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Where Three Roads Meet: Novellas
From the acclaimed John Barth comes a lively triad of tales that delight in the many possibilities of language and its users. The first novella, "Tell Me," explores a callow undergraduate's initiation into the mysteries of sex, death, and the Heroic Cycle. The second novella, "I've Been Told," traces no less than the history of storytelling and examines innocence and modernity, ignorance and self-consciousness. And the three elderly sisters of the third novella, "As I Was Saying...," record an oral history of their youthful muse-like services to (and servicings of) a subsequently notorious and now mysteriously vanished novelist. Sexy, humorous, and brimming with Barth's deep intelligence and playful irreverence, Where Three Roads Meet will surely delight loyal fans and draw new ones.
163 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
11 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
About the author
John Barth
76 books800 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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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 11, 2008
John Barth inspires in me the classic kind of love-hate relationship. I have read every one of his books and berate him mercilessly when I think his efforts are misguided or redundant (_Sabbatical_, _Letters_, _The Book of Ten Nights and a Night_), but praise his best works and consider the best of his best among the annals that the future will look at when assessing the art of our present writing (_Chimera_, _The Sot-Weed Factor_, _The Tidewater Tales_, _Lost in the Funhouse_). He is on my suggested reading list for only the brightest of my students, and next to the writer whose name is an extension of his (Barthelme) will be known as one of those who not only changed the expectation of fiction, but extended our literary heritage in the best way, connecting us solidly to Homer and Twain while being truly contemporary.
This book is a harking back to the spirited Barth, the Barth who last reared his godhead in _The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor_, but had to subsist a while on a few middling efforts (_Once Upon a Time_, _On With the Story_ and _Coming Soon!_) until this latest go. _Where Three Roads Meet_ is full of unapologetic bawd and classic pun-istry, but while his lukewarm efforts feel just that (style covering over an inadequate tale), this new book is back to digging into the art of storytelling and finding its latest incarnation, an incarnation that is fresh and new and reflecting on the impossibility of storytelling in the face of life.
At first glance, this may seem to be an attempt to recapture the glory days of _Chimera_, as that stunning book too was of three novellas, but while also Greekmythed in nature, _Where Three Roads Meet_ poses more modern characters than the mythical heroes retold in the earlier National Book Award winner. We meet a jazz trio in post-WWII collegiate life, three aged ex-prostitutes-cum-Fates, and a setting as SamuelBeckettian as Sammy ever cared to reveal, with a Muse, his Author and a Reader puttering along in the jalopy of Storytelling. The links are more thematic than forced, but this book makes for a fine read and worthy of being put on the shelf among his better works.
This book is a harking back to the spirited Barth, the Barth who last reared his godhead in _The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor_, but had to subsist a while on a few middling efforts (_Once Upon a Time_, _On With the Story_ and _Coming Soon!_) until this latest go. _Where Three Roads Meet_ is full of unapologetic bawd and classic pun-istry, but while his lukewarm efforts feel just that (style covering over an inadequate tale), this new book is back to digging into the art of storytelling and finding its latest incarnation, an incarnation that is fresh and new and reflecting on the impossibility of storytelling in the face of life.
At first glance, this may seem to be an attempt to recapture the glory days of _Chimera_, as that stunning book too was of three novellas, but while also Greekmythed in nature, _Where Three Roads Meet_ poses more modern characters than the mythical heroes retold in the earlier National Book Award winner. We meet a jazz trio in post-WWII collegiate life, three aged ex-prostitutes-cum-Fates, and a setting as SamuelBeckettian as Sammy ever cared to reveal, with a Muse, his Author and a Reader puttering along in the jalopy of Storytelling. The links are more thematic than forced, but this book makes for a fine read and worthy of being put on the shelf among his better works.
