سالها مجانی تماشا کرده را ببیند. او در سنین بازنشستگی اتفاقاً با پیرمردی در سن و سال خودش آشنا می شود که او هم کار دانشجویی اش در یک تاًتر بوده و از قضا وقتی به تاًترمحل کار خود می رسیده که بیست دقیقه از شروع نمایش می گذشته. دو مرد وقتی از وضعیت یکدیگر با خبر می شوند قرار می گذارند از آن پس در ملاقات هایشان اولی اول نمایش ها را برای دومی تعریف کند و دومی آخر آنها را برای اولی و به این ترتیب نمایش هایشان را کامل کنند.
«اپرای شناور» که جان بارت آن را به عنوان اسم کتاب خود برگزیده، بخشی از نام وسیله ای کشتی مانند است با عرشه ای وسیع که هر روز نمایشی واحد بر آن اجرا می شود. کشتی با جذر و مد آب در طول رودخانه حرکت می کند. آدم هایی که در ساحل ایستاده اند هر کدام بخشی از نمایش را می بینند. آنها برای آن که بقیه ی ماجرا را بدانند یا باید از نیروی تخیل شان استفاده کنند یا همچون دو نفر داستان اکو از نفراتی که قبل و بعد از آنها ایستاده بودند پرس و جو کنند و حواسشان به همه ی حرف هایی که در طول رودخانه دهان به دهان می شود باشد. بارت می گوید جریان زندگی شبیه به اپرای شناور است. ما با آدم هایی آشنا می شویم که به راه خود می روند. ممکن است آن ها را در موقعیتی دیگر ببینیم یا نبینیم و اگر دوباره همدیگر را دیدیم یا تلاش می کنیم جبران مافات کنیم یا می فهمیم دیگر همدیگر را درک نمی کنیم و از خیر تجدید رابطه می گذریم. او می افزاید کتابش به تبعیت از زندگی یک اپرای شناور است، مملو از مسائل عجیب و غریب، ملودرام، نمایش های جذاب، آموزش و تفریح و سر گرمی ، که کل آن بر سینه ی موج نثرش شناور خواهد بود. خواننده گاهی طرح وپیرنگ آن را خواهد یافت و گاهی گمش خواهد کرد و در نهایت درک کامل آن نیازمند نهایت توجه و تخیل، و برای آدم های عادی علاوه بر آن صبر و شکیبایی است.۱۷
اپرای شناور که نخستین رمان جان بارت است، اثری است پست مدرن، تریسترام شندی وار*و نیهیلیستی** که قرار است راویِ نویسنده اش ( تاد اندروز) در آن ماجرای یک روز سرنوشت ساز از زندگی خود را تعریف کند. تاد اندروز متولد ۱۹۰۰ است. او اکنون پنجاه و چهار سال دارد و آن روز سرنوشت ساز یکی از روزهای بیست ویکم یا بیست و دوم ژوئن سال ۱۹۳۷ بوده است.
اندروز معتقد است برای درک کردن و توضیح دادن کامل یک مسئله، هرچقدر هم جزئی و پیش پاافتاده، باید تمام مسائل دیگر عالم را درک کرد و توضیح داد؛ چرا که هرچیز به چیزهای دیگری مربوط است که هر کدام خود با چیزهای دیگری مربوط اند. به این ترتیب او برای تشریح دقیق ماجرای آن یک روز، شانزده سال تمام را صرف تهیه و تدارک مصالح مورد نیازمی کند و وقتی بالاخره بر وسواس خود غلبه می کند و شروع می کند به تعریف کردن( یا همان نوشتنِ) ماجرا، کثرت و پراکندگی منابعش باعث می شود مدام از این شاخه به آن شاخه بپرد، در زمان پس و پیش شود و انبوهی مسائل مربوط و نامربوط را به دنبال یکدیگر قطار کند و در ابتکاری جالب مطلب را در دوستون مجزا در کنار هم بیاورد واز خواننده بخواهد که هردو را هم زمان بخواند؛ چرا که شرح موضوعش در آن بخش می توانسته دو مقدمه ی متفاوت داشته باشد.
*جان بارت در اپرای شناور شدیداً تحت تاًثیر تریسترام شندی است، تا حدی که می شود گفت این اثر اقتباسی پست مدرن و آزاد از شاهکار لارنس استرن است. بارت در مقاله ی مشهور خود به نام ادبیات باز پروی(یا ادبیات غنی سازی) می گوید پیشینه ی زیباشناسی ادبیات پست مدرن، که او خود از نویسندگان شاخص آن است، با گذر از مدرنیست های بزرگ نیمه ی اول قرن بیستم و اسلافشان در سده ی نوزدهم، به تریسترام شندی و دن کیشوت می رسد.
** تاد اندروز معتقد است: ۱. هیچ چیز ارزش ذاتی ندارد. ۲. دلایلی که مردم بنابر آن ها برای مسائل ارزش قائل می شوند در نهایت غیر منطقی اند. و ۳. بنابر این هیچ دلیل قانع کننده ای برای ارزش قائل شدن برای هیچ چیز وجود ندارد.
نقل از وبلاگ مداد سیاه
«اپرای شناور» که جان بارت آن را به عنوان اسم کتاب خود برگزیده، بخشی از نام وسیله ای کشتی مانند است با عرشه ای وسیع که هر روز نمایشی واحد بر آن اجرا می شود. کشتی با جذر و مد آب در طول رودخانه حرکت می کند. آدم هایی که در ساحل ایستاده اند هر کدام بخشی از نمایش را می بینند. آنها برای آن که بقیه ی ماجرا را بدانند یا باید از نیروی تخیل شان استفاده کنند یا همچون دو نفر داستان اکو از نفراتی که قبل و بعد از آنها ایستاده بودند پرس و جو کنند و حواسشان به همه ی حرف هایی که در طول رودخانه دهان به دهان می شود باشد. بارت می گوید جریان زندگی شبیه به اپرای شناور است. ما با آدم هایی آشنا می شویم که به راه خود می روند. ممکن است آن ها را در موقعیتی دیگر ببینیم یا نبینیم و اگر دوباره همدیگر را دیدیم یا تلاش می کنیم جبران مافات کنیم یا می فهمیم دیگر همدیگر را درک نمی کنیم و از خیر تجدید رابطه می گذریم. او می افزاید کتابش به تبعیت از زندگی یک اپرای شناور است، مملو از مسائل عجیب و غریب، ملودرام، نمایش های جذاب، آموزش و تفریح و سر گرمی ، که کل آن بر سینه ی موج نثرش شناور خواهد بود. خواننده گاهی طرح وپیرنگ آن را خواهد یافت و گاهی گمش خواهد کرد و در نهایت درک کامل آن نیازمند نهایت توجه و تخیل، و برای آدم های عادی علاوه بر آن صبر و شکیبایی است.۱۷
اپرای شناور که نخستین رمان جان بارت است، اثری است پست مدرن، تریسترام شندی وار*و نیهیلیستی** که قرار است راویِ نویسنده اش ( تاد اندروز) در آن ماجرای یک روز سرنوشت ساز از زندگی خود را تعریف کند. تاد اندروز متولد ۱۹۰۰ است. او اکنون پنجاه و چهار سال دارد و آن روز سرنوشت ساز یکی از روزهای بیست ویکم یا بیست و دوم ژوئن سال ۱۹۳۷ بوده است.
اندروز معتقد است برای درک کردن و توضیح دادن کامل یک مسئله، هرچقدر هم جزئی و پیش پاافتاده، باید تمام مسائل دیگر عالم را درک کرد و توضیح داد؛ چرا که هرچیز به چیزهای دیگری مربوط است که هر کدام خود با چیزهای دیگری مربوط اند. به این ترتیب او برای تشریح دقیق ماجرای آن یک روز، شانزده سال تمام را صرف تهیه و تدارک مصالح مورد نیازمی کند و وقتی بالاخره بر وسواس خود غلبه می کند و شروع می کند به تعریف کردن( یا همان نوشتنِ) ماجرا، کثرت و پراکندگی منابعش باعث می شود مدام از این شاخه به آن شاخه بپرد، در زمان پس و پیش شود و انبوهی مسائل مربوط و نامربوط را به دنبال یکدیگر قطار کند و در ابتکاری جالب مطلب را در دوستون مجزا در کنار هم بیاورد واز خواننده بخواهد که هردو را هم زمان بخواند؛ چرا که شرح موضوعش در آن بخش می توانسته دو مقدمه ی متفاوت داشته باشد.
*جان بارت در اپرای شناور شدیداً تحت تاًثیر تریسترام شندی است، تا حدی که می شود گفت این اثر اقتباسی پست مدرن و آزاد از شاهکار لارنس استرن است. بارت در مقاله ی مشهور خود به نام ادبیات باز پروی(یا ادبیات غنی سازی) می گوید پیشینه ی زیباشناسی ادبیات پست مدرن، که او خود از نویسندگان شاخص آن است، با گذر از مدرنیست های بزرگ نیمه ی اول قرن بیستم و اسلافشان در سده ی نوزدهم، به تریسترام شندی و دن کیشوت می رسد.
** تاد اندروز معتقد است: ۱. هیچ چیز ارزش ذاتی ندارد. ۲. دلایلی که مردم بنابر آن ها برای مسائل ارزش قائل می شوند در نهایت غیر منطقی اند. و ۳. بنابر این هیچ دلیل قانع کننده ای برای ارزش قائل شدن برای هیچ چیز وجود ندارد.
