Word: anonymiad
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Dates: during 1968-1968
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Lost in the Funhouse consists of facile, stylistic games. There is no doubt that Barth has an excellent command of the language, but his skill is misdirected, or, more accurately, not directed at all. The stories "Title," "Life-Story," and, in different ways, "Anonymiad," "Lost in the Funhouse," and "Autobiography" are stories about men writing stories. Indeed, in "Life-Story" the man in the story is writing a story about a man writing a story and so on. The novelty of the idea is quickly exhausted; Borges could have summarized it in a single line...
Another bit of Barth cunning is to turn daily life into mythology while turning mythology into domestic comedy. Ambrose His Mark, Water-Message and the title story, Lost in the Funhouse, contain elements of autobiography, though the characters and events have an Olympian quality. Menelaiad and Anonymiad, bawdy colloquializations of the Aeneid, are reminiscent of Barth's historical burlesque The Sot-Weed Factor...
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