March 7, 2022
I really enjoyed this late, short, readable book from one of my favorite writers. We find him in a relaxed, playful mode in these lightly-linked novellas - the short form suits him, after he wrote all his famous doorstoppers in the 1960s-80s. Barth has definitely been repeating himself for a while (there are only so many novels about middle-aged literature professors who like to sail the Chesapeake Bay that even I have patience for), so what a delight to see him leave those tropes behind him. The first, and best, story is about three college friends in the 40s who form a jazz combo. Winnifred, Alfred, and Wilfred (or as they like to be known, the three Freds) take turns narrating the story of their friendship and its surprisingly tragic and early end. The last story, about three elderly sisters narrating their shared history with a famous but forgotten writer, is a complete hoot. These feel like little desserts Barth is offering up to his readers on this way out the door - light and satisfying.
June 22, 2015
Even now, John Barth remains an extraordinary writer. His theme, as so often, is nothing less than the story itself. The title of this collection comes, of course, from Oedipus, and the three stories, each with three main characters and divided into three.. you see where this is going.
The three stories examine themselves, and make valid and interesting points about the value of storytelling in the modern world, they consider whether the old strictures and structures still have any relevance, and - on balance - seem to conclude that they do. It's hard to review Barth without invoking the word postmodern, but I've never been convinced that postmodern really applies to how he works. Better, in my opinion, to label him as Barth. He does what he does, tells the story (lightly disguised autobiography? Always impossible to tell with him; the roman a clef element in the final story seems to point back to some of Barth's own earlier work, but nothing is ever clear) in the way he knows works for him, exposing the workings as he goes, diverting and distracting your attention by pointing out just exactly what it is he is doing here, and here, and leaves you pondering the entire history of storytelling.
It's short, but quite superb in that particular way only Barth can be. Whenever I pick up a John Barth, I couldn't be reading anyone else - none of the other supposed postmodern masters have his wit, his energy, or his humanity. The craft is immaculate, the stories surprising and in a way poignant, and the whole tremendously satisfying.
Not for everyone, but for those who persevere, quite the treat.
The three stories examine themselves, and make valid and interesting points about the value of storytelling in the modern world, they consider whether the old strictures and structures still have any relevance, and - on balance - seem to conclude that they do. It's hard to review Barth without invoking the word postmodern, but I've never been convinced that postmodern really applies to how he works. Better, in my opinion, to label him as Barth. He does what he does, tells the story (lightly disguised autobiography? Always impossible to tell with him; the roman a clef element in the final story seems to point back to some of Barth's own earlier work, but nothing is ever clear) in the way he knows works for him, exposing the workings as he goes, diverting and distracting your attention by pointing out just exactly what it is he is doing here, and here, and leaves you pondering the entire history of storytelling.
It's short, but quite superb in that particular way only Barth can be. Whenever I pick up a John Barth, I couldn't be reading anyone else - none of the other supposed postmodern masters have his wit, his energy, or his humanity. The craft is immaculate, the stories surprising and in a way poignant, and the whole tremendously satisfying.
Not for everyone, but for those who persevere, quite the treat.
June 15, 2021
John Barth may, indeed, warrant the accolades heaped upon him by reviewers, but his collection of three novellas, WHERE THREE ROADS MEET, was one of my least enjoyable reads. I was a bit fascinated by his writing style with all of its alliteration, shifts in diction and time, puns, but his long stream-of-consciousness style was laborious. Two stars are probably one star too many for my taste.
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July 14, 2020Sad to say, Barth seems to be going in circles with the hero cycle and various postmodern means of reminding readers that a work of fiction is a work of fiction. I haven’t read his latest yet; we shall see...
August 4, 2018
A rare experience, in that I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last 10 pages of a book by one of my favorite authors.
May 8, 2024
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading John Barth in all his mythological, magical, complexities of language.
May 31, 2015
When one embarks on a John Barth novel,cone has to expect layers. And masochism. And the self aggrandizing of writers. No one layers more about the craft of writing into his works of fiction than Barth. Most authors have a story or novel or two about other writers. It is to be expected. That is what they know and the old adage is, after all, write what you know. Barth takes it to extreme, however.
