Lost in the Funhouse
Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth is a lively and original collection of short pieces published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on March 1, 1988. This reissue spans 224 pages and is presented in English. The book explores themes of purpose and the meaning of existence through a series of experimental narratives that challenge traditional literary conventions.
Readers will find a diverse array of stories, including the innovative “Frame-Tale,” which is designed to be cut out and transformed into a Mobius strip, and the well-known “Life-Story,” where readers are invited to fill in the blanks. The collection also features the intricate “Menalaiad,” a Homerian story-within-a-story, and “Night-Sea Journey,” which offers a unique perspective from a human sperm. Together, these narratives create a kaleidoscope of metafictional inventiveness, inviting exploration of the characters’ quests for meaning.
Official synopsis Publisher
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • John Barth’s lively, highly original collection of short pieces is a major landmark of experimental fiction exploring themes of purpose and the meaning of existence.
“[Barth] ran riot over literary rules and conventions, even as he displayed, with meticulous discipline, mastery of and respect for them.” —The New York Times
From its opening story, “Frame-Tale”–printed sideways and designed to be cut out by the reader and twisted into a never-ending Mobius strip–to the much-anthologized “Life-Story,” whose details are left to the reader to “fill in the blank,” Barth’s acclaimed collection challenges our ideas of what fiction can do. Highlights include the Homerian story-wthin-a-story-within-a-story (times seven) of “Menalaiad,’ and “Night-Sea Journey,” a first-person account of a confused human sperm on its way to fertilize an egg. All of the characters in Lost in the Funhouse are searching, in one way or another, for their purpose and the meaning of their existence. Together, their stories form a kaleidescope of exuberant metafictional inventiveness.
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