نقل از وبلاگ مداد سیاه
September 2, 2018
Todd Andrews, an interesting - and interested - man, decides on one morning in 1937 to commit suicide.
(An aside - I've always felt that saying "to commit suicide" captures the reality of that act far better than "to take one's life" or "to kill oneself". Others may disagree.)
The reader of The Floating Opera discovers early on whether he will or won't do it, but, as in most cases, the journey is more important than the destination.
And trust me, the journey is a very good one.
My John Barth (non) story: When I was at college, John Barth was teaching at the university I was attending. I never met him. I was an indifferent enough student (that's being very kind to myself) and the University was large enough that I was neither introduced to him nor was I aware that he was teaching there. I don't even know if I ever saw him, since I would have had no idea what he looked like.
I knew the name, John Barth, then, but never read any of his books that had been published at that point.
Anyway, years later, I have finally met Mr. Barth through reading this novel. I'm happy to have made his acquaintance.
(An aside - I've always felt that saying "to commit suicide" captures the reality of that act far better than "to take one's life" or "to kill oneself". Others may disagree.)
The reader of The Floating Opera discovers early on whether he will or won't do it, but, as in most cases, the journey is more important than the destination.
And trust me, the journey is a very good one.
My John Barth (non) story: When I was at college, John Barth was teaching at the university I was attending. I never met him. I was an indifferent enough student (that's being very kind to myself) and the University was large enough that I was neither introduced to him nor was I aware that he was teaching there. I don't even know if I ever saw him, since I would have had no idea what he looked like.
I knew the name, John Barth, then, but never read any of his books that had been published at that point.
Anyway, years later, I have finally met Mr. Barth through reading this novel. I'm happy to have made his acquaintance.
November 27, 2016
تاد اندروز وکیل مجربیه که مادرش رو وقتی بچه بوده از دست داده و پدرش هم وکیلی بوده که بعد از ورشکستگی و از دست دادن همه سرمایه در سهام خودش رو حلق آویز کرده و چیزی جز بدهی برای وارثش به ارث نگذاشته . خود تاد هم دچار مشکل پروستات و قلبه به طوریکه هر لحظه ممکنه قلبش از کار بایسته، طوری که سال هاست منزلی نداره و در اتاقی از یک هتل اقامت داره و روزانه هم هزینه ی اقامتش رو پرداخت می کنه. با این وجود تاد به زندگی عادی و بسی هیجان انگیز خودش ادامه میده . با همسر زیبای دوست صمیمیش ( و البته با رضایت دوستش) وارد رابطه طولانی مدت میشه ( که احتمالا منبع بسیاری از سانسورها تو نسخه ی فارسی می تونه باشه ) و پرونده های جنجالی رو با زیرکی به نفع موکلش به سرانجام می رسونه و لابلای روایت هاش توجه خواننده رو به سمت "زندگی" و "مرگ" می بره که هرچند شاید زندگی پوچ به نظر بیاد اما مرگ حتی پوچ تر از زندگیه
جان بارت کتاب رو در بیست و چهار سالگیش نوشت و پایان غمناک نسخه اولیه کتاب باعث شد تا ناشر، نویسنده رو به تغییر پایان و خوشایندتر کردنش تشویق کنه. نثر کتاب به شدت یاداور کارهای ونه گاته، پست مدرن، طناز و بی خیال . البته پیش میومد که گاهی از روده درازی های تاد اندروز راجع به مسائل ریز و درشت مربوط و نامربوط به ستوه بیام ولی درمجموع کتاب خوبی بود
اگر دنبال کتابی سرخوش با سبکی متفاوت و سنت شکن ونه گات طور هستید احتمالا اپرای شناور انتخاب به جاییه
جان بارت کتاب رو در بیست و چهار سالگیش نوشت و پایان غمناک نسخه اولیه کتاب باعث شد تا ناشر، نویسنده رو به تغییر پایان و خوشایندتر کردنش تشویق کنه. نثر کتاب به شدت یاداور کارهای ونه گاته، پست مدرن، طناز و بی خیال . البته پیش میومد که گاهی از روده درازی های تاد اندروز راجع به مسائل ریز و درشت مربوط و نامربوط به ستوه بیام ولی درمجموع کتاب خوبی بود
اگر دنبال کتابی سرخوش با سبکی متفاوت و سنت شکن ونه گات طور هستید احتمالا اپرای شناور انتخاب به جاییه
August 22, 2017
John Barth (n. 1930)
John Barth (n. 1930) no prefácio da edição portuguesa refere: ”Se tinha algum plano literário no início da década de 1950 era simplesmente o de escrever um romance publicável, se conseguisse, e, de caminho, talvez ficar a saber quem era eu, pelo menos no meio da ficção.”
Ópera Flutuante” (1956) é o primeiro romance de John Barth, escrito nos primeiros três meses de 1955, publicado quando tinha apenas vinte e quatro anos de idade, com o seu editor a obrigá-lo a fazer algumas alterações, nomeadamente, o final; o que suscitou o desacordo da crítica. Nesta edição da Sextante foi restabelecido o final original e correcto da história.
John Barth descreve - apenas num dia - a história da vida de Todd Andrew, a personagem principal e narrador, solteiro, com cinquenta e quatro anos de idade, advogado, santo e pecador, excêntrico e imprevisível, por vezes, impertinente e inconveniente, niilista convicto, cínico e sarcástico, e muito mais,…; o dia em que decide suicidar-se.
A originalidade de ”Ópera Flutuante” é a de nos relatar de um modo primoroso e inconfundível – apenas num dia – o percurso de vida de Todd Andrews (ele não sabe muito bem se foi a 20 ou 21 de Junho de 1937 - um dia excepcionalmente particular) –, e com destaque, entre muitos outros episódios, para a perda da virgindade, o seu percurso na faculdade, onde cursou direito, os problemas de saúde, o serviço militar na I Guerra Mundial, a morte do pai, o exercício da advocacia, e, sobretudo, uma relação amorosa com uma mulher casada, Jane, num triângulo amoroso, com consentimento e incentivo, do marido e seu amigo Harrison Mack , que se pode resumir no diálogo que se transcreve; ”(…) – O Harrison tem muita admiração por ti, e eu também. Não vemos por que razão uma mulher não pode fazer amor com uma pessoa de quem goste muito, só por prazer, sem uma quantidade de complicações. E tu?.
- Claro que não – disse eu rapidamente.
- Era o que achávamos – disse ela. (…) – O Harrison e eu amamo-nos completamente – (…) – Tanto que nenhum de nós poderia alguma vez ter ciúmes. Se pensaste por um minuto que fosse que eu não o amava por causa do que fiz, morreria” (Pág. 45); é, mais ou menos, neste registo que a narrativa avança, com muitas interrogações, ”uma pessoa pode ou não divorciar o amor da copulação?" ou "uma pessoa pode ou não amar várias pessoas de uma vez só?".
John Barth escreve o romance a ”Ópera Flutuante” como um fluxo de consciência na primeira pessoa de Todd Andrews, em forma de livro, ele que estava apenas habituado a escrever ofícios judiciais e à redacção do Inquérito; mas com a certeza de que (…) uma vez quebrado gelo, as páginas fluirão com toda a facilidade, pois não sou pessoa reservada por natureza e o problema, depois, será cingir-me à história e, finalmente, calar-me.”.
Numa conclusão resumida admiravelmente no Inquérito - Todd Andrews – sintetiza:
Primeiro:
I Nada tem valor intrínseco.
II As razões pelas quais as pessoas atribuem valor às coisas são sempre, em última análise, irracionais.
III Não há, por isso, uma “razão” suprema para valorizar nada. ;
Mais tarde altera a proposição III para:
III Não existe, por isso, uma “razão” suprema para valorizar nada. ;
Aditando mais duas proposições:
IV Viver é acção. Não há uma proposição final para a ação.
V Não há razão final para viver.
No entanto, o Inquérito não estava ainda fechado.
Acrescentando-lhe um parêntesis à quinta proposição:
V Não há razão final para viver (nem para o suicídio).
Ópera Flutuante” é um romance fascinante, simultaneamente, divertido e inventivo, com uma escrita subtil e irónica.
July 3, 2024
The test of one’s principles is his willingness to suffer for them, and the test of this willingness — the only test — is actual suffering.Despite the above quotation that I've turned into an epigraph, this was truly delightful (in the vein of our old friend Nathan NR Gaddis—where art thou, sir, and wherefore?—who might employ that term, on rare occasion, to award us for a job particularly well done, reviewing-wise) from start to (almost, you'll see) finish.
That this is a first novel by a 24-year-old may be true, but is almost impossible to detect. Witty, playful, light-of-touch, and even, despite itself, perhaps, warm (with nary a sentence out of place!), this was a most welcome change of pace to the earnestness-on-parade of my recent readings in the 1790s. Not that this is un-earnest, exactly. Read it, you'll see.
My heart, reader! My heart! You must comprehend quickly, if you are to comprehend at all, that those masks were not assumed to hide my face, but to hide my heart from my mind, and my mind from my heart. Understand it now, because I may not live to end the chapter! To be sure, each mask hid other things as well, as a false face hides identity and personality as well as nose and mouth; but it was to hide my enigmatic heart that I became a rake, a saint, and then a cynic.
January 3, 2015
Faccio una premessa: commentare questo libro è molto difficile, qualunque cosa scriverò se ne potrebbero scrivere migliaia di altre, quindi sempre una visione incompleta ne darò, per cui consiglio di leggerlo per chi ne fosse incuriosito. Per leggerlo sappiate che occorre armarsi di molta pazienza.
Avrei potuto liquidarlo con due parole: a me della vita dell’avvocato Todd Andrews non me ne frega niente, Todd Andrews e la cricca dei suoi amici mi stanno tutti sulle scatole, non ho provato un briciolo di simpatia per loro dalla prima pagina fino all’ultima. Che me ne può fregare di un uomo che ha provato solo cinque emozioni forti nella sua vita, per il resto tutto lo incuriosisce ma nulla entusiasma, uno che va a letto, senza amarla, con la moglie del suo migliore amico il quale non solo è consenziente ma contento di questo menage a trois, uno che prende ogni decisione, importante e non, in modo casuale, lanciando monetine in aria, e la cui descrizione della giornata campale della sua vita è continuamente intervallata da divagazioni sui temi più disparati quali la pesca delle ostriche, le guerre insanguinate tra madre e figlio per spartirsi l’eredità di un vecchio arricchitosi con la vendita dei sottaceti, le notti in bianco riempite dall’alcool e da amplessi sotto la doccia di cui ogni ricordo svanisce all’alba o l’accoppiamento di cani per strada?
Allora perché leggere un libro che racconta del giorno del 1937 in cui Todd Andrews decise di operare un cambiamento radicale nella sua vita annientandosi?
Perché entrare in questo romanzo è come entrare in un universo parallelo, fatto di mille e mille estrosità; perché è un’opera immensa, impossibile da catalogare: c’è un romanzo di formazione, c’è un romanzo filosofico, dal momento che Todd giungerà infine alla personale conclusione sul senso della vita e della morte (cioè che non hanno alcun senso, lo stesso Barth lo definisce “un romanzo nichilista”), ci sono espliciti richiami alla letteratura americana delle origini, ad esempio un evidente riferimento alle pagine di Huckleberry Finn (L’Opera galleggiante è uno showboat che naviga sulle acque tranquille della costa orientale degli Stati Uniti, in cui si esibiscono cantanti, ballerine ed attori che recitano Shakespeare), c’è anche una breve storia della musica Usa con l’elencazione di motivetti country che ricordano cow boy e giovani fanciulle lanciati in danze intorno al fuoco (Barth è stato studioso di musica e musicista Jazz), ci sono evidenti echi della letteratura europea di inizio novecento sul tema delle maschere che si indossano per nascondere il nulla che sta sotto, c’è il racconto caustico della gaudente borghesia americana d’inizio secolo, uscita dalla Grande Depressione con più voglia di spensieratezza e di eccessi, sempre con l’occhio diretto verso il dio denaro. E’ un romanzo che può paragonarsi ad una costruzione barocca, ricchissimo di elementi decorativi artistici che si incurvano, ritornano su sé stessi, si intrecciano creando bellissimi motivi che rischiano di formare dei labirinti in cui perdersi. Ecco, il limite del romanzo è questo, il pericolo di perdersi nel "troppo", nel profluvio dei temi presenti nell'opera come nella verbosità eccessiva dello scrittore -anche lui un funambolo della parola-, che rischia di stancare il lettore e che lo mette a dura prova. Altra cosa che ho gradito poco è il rivolgersi direttamente al lettore, soprattutto nelle prime pagine, con un tono confidenziale e amichevole, come se si fosse amici tra noi. Trattasi di una captatio benevolentiae irritante, seppur poi gli si perdoni (quasi) tutto leggendo pagine di una scrittura limpida e sublime. In conclusione, visto che questo romanzo fu scritto da Barth a 24 anni, non posso che dire che trattasi di –parafrasando il titolo di un altro romanzo- “l’opera galleggiante di un formidabile genio”.
Avrei potuto liquidarlo con due parole: a me della vita dell’avvocato Todd Andrews non me ne frega niente, Todd Andrews e la cricca dei suoi amici mi stanno tutti sulle scatole, non ho provato un briciolo di simpatia per loro dalla prima pagina fino all’ultima. Che me ne può fregare di un uomo che ha provato solo cinque emozioni forti nella sua vita, per il resto tutto lo incuriosisce ma nulla entusiasma, uno che va a letto, senza amarla, con la moglie del suo migliore amico il quale non solo è consenziente ma contento di questo menage a trois, uno che prende ogni decisione, importante e non, in modo casuale, lanciando monetine in aria, e la cui descrizione della giornata campale della sua vita è continuamente intervallata da divagazioni sui temi più disparati quali la pesca delle ostriche, le guerre insanguinate tra madre e figlio per spartirsi l’eredità di un vecchio arricchitosi con la vendita dei sottaceti, le notti in bianco riempite dall’alcool e da amplessi sotto la doccia di cui ogni ricordo svanisce all’alba o l’accoppiamento di cani per strada?
Allora perché leggere un libro che racconta del giorno del 1937 in cui Todd Andrews decise di operare un cambiamento radicale nella sua vita annientandosi?
Perché entrare in questo romanzo è come entrare in un universo parallelo, fatto di mille e mille estrosità; perché è un’opera immensa, impossibile da catalogare: c’è un romanzo di formazione, c’è un romanzo filosofico, dal momento che Todd giungerà infine alla personale conclusione sul senso della vita e della morte (cioè che non hanno alcun senso, lo stesso Barth lo definisce “un romanzo nichilista”), ci sono espliciti richiami alla letteratura americana delle origini, ad esempio un evidente riferimento alle pagine di Huckleberry Finn (L’Opera galleggiante è uno showboat che naviga sulle acque tranquille della costa orientale degli Stati Uniti, in cui si esibiscono cantanti, ballerine ed attori che recitano Shakespeare), c’è anche una breve storia della musica Usa con l’elencazione di motivetti country che ricordano cow boy e giovani fanciulle lanciati in danze intorno al fuoco (Barth è stato studioso di musica e musicista Jazz), ci sono evidenti echi della letteratura europea di inizio novecento sul tema delle maschere che si indossano per nascondere il nulla che sta sotto, c’è il racconto caustico della gaudente borghesia americana d’inizio secolo, uscita dalla Grande Depressione con più voglia di spensieratezza e di eccessi, sempre con l’occhio diretto verso il dio denaro. E’ un romanzo che può paragonarsi ad una costruzione barocca, ricchissimo di elementi decorativi artistici che si incurvano, ritornano su sé stessi, si intrecciano creando bellissimi motivi che rischiano di formare dei labirinti in cui perdersi. Ecco, il limite del romanzo è questo, il pericolo di perdersi nel "troppo", nel profluvio dei temi presenti nell'opera come nella verbosità eccessiva dello scrittore -anche lui un funambolo della parola-, che rischia di stancare il lettore e che lo mette a dura prova. Altra cosa che ho gradito poco è il rivolgersi direttamente al lettore, soprattutto nelle prime pagine, con un tono confidenziale e amichevole, come se si fosse amici tra noi. Trattasi di una captatio benevolentiae irritante, seppur poi gli si perdoni (quasi) tutto leggendo pagine di una scrittura limpida e sublime. In conclusione, visto che questo romanzo fu scritto da Barth a 24 anni, non posso che dire che trattasi di –parafrasando il titolo di un altro romanzo- “l’opera galleggiante di un formidabile genio”.
March 26, 2018
Senryu Review:
A comic Camus:
Barth Chesapeakeaboos from
the unknown to known.
A comic Camus:
Barth Chesapeakeaboos from
the unknown to known.
May 26, 2014
This book was written in 1955 when the author was only 24 years old. It has a air of mystery in it because the edition I got says that it contains the complete text of the novel, including the passages deleted in the previous editions and the original and correct ending to the story which was changed as a condition of the book's first publication. I'm afraid I will never get to find out what these deleted passages were and the altered ending.
Another apt title to this novel would have been "Todd Andrews Decides to Die". But "The Floating Opera" is perfect. The narrator, the main protagonist Todd Andrews, explains that the reader would feel like he's sitting on a riverbank, and a showboat with an opera being staged aboard would pass by every now and then, and he would catch snippets of the show as the boat passes by, and if he sits there long enough he would be able to see every part of the opera, connect them into a coherent whole, and understand the story. At times, it did feel that the novel did not have any plot at all, like an anthology of magazine articles the author wrote about different subjects and at different times, but in the end, after the dots are connected, everything made sense.
Todd Andrews is a lawyer. His mother died when he was little and his father, also a lawyer, hanged himself after losing everything in a stock market crash. With a heart ailment and a prostate infection Todd Andrews lives each day with constant awareness of his mortality yet this does not prevent him from doing things that can give one a heart attack, like having sex [and a long standing affair] with the beautiful wife of his best friend [with the latter's consent, as the couple planned the menage a trois for kicks]. The wife gets pregnant, gave birth to a baby girl, most likely sired by Todd Andrews. But it was not a problem to the couple.
The novel was written in a humorous tone but it has a serious subject: life itself, and its possible meaning. With his project he named "Inquiry" [later revealed to be an inquiry into the reason for his father's suicide] Todd Andrews inevitably looked at his own life and then one day, after a hard and long philosophical refelction, he decided to kill himself too.
Since he is the novel's narrator, however, it was obvious that he didn't die and went on to write the book [his style of narration is like he is talking to the reader while he writes the book]. Well, he didn't commit suicide. Why? He didn't kill himself FOR THE SAME REASON he decided to commit suicide in the first place!
This is a brilliant book and I would have rated it 5 stars. Why didn't I? For the same reason that I didn't give it just 3 stars. He, he.
Another apt title to this novel would have been "Todd Andrews Decides to Die". But "The Floating Opera" is perfect. The narrator, the main protagonist Todd Andrews, explains that the reader would feel like he's sitting on a riverbank, and a showboat with an opera being staged aboard would pass by every now and then, and he would catch snippets of the show as the boat passes by, and if he sits there long enough he would be able to see every part of the opera, connect them into a coherent whole, and understand the story. At times, it did feel that the novel did not have any plot at all, like an anthology of magazine articles the author wrote about different subjects and at different times, but in the end, after the dots are connected, everything made sense.
Todd Andrews is a lawyer. His mother died when he was little and his father, also a lawyer, hanged himself after losing everything in a stock market crash. With a heart ailment and a prostate infection Todd Andrews lives each day with constant awareness of his mortality yet this does not prevent him from doing things that can give one a heart attack, like having sex [and a long standing affair] with the beautiful wife of his best friend [with the latter's consent, as the couple planned the menage a trois for kicks]. The wife gets pregnant, gave birth to a baby girl, most likely sired by Todd Andrews. But it was not a problem to the couple.
The novel was written in a humorous tone but it has a serious subject: life itself, and its possible meaning. With his project he named "Inquiry" [later revealed to be an inquiry into the reason for his father's suicide] Todd Andrews inevitably looked at his own life and then one day, after a hard and long philosophical refelction, he decided to kill himself too.
Since he is the novel's narrator, however, it was obvious that he didn't die and went on to write the book [his style of narration is like he is talking to the reader while he writes the book]. Well, he didn't commit suicide. Why? He didn't kill himself FOR THE SAME REASON he decided to commit suicide in the first place!
This is a brilliant book and I would have rated it 5 stars. Why didn't I? For the same reason that I didn't give it just 3 stars. He, he.
January 31, 2012
Some books give answers, others cause questions. John Barth’s novel, THE FLOATING OPERA, does both. Told in the first person, with times of direct conversation with the reader, this piece of meta-fiction is pure enjoyment. The novel tells of the morning when Todd Andrews awakens and has decided that suicide is the answer he’s looking for. But since he tells the story, the reader instantly knows Todd never goes through with his wicked plan. Why? The answer lies within the novel, but don’t get your hopes up for a life-altering explanation. Barth seems to know that sometimes the best answers are the ones we don’t completely understand.
HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION POSSIBLE
HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION POSSIBLE
May 21, 2023
Unique. Unsettling. Thought-provoking. This novel-length analysis of Hamlet’s famous question about whether to live is told from the perspective of a son, Todd Andrews, whose mother died when he was a child and whose father later committed suicide—a son who is a WWI veteran traumatized by a killing he carried out, who is a 54-year-old bachelor, who has had sex 673 times with his friend’s wife, who is a lawyer without interest in the law, who has a cardiac condition that could end his life at any minute, and who believes “that absolutely nothing has intrinsic value … that things like money, honesty, strength, love, information, wisdom, even life, are not valuable in themselves.”
“A simple fact—that there are no ultimate reasons—and how chilling!”
“So, I begin each day with a gesture of cynicism, and close it with a gesture of faith; or, if you prefer, begin it by reminding myself that, for me at least, goals and objectives are without value, and close it by demonstrating that the fact is irrelevant.”
What the novel does is lampoon the idea that culture and civilization set apart homo sapiens from other species in any meaningful way. The argument, supported with the narrator’s observations about basic emotional responses (e.g., fear) and biological processes (e.g., mating), is that humans are merely animals. Period. And like all animals, humankind is only temporarily occupying space in an irrational universe, the narrator opines.
“I never expect very much from myself or my fellow animals. I almost never characterize people in a word or phrase, and rarely pass judgment on them at all.”
“The truth is that nothing makes any difference, including the truth. Hamlet’s question is, absolutely, meaningless.”
Other Quotes to Remember:
“If you want to make sense, I’ve learned, you should never use the word should or ought until after you’ve used the word if.”
“A good habit to acquire, if you are interested in disciplining your strength, is the habit of habit breaking.”
“I think it’s silly to talk about what a man’s attitude should be, toward a thing like old age and death.”
“Everything, I’m afraid, is significant, and nothing is finally important.”
On life as a floating opera: “I needn’t explain that that’s how much of life works: our friends float past; we become involved with them; they float on, and we must rely on hearsay or lose track of them completely; they float back again, and we either renew our friendship—catch up to date—or find that they and we don’t comprehend each other any more.”
“A simple fact—that there are no ultimate reasons—and how chilling!”
“So, I begin each day with a gesture of cynicism, and close it with a gesture of faith; or, if you prefer, begin it by reminding myself that, for me at least, goals and objectives are without value, and close it by demonstrating that the fact is irrelevant.”
What the novel does is lampoon the idea that culture and civilization set apart homo sapiens from other species in any meaningful way. The argument, supported with the narrator’s observations about basic emotional responses (e.g., fear) and biological processes (e.g., mating), is that humans are merely animals. Period. And like all animals, humankind is only temporarily occupying space in an irrational universe, the narrator opines.
“I never expect very much from myself or my fellow animals. I almost never characterize people in a word or phrase, and rarely pass judgment on them at all.”
“The truth is that nothing makes any difference, including the truth. Hamlet’s question is, absolutely, meaningless.”
Other Quotes to Remember:
“If you want to make sense, I’ve learned, you should never use the word should or ought until after you’ve used the word if.”
“A good habit to acquire, if you are interested in disciplining your strength, is the habit of habit breaking.”
“I think it’s silly to talk about what a man’s attitude should be, toward a thing like old age and death.”
“Everything, I’m afraid, is significant, and nothing is finally important.”
On life as a floating opera: “I needn’t explain that that’s how much of life works: our friends float past; we become involved with them; they float on, and we must rely on hearsay or lose track of them completely; they float back again, and we either renew our friendship—catch up to date—or find that they and we don’t comprehend each other any more.”
September 15, 2019
اگر دیگران (مثلاً، دوستم هریسون مک یا همسرش، جین) فکر میکنند من آدمِ عجیب و غریب و غیرِ قابلِ پیشبینیای هستم، دلیلش این است که اعمال و باورهای من با اصولِ آنها، به فرضِ این که اصولی داشته باشند، سازگاری ندارند؛ اما به شما اطمینان میدهم با اصولِ خودِ من کاملاً سازگارند.
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پرسیدم: پس عدالتِ اجتماعی؟ گفت: رسیدن بهش غیرِ ممکنه، اگه هم برسیم، چیزِ بیخودیه. و در ادامه توضیح داد که انسانها این ارزش را ندارند
که از دستِ استثمارگرانِ سرمایه دارشان نجات داده شوند.
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ما بودیم که واقعاً سنّتِ دانشگاه را عملی کردیم: درست به شیوهی دانشگاههای قدیمیِ آلمان. بیپروا نوشیدیم، به شدت عیاشی کردیم، سخت درس خواندیم و کم خوابیدیم. برای امتحانها سراسیمه و بیبرنامه درس میخواندیم، قهوهی سیاه میخوردیم، سیگار میجویدیم، بنزدرین میخوردیم، کتاب میخواندیم و از همدیگر امتحان میگرفتیم ... هدفِ ما نوشیدنِ بیشترین ویسکی، انجامِ بیشترین فسق و فجورها، کمتر خوابیدن تا حدِ امکان و گرفتنِ بالاترین نمرات بود.
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پرسیدم: پس عدالتِ اجتماعی؟ گفت: رسیدن بهش غیرِ ممکنه، اگه هم برسیم، چیزِ بیخودیه. و در ادامه توضیح داد که انسانها این ارزش را ندارند
که از دستِ استثمارگرانِ سرمایه دارشان نجات داده شوند.
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ما بودیم که واقعاً سنّتِ دانشگاه را عملی کردیم: درست به شیوهی دانشگاههای قدیمیِ آلمان. بیپروا نوشیدیم، به شدت عیاشی کردیم، سخت درس خواندیم و کم خوابیدیم. برای امتحانها سراسیمه و بیبرنامه درس میخواندیم، قهوهی سیاه میخوردیم، سیگار میجویدیم، بنزدرین میخوردیم، کتاب میخواندیم و از همدیگر امتحان میگرفتیم ... هدفِ ما نوشیدنِ بیشترین ویسکی، انجامِ بیشترین فسق و فجورها، کمتر خوابیدن تا حدِ امکان و گرفتنِ بالاترین نمرات بود.
September 24, 2017
Ho letto accelerando (per quanto possibile) l’attività cerebrale perché mi chiedevi di capire rapidamente “ora” - che in quel preciso istante era ormai un inesorabile “allora” - dato che forse non saresti vissuto sino alla fine del capitolo. Allo stesso modo avrei potuto avere lo stesso destino io, no? Mica poco, Barth. Furbacchione. E in fondo, perché prendermi tanto disturbo nel rincorrere i tuoi virtuosismi postmoderni? Lo hai detto tu, o meglio, lo ha detto Todd: “Questa è l’enorme domanda, nelle sue mille forme oziose”. Scimmiotto io: Avendo osservato la prima di copertina de L’Opera galleggiante, potrò guardare anche la quarta? Avendone iniziato la lettura, riuscirò a finirla? Se Todd perderà il filo del racconto, lo troverò? Avendo fatto aaa-, farò anche -hhh? Se mi porrò domande, mi risponderò? Incarichi Todd di raccontare la sua lunga giornata e io penso a Joyce e al suo Ulisse; gli fai affermare “Le differenze di grado conducono a differenze di genere” e io penso a Darwin. Così inizio a prendere il largo. Anch’io. Vedi? Siamo esseri divaganti, instabili, galleggianti. Appunto. Sono scesa dall’Opera galleggiante e mi pare che la terra non sia così ferma. Anzi mi sembra che ondeggi sensibilmente. Barth, in quarta di copertina leggo che L’Opera galleggiante è carica di spirito nichilista e humor nero, di critica di costume e spunti metanarrativi. A Todd hai fatto dire che in sostanza non c’è nessuna “ragione” ultima per attribuire un valore ad alcunché. In mezzo c’è tanto altro. Sommerso dalla voglia di dimostrare la tua grande destrezza con le parole. E questo mi spiace. “Sono il genio del postmoderno. Sapevatelo!” fa a cazzotti col cinico nichilismo. Ma come dicevo prima, siamo esseri divaganti, instabili, galleggianti. Nulla più. Viviamo e moriamo a rate. O a puntate. O a capitoli.
Ciao, Barth!
Ciao, Barth!
March 27, 2017
If nothing is of intrinsic value, as argues Opera protagonist Andrews, then this review is worthless. I could just as easily describe my shoes to you. Or perhaps last night’s dinner of vegetarian tacos tickles you more? By all means this is a worthwhile book, despite the fact that it too is intrinsically valueless. But then there are also all those other books that purport their own significance; they must be have a basic value, no? All of your JoyceCervantesBeckettPynchonGaddisShakespeareWoolfian high-brow letters, huffed and puffed about by the hoi polloi? Meh, mere kindling. Wordwood.
So why do we fight on, read on? I suppose in the absence of a high-caliber carbine rifle and a bell tower, it does help one to pass the time. I recommend The Floating Opera to all, like me, that contend that trifles can be delicious substitutes for (soy)meatier fare at times (though, of course, still of no intrinsic value). Accumulate enough of them and not only will you find yourself full, you may accidentally carve something out of the Void without even noticing.
So why do we fight on, read on? I suppose in the absence of a high-caliber carbine rifle and a bell tower, it does help one to pass the time. I recommend The Floating Opera to all, like me, that contend that trifles can be delicious substitutes for (soy)meatier fare at times (though, of course, still of no intrinsic value). Accumulate enough of them and not only will you find yourself full, you may accidentally carve something out of the Void without even noticing.
October 16, 2020
Questo fila diretto fra i miei preferiti di sempre, senza fiatare.
L'Opera Galleggiante di John Barth è un capolavoro. Non ho la minima ombra di dubbio su questo. Anche soltanto l'impatto che ha avuto sulla letteratura che lo ha seguito sarebbe sufficiente a onorarlo con questo termine spesso usato a sproposito.
Questo libro non solo è l'opera di un geniale autore (al tempo ventiseienne, porcocane!), non solo è una bandiera che segna l'inizio della letteratura postmoderna, è molto di più.
Si tratta di un'opera estremamente divertente, spesso caustica, che stimola riflessioni gigantesche senza farci avvertire il loro peso.
Sperimentale senza mai essere incomprensibile, lucido senza mai eccedere nel didascalico.
E' stata una lettura entusiasmante che mi ha travolto in appena tre giorni, non capita spesso.
A che serve parlarvi della trama? Leggetevela sul libro quando ce lo avrete fra le mani, sappiate soltanto che questo è un pezzo di letteratura che ha fatto la storia ma non è invecchiato di un solo giorno.
L'Opera Galleggiante di John Barth è un capolavoro. Non ho la minima ombra di dubbio su questo. Anche soltanto l'impatto che ha avuto sulla letteratura che lo ha seguito sarebbe sufficiente a onorarlo con questo termine spesso usato a sproposito.
Questo libro non solo è l'opera di un geniale autore (al tempo ventiseienne, porcocane!), non solo è una bandiera che segna l'inizio della letteratura postmoderna, è molto di più.
Si tratta di un'opera estremamente divertente, spesso caustica, che stimola riflessioni gigantesche senza farci avvertire il loro peso.
Sperimentale senza mai essere incomprensibile, lucido senza mai eccedere nel didascalico.
E' stata una lettura entusiasmante che mi ha travolto in appena tre giorni, non capita spesso.
A che serve parlarvi della trama? Leggetevela sul libro quando ce lo avrete fra le mani, sappiate soltanto che questo è un pezzo di letteratura che ha fatto la storia ma non è invecchiato di un solo giorno.
July 23, 2016
این کتاب بیش از هر چیزی مواجهه با پوچی است. اما راوی و یا نویسنده به شیوهای جذاب خواننده را با این موضوع روبهرو میکند که توی دنیا هیچ چیزی ارزش ذاتی ندارد. نه اینکه گمان کنید این کتاب قرار است کلاس فلسفه باشد! در واقع داستانگویی بخش مهم دیگری از اپرای شناور است و راوی آنقدر در این امر تردست و ماهر است که نمیفهمید کتاب سیصد صفحهایتان کی تمام شد.
پست مدرن بودن کتاب و استعاری بودن عنوانش حتا روزنهی دیگری است برای فکر کردن بیشتر خواننده و فرورفتن در سوالات بیشماری دربارهی هستیِ خودش.
شاید بیراه نباشد که این کتاب را با سلاخخانهی شماره پنج مقایسه کرد و در نهایت گفت که رمانی است با ساختاری منسجم و زبانی روان.
پست مدرن بودن کتاب و استعاری بودن عنوانش حتا روزنهی دیگری است برای فکر کردن بیشتر خواننده و فرورفتن در سوالات بیشماری دربارهی هستیِ خودش.
شاید بیراه نباشد که این کتاب را با سلاخخانهی شماره پنج مقایسه کرد و در نهایت گفت که رمانی است با ساختاری منسجم و زبانی روان.
July 23, 2015
la prosa galleggiante
Todd è un tipo un po' strano
che un giorno prende una decisione
qui ci racconta di quel giorno
quello in cui, se avesse dato seguito alla sua decisione,
si sarebbe suicidato
la storia si srotola davanti agli occhi del lettore
è tutta racchiusa in una giornata:
epocale, ma allo stesso tempo
una giornata qualunque per Todd e per i suoi amici
la prosa è lieve e contorta insieme
le divagazioni sono parte del suo fascino
e leggere significa accettare implicitamente di entrare nel circo galleggiante della testa di Todd...
Todd è un tipo un po' strano
che un giorno prende una decisione
qui ci racconta di quel giorno
quello in cui, se avesse dato seguito alla sua decisione,
si sarebbe suicidato
la storia si srotola davanti agli occhi del lettore
è tutta racchiusa in una giornata:
epocale, ma allo stesso tempo
una giornata qualunque per Todd e per i suoi amici
la prosa è lieve e contorta insieme
le divagazioni sono parte del suo fascino
e leggere significa accettare implicitamente di entrare nel circo galleggiante della testa di Todd...
June 7, 2020
اپرای شناور داستان کشتی تفریحیست که در حال حرکت در رودخانه مشغول اجرای اپراست. تماشاگران در کنار رود ایستادهاند و هر شنونده، مخاطبِ بخشی از اپراست، کشتی میرود و برای هیچکس مجالی جهت شنیدن کامل اپرا وجود نخواهد داشت. اپرای شناور بخشی از زندگی تاد اندروز مردی پنجاه و چند ساله ست که برای مخاطب تعریف میشود، انگار این زندگی مثل همان کشتی شناور است، بخشهایی از آن را میشنویم، بخشهایی که بعضیوقتها مستقل از قسمتهای بعد هستند و بعضی وقتها پیوسته، بعضی قسمتها درخشان هستند و بعضی قسمتها ملالآور، کشتی آنقدر سریع حرکت میکند که فرصت هضم کردن اتفاقات را نداریم. ایستادهایم و بچگی تا بزرگسالی تاد را مرور میکنیم، طنز تلخ نویسنده ما را همراهی میکند، زندگی او را میبینیم، از مرگ پدر تا تلاش برای کشف حقیقت، از برخورد پسری نوجوان با سکس تا روابط درهم و برهم بزرگسالی، از عشق تا رهایی، از جنگ، بیماری، کار و انتظار برای مرگ تا مجاب شدن برای خودکشی. اپرای شناور منِ مخاطب را گیج کرده و بلاتکلیف نگه داشته است، تاد که بود؟ چطور بود؟ خوشبخت بود؟ مردد بود؟ با انگیزه بود؟ سرخورده بود؟ دوست داشتنی بود؟ نفرتانگیز بود؟
کتاب فرصت فکر کردن به من نداده است، کتاب را که تمام میکنم تصمیم میگیرم که برگردم و دوباره بخوانم اما بعد مجاب میشوم که لازم نیست، لازم نیست پیچیدگیهای تاد را تفسیر و توجیه کنم. زندگی تاد هم مثل زندگی تک تک آدمهاست، تاد مجموعهای از تمام خصوصیات است، احساسات ضد و نقیض، حرکتهای ضد و نقیض. تاد نمونهای از انسان امروزیست، انسانی که سالها در جستجوی حقیقت تحقیق میکند، می نویسد و میخواند و به جزئیات وارد میشود و در آخر بدون نتیجه و سر خورده دلیلی برای زنده بودن پیدا نمیکند و به این نتیجه میرسد که هیچ چیز ارزش ذاتی ندارد، حتی حقیقت. او زمین و زمان را به کار میگیرد تا خود و مخاطب را مجاب کند که در نبود منطقی برای زندگی باید مرگ انتخاب شود اما در آخر به این نتیجه میرسد که برای مرگ هم باید دلیلی داشت. برای من این کتاب نقدیست به بزرگپنداری ما آدمها، ما که خود را قوی، یابنده، تاثیرگذار و پیش برنده میدانیم و سالها وقت و انرژی لازم داریم که بدانیم هیچ چیز نیستیم، مثل برگی بر درخت روزی جوانه خواهیم زد، اطراف را خواهیم دید، شب و روز و گرمی و سردی روزگار را خواهیم چشید و در آخر روزی فرو خواهیم افتاد. اینکه چه روزی و به چه شکلی و به چه دلیلی باشیم یا نباشیم مهم نیست. برای بودن یا نبودن دنبال دلیل گشتن بیهودهست باید زندگی کرد.
کتاب فرصت فکر کردن به من نداده است، کتاب را که تمام میکنم تصمیم میگیرم که برگردم و دوباره بخوانم اما بعد مجاب میشوم که لازم نیست، لازم نیست پیچیدگیهای تاد را تفسیر و توجیه کنم. زندگی تاد هم مثل زندگی تک تک آدمهاست، تاد مجموعهای از تمام خصوصیات است، احساسات ضد و نقیض، حرکتهای ضد و نقیض. تاد نمونهای از انسان امروزیست، انسانی که سالها در جستجوی حقیقت تحقیق میکند، می نویسد و میخواند و به جزئیات وارد میشود و در آخر بدون نتیجه و سر خورده دلیلی برای زنده بودن پیدا نمیکند و به این نتیجه میرسد که هیچ چیز ارزش ذاتی ندارد، حتی حقیقت. او زمین و زمان را به کار میگیرد تا خود و مخاطب را مجاب کند که در نبود منطقی برای زندگی باید مرگ انتخاب شود اما در آخر به این نتیجه میرسد که برای مرگ هم باید دلیلی داشت. برای من این کتاب نقدیست به بزرگپنداری ما آدمها، ما که خود را قوی، یابنده، تاثیرگذار و پیش برنده میدانیم و سالها وقت و انرژی لازم داریم که بدانیم هیچ چیز نیستیم، مثل برگی بر درخت روزی جوانه خواهیم زد، اطراف را خواهیم دید، شب و روز و گرمی و سردی روزگار را خواهیم چشید و در آخر روزی فرو خواهیم افتاد. اینکه چه روزی و به چه شکلی و به چه دلیلی باشیم یا نباشیم مهم نیست. برای بودن یا نبودن دنبال دلیل گشتن بیهودهست باید زندگی کرد.
March 16, 2016
I was eighteen, I think, when I first read Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus and I remember even now the long debate I had with my friends around the allegation (that I loosely translate as follows) “To commit suicide is to acknowledge that life is not worth living.” Well, it was weird in a nostalgic way to hear some of our arguments (especially the question whether there is really a meaning of life) rephrased by Todd Andrews, the main character of John Barth’s Floating Opera. Although not-so-weird considering that the author was only 24 when he wrote his novel, so he was not likely to have already been cured of that same enthusiastic nihilism and same fascination with the dark side of the existentialism me and my friends (together with many a enough-read young adult) were suffering from.
The Floating Opera recalls the most important day in the life of Todd Andrews, as he remembers it more than a decade later – the day he decided to commit suicide but lived to tell the story (and no, this is not a spoiler, the reader realizes pretty early in the story that the narrator is not a voice beyond the grave ☺). The tale is built not only to prove the rightness of this decision but also to un-prove it, in order to stress the lack of importance of either. The way of a cynical existentialist and/ or a nihilist? Fragments of Todd’s past and present float to and fro before our eyes to enforce the narrator’s belief that life is nothing but a stupid, senseless joke, a grotesque maze with no minotaur but no exit nonetheless. All his life, he realizes, he felt strongly only five emotions, each one the result of inglorious, often comically pathetical events: he learnt mirth by discovering the ridiculous posture the mirror was showing him during his first sexual experience (thus involuntarily humiliating his partner); he learnt fear in the war (thus cowardly killing a man whom he thought for a while his soul had lain with); he learnt frustration at the suicide of his father (whose body he had to unhang); he learnt surprise when the wife of his friend offered herself to him (and who became his mistress with the blessing of her husband); and he learned despair when he had the epiphany of all the truth contained in Camus’s phrase (the night before his planned suicide).
The voice telling us all this alternates sarcasm with “negative philosophy” as rightly observes Orville Prescott, in his New York Times’ cutting review , although he considers this oscillation a flaw, and he reproaches the author of having artificially reunited two books – a farce (in which “faults outweigh humor”) and a meditation (in which “the philosophical disquisition” is reasonable and intelligent), so different that they seem even written by two different authors.
However, I beg to differ. The Floating Opera may have some faults (minor, in fact, and due mainly to the enthusiasm of a young novelist who is sometimes showing) but the lack of structural unity is not one of them. On the contrary, the coherence of the narrative is one of the things I liked most. But it is also true that I have perceived his “opera” neither as a farce nor a philosophy, but mainly as a metatextual novel masquerading as a realistic one, for its main theme, as the title subtly reveals, concerns the complicated relationship between the creator and his art. In fact, all the meanings of the title, explicit and implicit, point out to this very theme.
Even before the book starts, that is in his Foreword to Doubleday Anchor Edition, the author discloses that the title was inspired by a picture of Captain James Adams’s Original Floating Theater he found while poring over the photographer A. Aubrey Bodine’s albums of Marylandia, and which gave him the idea to write an allegory in the form of a minstrel show. The narrator, who writes a novel too, with the same name, supports this explanation by stating that the title of his novel is inspired by the name of a showboat he saw in 1937 travelling in Virginia and Maryland area: Adam’s Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera. To this explanation he offers a second one that deepens the signification: he reveals that his dream was to build a forever drifting showboat with a single open deck where shows be played continually for an audience on the shore who would see only that part of the show the tide would bring in when the boat floated past. A strong metaphor for his narrative:
May I remind that the showboat is also the hosting place for the aborted climax of the rising action? It is the place that gathers for the last time the characters of the story, ready to be blown up either by their friend, the 37-year-old Todd who had discovered that “there’s no final reason for living”, or by their creator, the 50-year-old Todd who had discovered the same about the death and who let them escape this fate just of this equally ultimate truth, that “there is no more justification for suicide than for going on living”.
And it is always the showboat image that unfolds the final meaning of this so clever novel, a third way to escape the existentialist dilemma: to give an infinite dimension to this lack of reason of living by transforming it in the never-ending tale of the creation – a floating opera above and beyond mere life, above and beyond that ephemerality of the human condition that bothered Todd for so long:
The Floating Opera recalls the most important day in the life of Todd Andrews, as he remembers it more than a decade later – the day he decided to commit suicide but lived to tell the story (and no, this is not a spoiler, the reader realizes pretty early in the story that the narrator is not a voice beyond the grave ☺). The tale is built not only to prove the rightness of this decision but also to un-prove it, in order to stress the lack of importance of either. The way of a cynical existentialist and/ or a nihilist? Fragments of Todd’s past and present float to and fro before our eyes to enforce the narrator’s belief that life is nothing but a stupid, senseless joke, a grotesque maze with no minotaur but no exit nonetheless. All his life, he realizes, he felt strongly only five emotions, each one the result of inglorious, often comically pathetical events: he learnt mirth by discovering the ridiculous posture the mirror was showing him during his first sexual experience (thus involuntarily humiliating his partner); he learnt fear in the war (thus cowardly killing a man whom he thought for a while his soul had lain with); he learnt frustration at the suicide of his father (whose body he had to unhang); he learnt surprise when the wife of his friend offered herself to him (and who became his mistress with the blessing of her husband); and he learned despair when he had the epiphany of all the truth contained in Camus’s phrase (the night before his planned suicide).
The voice telling us all this alternates sarcasm with “negative philosophy” as rightly observes Orville Prescott, in his New York Times’ cutting review , although he considers this oscillation a flaw, and he reproaches the author of having artificially reunited two books – a farce (in which “faults outweigh humor”) and a meditation (in which “the philosophical disquisition” is reasonable and intelligent), so different that they seem even written by two different authors.
However, I beg to differ. The Floating Opera may have some faults (minor, in fact, and due mainly to the enthusiasm of a young novelist who is sometimes showing) but the lack of structural unity is not one of them. On the contrary, the coherence of the narrative is one of the things I liked most. But it is also true that I have perceived his “opera” neither as a farce nor a philosophy, but mainly as a metatextual novel masquerading as a realistic one, for its main theme, as the title subtly reveals, concerns the complicated relationship between the creator and his art. In fact, all the meanings of the title, explicit and implicit, point out to this very theme.
Even before the book starts, that is in his Foreword to Doubleday Anchor Edition, the author discloses that the title was inspired by a picture of Captain James Adams’s Original Floating Theater he found while poring over the photographer A. Aubrey Bodine’s albums of Marylandia, and which gave him the idea to write an allegory in the form of a minstrel show. The narrator, who writes a novel too, with the same name, supports this explanation by stating that the title of his novel is inspired by the name of a showboat he saw in 1937 travelling in Virginia and Maryland area: Adam’s Original & Unparalleled Floating Opera. To this explanation he offers a second one that deepens the signification: he reveals that his dream was to build a forever drifting showboat with a single open deck where shows be played continually for an audience on the shore who would see only that part of the show the tide would bring in when the boat floated past. A strong metaphor for his narrative:
…that’s how this book will work, I’m sure. It’s a floating opera, friend, fraught with curiosities, melodrama, spectacle, instruction, and entertainment, but it floats willy-nilly on the tide of my vagrant prose: you’ll catch sight of it, lose it, spy it again; and it may require the best efforts of your attention and imagination – together with some patience, if you’re an average fellow – to keep track of the plot as it sails in and out of view.
May I remind that the showboat is also the hosting place for the aborted climax of the rising action? It is the place that gathers for the last time the characters of the story, ready to be blown up either by their friend, the 37-year-old Todd who had discovered that “there’s no final reason for living”, or by their creator, the 50-year-old Todd who had discovered the same about the death and who let them escape this fate just of this equally ultimate truth, that “there is no more justification for suicide than for going on living”.
And it is always the showboat image that unfolds the final meaning of this so clever novel, a third way to escape the existentialist dilemma: to give an infinite dimension to this lack of reason of living by transforming it in the never-ending tale of the creation – a floating opera above and beyond mere life, above and beyond that ephemerality of the human condition that bothered Todd for so long:
I would take a good long careful time, then, to tell Dad the story of The Floating Opera. Perhaps I would expire before ending it; perhaps the task was endless, like its fellows. No matter. Even if I died before ending my cigar, I had all the time there was.
March 6, 2014
This may become a new favorite, the writing is my kind of humor.
How can a book about a fella who decides to off himself be funny or humorous you ask?
Great question my friend, try this out from the second page:
To carry the "meandering stream" conceit a bit further, if I may: it has always seemed to me, in the novels that I've read now and then, that those authors are asking a great deal of their readers who start their stories furiously, in the middle of things, rather than backing or sidling slowly into them.
Such a plunge into someone else's life and world, like a plunge into the Choptank River in mid-March, has, it seems to me, little of pleasure in it. No, come along with me, reader, and don't fear for your weak heart; I've one myself, and know the value of inserting first a toe, then a foot, next a leg, very slowly
your hips and stomach, and finally your whole self into my story, and taking a good long time to do it.
This is, after all, a pleasure-dip I'm inviting you to, not a baptism.
Haha see funny. But Mr. Barth doesnt stop with humor on this floating opera he talks in depth philosophy about the big stuff, and he does it with tact and even entertains. This is a discussion between the protagonist Todd Andrews and an old retired man that lives in the same boarding house. The old man goes around screaming the virtues of old age and how fantastic it is, and it is a bit pretentious so Andrews has a conversation with him.
"It's a question of values," he observed, "and life itself has a value, under any circumstances. There is an absolute value to human life that won't be denied."
"I deny it," I said. Mister Haecker smiled grimly and went to the door. His eyes were still honest; he could do nothing with the fear in them, although he covered the rest of his features with a visionary false-face when he turned at the door and said, "Life, the simple fact of life, is good, young
man. Life has intrinsic value."
I was licking a cigar.
"Nothing has intrinsic value," I remarked, as coolly as though I'd known it for years, when in fact that fundamental notion had just occurred to me, between licks. Mister Haecker closed the door, and I wondered why he'd come to see me; what exactly he'd had on his mind. If it had been some sort of confession, my reaction had driven him behind his masks. No matter: if now in protest against my ideas he actually began to believe his own, that was no concern of mine.
What the old retired fella didnt know was that Andrews had on that day decided to off himself, and this conversation was timely. What becomes of Mr Andrews of the old man, or anyone else? Read the book my friend you will be glad you did.
I loved the writing the characters the subject matter. Mr Barth is a great writer I want to read more by him.
How can a book about a fella who decides to off himself be funny or humorous you ask?
Great question my friend, try this out from the second page:
To carry the "meandering stream" conceit a bit further, if I may: it has always seemed to me, in the novels that I've read now and then, that those authors are asking a great deal of their readers who start their stories furiously, in the middle of things, rather than backing or sidling slowly into them.
Such a plunge into someone else's life and world, like a plunge into the Choptank River in mid-March, has, it seems to me, little of pleasure in it. No, come along with me, reader, and don't fear for your weak heart; I've one myself, and know the value of inserting first a toe, then a foot, next a leg, very slowly
your hips and stomach, and finally your whole self into my story, and taking a good long time to do it.
This is, after all, a pleasure-dip I'm inviting you to, not a baptism.
Haha see funny. But Mr. Barth doesnt stop with humor on this floating opera he talks in depth philosophy about the big stuff, and he does it with tact and even entertains. This is a discussion between the protagonist Todd Andrews and an old retired man that lives in the same boarding house. The old man goes around screaming the virtues of old age and how fantastic it is, and it is a bit pretentious so Andrews has a conversation with him.
"It's a question of values," he observed, "and life itself has a value, under any circumstances. There is an absolute value to human life that won't be denied."
"I deny it," I said. Mister Haecker smiled grimly and went to the door. His eyes were still honest; he could do nothing with the fear in them, although he covered the rest of his features with a visionary false-face when he turned at the door and said, "Life, the simple fact of life, is good, young
man. Life has intrinsic value."
I was licking a cigar.
"Nothing has intrinsic value," I remarked, as coolly as though I'd known it for years, when in fact that fundamental notion had just occurred to me, between licks. Mister Haecker closed the door, and I wondered why he'd come to see me; what exactly he'd had on his mind. If it had been some sort of confession, my reaction had driven him behind his masks. No matter: if now in protest against my ideas he actually began to believe his own, that was no concern of mine.
What the old retired fella didnt know was that Andrews had on that day decided to off himself, and this conversation was timely. What becomes of Mr Andrews of the old man, or anyone else? Read the book my friend you will be glad you did.
I loved the writing the characters the subject matter. Mr Barth is a great writer I want to read more by him.
November 29, 2018
در باب ترجمه:
جناب مترجم برخلاف خیلی از مترجمان امروز که بدون سر و صدا جملات و حتی پاراگراف هایی را از توی متن درآورده و (خود)سانسور می کنند، جملات اجبارا سانسور شده را با آوردن"نقطه چین" مشخص کرده است.
و البته طی مقابله با متن اصلی، باید بگويم که مقدار جملات حذف شده شاید سرجمع به یک صفحه هم نرسد (به زودی ترجمه این بخش ها را همین جا خواهم گذاشت).
و اما ترجمه گاهی بخصوص هنگام فلسفه بافی های راوی، دچار سکته شده و جملات سخت خوان می شوند (و البته توجه داشته باشید که متن این کتاب نسبت به آثار بعدی آقای نویسنده که نسبتا سخت خوان و پرارجاع هستند، مثنی ست ساده و روان).
جناب مترجم برخلاف خیلی از مترجمان امروز که بدون سر و صدا جملات و حتی پاراگراف هایی را از توی متن درآورده و (خود)سانسور می کنند، جملات اجبارا سانسور شده را با آوردن"نقطه چین" مشخص کرده است.
و البته طی مقابله با متن اصلی، باید بگويم که مقدار جملات حذف شده شاید سرجمع به یک صفحه هم نرسد (به زودی ترجمه این بخش ها را همین جا خواهم گذاشت).
و اما ترجمه گاهی بخصوص هنگام فلسفه بافی های راوی، دچار سکته شده و جملات سخت خوان می شوند (و البته توجه داشته باشید که متن این کتاب نسبت به آثار بعدی آقای نویسنده که نسبتا سخت خوان و پرارجاع هستند، مثنی ست ساده و روان).
June 22, 2022
“Ritenetemi senza cuore - magari lo fossi- […].”
Libro pieno. Pieno di riflessioni, pieno di storie, di personaggi e pure di emozioni, malgrado il caro Todd Andrews che si autoproclama cinico e racconta il tutto spalmandoci sopra uno strato bello grosso di black humor e nichilismo.
Ti voglio bene Todd, malgrado il tuo non essere particolarmente simpatico e malgrado anche le parecchie pagine in cui mi sono pure annoiata. Ma le tue riflessioni e il racconto di guerra valgono da sole la lettura.
Libro pieno. Pieno di riflessioni, pieno di storie, di personaggi e pure di emozioni, malgrado il caro Todd Andrews che si autoproclama cinico e racconta il tutto spalmandoci sopra uno strato bello grosso di black humor e nichilismo.
Ti voglio bene Todd, malgrado il tuo non essere particolarmente simpatico e malgrado anche le parecchie pagine in cui mi sono pure annoiata. Ma le tue riflessioni e il racconto di guerra valgono da sole la lettura.
February 21, 2022
He bothers for a while, and then says Why even bother? and lives unbothered.
November 26, 2018
از خواندن کتاب لذتی نبردم,عقاید نویسنده کلیشه ای بود و سبک خاصش برا طرح داستان با قلم قوی ای ساپورت نشده بود..پایان بندی هم چندان مناسب نبود..این کتاب برای من مثل یکی از هزاران شنبه عادی زندگی فراموش میشه,مثل یه پیتزای بد...بنظر من جان بارت هرگز روزی یک شاهکار خلق نخواهد کرد.
حسی که من دارم اینه که ادبیات معاصر هم همگام با مردم جهان به سمت پوچی و سطحی شدن پیش میره.
و طبیعیه که این تیپ اثار روز به روز بیشتر مورد استقبال قرار بگیرند..چرا که خواننده ها فقیر تر شده اند و سطحی تر به هیجان می ایند
حسی که من دارم اینه که ادبیات معاصر هم همگام با مردم جهان به سمت پوچی و سطحی شدن پیش میره.
و طبیعیه که این تیپ اثار روز به روز بیشتر مورد استقبال قرار بگیرند..چرا که خواننده ها فقیر تر شده اند و سطحی تر به هیجان می ایند
October 17, 2014
رماني بسيار فني و سنتشکن که فاصله دو نقطه از زندگي قهرمانش را روايت ميکند، يعني از زماني که قهرمان اثر تصميم به خودکشي ميگيرد تا هنگامي که منصرف ميشود. اما انتخاب زندگي از جانب اين قهرمان نشانه شادي و نشاط نيست. در دنيايي که "بارت" در دهههاي ميانه قرن بيستم آمريکا ميشناسد، آنچه باعث انصراف از خودکشي ميشود، نه زندگي، که پوچي مرگ است.
May 26, 2016
John Barth's first novel is an exploration of nihilism. While displaying little of the wild fancy and meta-play that make later Barth novels so engaging, it's prototypical Barth in its setting (20th Century Chesapeake country) and in its winking humor that floats above an undercurrent of serious ideas. The protagonist, Todd Andrews, is a lawyer in small-town Cambridge, Maryland, living a seemingly quiet workaday life. This calm exterior covers up his extremely nihilist inner life -- an outlook formed by several traumatic events in his past. Essentially, being a nihilist makes you an amoral jerk.
The book has minimal plot, and what there is mostly involves an absurd love triangle, but it's not really about the plot. It's more a humorous novel of ideas and small-town characters. It also bears the oddity of being fully aware of the racial and sexual prejudices of its time, without making much comment upon them.
Though not among Barth's finest (it was his first novel, after all), it's still a good read, humorous, entertaining, and sneakily thoughtful.
The book has minimal plot, and what there is mostly involves an absurd love triangle, but it's not really about the plot. It's more a humorous novel of ideas and small-town characters. It also bears the oddity of being fully aware of the racial and sexual prejudices of its time, without making much comment upon them.
Though not among Barth's finest (it was his first novel, after all), it's still a good read, humorous, entertaining, and sneakily thoughtful.
May 2, 2019
فکر کنم در زبان فارسی غیر از این کتاب رمان دیگری
که بدین وضوح تریسام را موضوع خود کرده باشد
پیدا نشود
وقتی کتاب را به پایان بردم
احساس می کردم تراوشات یک ذهن بیمار را خوانده ام
مالیخولیا و سادیسمی که خواننده را به دنبال خود می کشد
و اصلاً در او حالت انزجار بر نمی انگیزد
با آن پایان غافلگیر کننده و شوک آور
که البته در بطن خود هدفی دارد
این که بفهمی اصلاً برای چه زندگی می کنی
و دیگران برای چه زندگی می کنند
و اصلاً چرا باید زندگی کنند
هر چند این کتاب را بسیار دوست دارم
اما هنوز نمی توانم در کنار برترین های ادبیات قرارش دهم
و نمره پنج به آن بدهم
وگرنه برای من جزو برترین هاست
حسم این است که سهیل سمی می گردد و کتاب هایی با درون مایه های اروتیک برای ترجمه انتخاب می کند
البته این نظر قطعی نیست
ترجمه کتاب هم خوب و روان بود
بر عکس دیگر کتاب هایی که با ترجمه سهیل سمی خوانده بودم و کلافه شده بودم
که بدین وضوح تریسام را موضوع خود کرده باشد
پیدا نشود
وقتی کتاب را به پایان بردم
احساس می کردم تراوشات یک ذهن بیمار را خوانده ام
مالیخولیا و سادیسمی که خواننده را به دنبال خود می کشد
و اصلاً در او حالت انزجار بر نمی انگیزد
با آن پایان غافلگیر کننده و شوک آور
که البته در بطن خود هدفی دارد
این که بفهمی اصلاً برای چه زندگی می کنی
و دیگران برای چه زندگی می کنند
و اصلاً چرا باید زندگی کنند
هر چند این کتاب را بسیار دوست دارم
اما هنوز نمی توانم در کنار برترین های ادبیات قرارش دهم
و نمره پنج به آن بدهم
وگرنه برای من جزو برترین هاست
حسم این است که سهیل سمی می گردد و کتاب هایی با درون مایه های اروتیک برای ترجمه انتخاب می کند
البته این نظر قطعی نیست
ترجمه کتاب هم خوب و روان بود
بر عکس دیگر کتاب هایی که با ترجمه سهیل سمی خوانده بودم و کلافه شده بودم
September 17, 2015
Excellent. He tells you life is a floating opera, stacks the book's chronology so that it is just so, and you love him for it. Heretical as it may be to say this, I enjoyed this one much more than the Sot Weed Factor.
December 12, 2021
Great in places but didn’t hold together so well. When the novel was first published in 1956, Barth had made significant edits (particularly to the ending) to satisfy publishers who thought the book was too nihilistic. In 1967 he revised the book and restored his original ending. I happened to have both editions of the book so was able to compare. My three-star rating is for the revised edition in the blue-cover edition that also includes The End of the Road.
The quirkiness and abstraction made for an enjoyable read in the first half of the book. Barth’s discursiveness worked in some places (war story) but at other times felt like reading the phone book (description of a boat, legal proceedings, the minstrel show that gives the book it’s name.) A few of the characters, particularly the old guys and characters in a racial minority, were written in an over-the-top exaggerated cartoon voice that felt dated and corny. But even so it’s a product of it’s time (1950’s) and the author’s first novel written when he was 24 so I’m willing to charitably look past that at least a little.
I think I would’ve enjoyed reading the originally published version of the book, the one included revisions requested by Barth’s publisher, a little more. From what I noticed comparing the two versions, some of the more tedious passages (e.g. the part with two columns that you’re supposed to try to read simultaneously) are mercifully trimmed down in the book as it was originally published. The 1956 version also features a few bits of dialogue in the Jane/Harrison love triangle story that to me felt pleasant and good but maybe Barth thought they were sentimental so cut them when he republished his preferred version.
The biggest change is to the ending. Without spoiling anything I’ll just say the 1956 version features a little bit of positivity and redemption that Barth chose to edit out because I guess he didn’t want the main character of the book to have any positive qualities. Todd Andrews in the blue-cover version felt, by the end, not endearing or fascinating. His “there’s no rational point for anything” philosophy reminded me of conversations I had on instant messenger in high school.
All that said, I find John Barth interesting especially as one of the big names of American post-modern literature and all the influence on other writers that might entail. It seems like maybe he was a big name a few decades ago but in the 21st century his star has fallen a little bit. Since I already own End of the Road I’ll certainly read that, and maybe eventually Sot Weed Factor and Lost in the Funhouse. Also, I (for some reason?) once recommended this book to somebody without having read it but I think that was the old school version that they bought at Powell’s, not the nihilistic version. If you’re reading this I hope you got the good version.
The quirkiness and abstraction made for an enjoyable read in the first half of the book. Barth’s discursiveness worked in some places (war story) but at other times felt like reading the phone book (description of a boat, legal proceedings, the minstrel show that gives the book it’s name.) A few of the characters, particularly the old guys and characters in a racial minority, were written in an over-the-top exaggerated cartoon voice that felt dated and corny. But even so it’s a product of it’s time (1950’s) and the author’s first novel written when he was 24 so I’m willing to charitably look past that at least a little.
I think I would’ve enjoyed reading the originally published version of the book, the one included revisions requested by Barth’s publisher, a little more. From what I noticed comparing the two versions, some of the more tedious passages (e.g. the part with two columns that you’re supposed to try to read simultaneously) are mercifully trimmed down in the book as it was originally published. The 1956 version also features a few bits of dialogue in the Jane/Harrison love triangle story that to me felt pleasant and good but maybe Barth thought they were sentimental so cut them when he republished his preferred version.
The biggest change is to the ending. Without spoiling anything I’ll just say the 1956 version features a little bit of positivity and redemption that Barth chose to edit out because I guess he didn’t want the main character of the book to have any positive qualities. Todd Andrews in the blue-cover version felt, by the end, not endearing or fascinating. His “there’s no rational point for anything” philosophy reminded me of conversations I had on instant messenger in high school.
All that said, I find John Barth interesting especially as one of the big names of American post-modern literature and all the influence on other writers that might entail. It seems like maybe he was a big name a few decades ago but in the 21st century his star has fallen a little bit. Since I already own End of the Road I’ll certainly read that, and maybe eventually Sot Weed Factor and Lost in the Funhouse. Also, I (for some reason?) once recommended this book to somebody without having read it but I think that was the old school version that they bought at Powell’s, not the nihilistic version. If you’re reading this I hope you got the good version.
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