Frankly, he's created a career out of these stories. I can't think of a collection of short stories (always my favorite of his works), a set of novellas (like this one) or a "novel" (like the collection of layered stories that made up Tidewater Tales that doesn't center around writers and the pursuit of their craft. You would think that gets boring, huh?
Well. I do keep reading. They are such nicely crafted stories. His style is so very conversational and literary simultaneously. Like you are chatting with a professor around a campfire with a couple of beers. Oh wait. Wrong metaphor. Barth would be on a boat. With a couple of beers. Sorry.
Each of his tales may rift off of the same theme. They may each layer in the history of characters in the say "by the way" matter and each may use cute abbreviations and other colloquialisms. But each does tackle a different aspect of the tale. Of the tale of telling tales? (he ruins my own writing, by the way, much in the same ways that Faulkner does).
This one is all about the Y. Sets of threes. The Hegelian dialectic. Describe it however you like, the combination of a A plus B to make something else...perhaps C? It is an topic near and dear to my heart. I swore by Hegel in undergrad. And I still think it might be the closest thing to a universal truth (even if I side with Heidegger insomuch as said universal truth is going to move around a bit depending upon where you are standing and who does said standing). I digressed.
The trouble is that the actually stories are kind of dull. Voted third one, with the three sisters is the best of the bunch. But as much as Barth dissects, decomposes and defaces the notion of plot...the book is missing a compelling one. It's interesting for the artistry. But that seems to be its limits. A shade to the left of the experimental spectrum, if I do say so. Which I do.
So why did I feel compelled to move on to James Joyce next?
Frankly, he's created a career out of these stories. I can't think of a collection of short stories (always my favorite of his works), a set of novellas (like this one) or a "novel" (like the collection of layered stories that made up Tidewater Tales that doesn't center around writers and the pursuit of their craft. You would think that gets boring, huh?
Well. I do keep reading. They are such nicely crafted stories. His style is so very conversational and literary simultaneously. Like you are chatting with a professor around a campfire with a couple of beers. Oh wait. Wrong metaphor. Barth would be on a boat. With a couple of beers. Sorry.
Each of his tales may rift off of the same theme. They may each layer in the history of characters in the say "by the way" matter and each may use cute abbreviations and other colloquialisms. But each does tackle a different aspect of the tale. Of the tale of telling tales? (he ruins my own writing, by the way, much in the same ways that Faulkner does).
This one is all about the Y. Sets of threes. The Hegelian dialectic. Describe it however you like, the combination of a A plus B to make something else...perhaps C? It is an topic near and dear to my heart. I swore by Hegel in undergrad. And I still think it might be the closest thing to a universal truth (even if I side with Heidegger insomuch as said universal truth is going to move around a bit depending upon where you are standing and who does said standing). I digressed.
The trouble is that the actually stories are kind of dull. Voted third one, with the three sisters is the best of the bunch. But as much as Barth dissects, decomposes and defaces the notion of plot...the book is missing a compelling one. It's interesting for the artistry. But that seems to be its limits. A shade to the left of the experimental spectrum, if I do say so. Which I do.
So why did I feel compelled to move on to James Joyce next?
November 15, 2010
It has been a while since I read anything by John Barth and I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading anything he writes. The way he structures his sentences and the way he tells his stories always entrances me. No one else writes quite the way he does. I really enjoyed reading his work, as always, but I found the middle of the three novellas in this work particularly good. It's at once a story, a description of how stories are told, and a history of storytelling. The first and third novellas may have more plot to them (though even in those stories, most of the "story" happens outside the stream of time that the story is told), but even the middle story kept me turning pages. Anyone who can keep me interested in thirty pages of back story while a character is answering the phone or sketch in foreshadowing in the same sentence that the foreshadowed event occurs without it feeling wrong is -- to me, anyway -- a great writer.
November 4, 2009
Unnecessarily brilliant. It's really clever, and heady, cerebral, smartypants look what I can do with language stuff. But what it didn't do for me is make me feel anything (other than a headache). And I've been told that's the point, the point is to rip apart the process of fiction, to expose the insides, the scaffolding to make you think about how it is put together while putting it together. I get that. But if it doesn't also give me any sensual detail (there are plenty of cartoonish sexual details), if it doesn't make me stop and pluck a tiny thorn from my heart and go -- oh yeah -- in the midst of all those verbal gymnastics, then I have a hard time caring.
August 1, 2010
Pretty typical Barth, although in novella format, riffing on his usual preoccupations: the hero myth and the tragic cycle, sex, and academia. He mined similar territory in Coming Soon!, which I liked better. It has his usual postmodern commentary within,including the meta-fiction thing with the Reader and the Narrator being explicitly named and drawing attention to the craft of the stories. The Greek tradition of threes is consistent since there are three novellas and all three in involve three major strands of plot. Pretty good if you like John Barth already, but not essential in my view.
June 5, 2008
This book varied. It's a group of three novellas, which follow certain themes in a very Barth way--circular, repetitive, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The first novella was by far my favorite, the second was terrible, I don't think I even read all of it, just skipped around till I got to the end, and the last one was mediocre. By the final one, though, I had had about enough of the rehashing of themes, and was ready for something different.
February 15, 2011
The first and third of these novellas are actually quite good. It's the meta-fictional middle one that is less than satisfactory. Still, these stories don't really rise to the level of Barth at his best (i.e., _The Tidewater Tales_, _Sabbatical_, _The Tale of Somebody the Sailor_). Barth is always worth reading, and is never boring, but these late tales whet the appetite for his earlier greatness rather than satisfying in their own right.
December 29, 2011
Serving as this reader's introduction to the author, this trio of novellas exemplifies the fun, playful, self-conscious style for which Barth has long been know. The three separate-but-linked pieces use multiple narrators to spin erotic tales of self-finding that will titillate most pulse-having readers, while the author's wordplay makes for non-stop page-turning and provides the reader with abundant inward chuckles. Read it.
July 24, 2011
Really not my kind of book. I always wondered what post-modernist meant. I am afraid to have found out. The first page is scary to read in itself. Half-page long sentences do not make for good reading.
The first novella does have its cliffhanger, the second is sheer pain to read, and the last is actually OK and legible.
The first novella does have its cliffhanger, the second is sheer pain to read, and the last is actually OK and legible.
August 19, 2011
This was my first ever read by John Barth and the metafiction was a romp. I would definitely use selections of this if I was ever trying to teach a class how to develop a story with "capital-E Exposition" and "capital-C Conflict." The voice was at times wearying and I wished I had had the energy to keep up with it.
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May 22, 2012Whoa. What a total mind fuck. I am in awe of how Barth manages to tell a story while still constantly undermining our own ideas about what a story is. Occasionally difficult to get through but well worth it if you are interested in a reading experience that is like a floor dropping out from underneath you.
August 18, 2019
I really enjoyed this one. In spite of the fact that early on in the story I figured out who Craven Ferrars was, before he had even given himself a name, the ending of the story was not at all what I was expecting. It was an easy read and and a book worth looking for if you are interested in a well written romance.
December 12, 2007
disappointing. barth's playful seriousness, or is it serious playfulness?, works woundrously in novella 1, tires quickly in novella 2 and fades to black in novella 3.
September 29, 2010
i'm kind of obsessed with 'the novella'.
October 4, 2012
Annoying, somewhat interesting, postmodernism from Barth. "Thanks." Who the crap reads(/wants to read) this stuff? Actually it wasn't that bad, probably the best of his later nonsense.
June 26, 2015
do not like the author,
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews