Lost in the Funhouse
Metafiction before the word existed. Barth writes stories about writing stories, and somehow it works.
The Greek mythology stretch in the back half, especially ‘Menelaiad’ and ‘Anonymiad,’ is where this collection loses most readers, its nested “quotes inside of quotes inside of quotes” singled out as the low point. A second reviewer says the book is deliberately punishing, one comparing the experience to being “trapped in a room with robin williams on coke,” and a critic argues Barth “cannot create characters or a psychological terrain,” the structural games never earning an emotional payoff. Read as a whole, the collection can feel “uneven and randomly connected,” and one blunt verdict calls it “two very brilliant stories and a whole kaboodle of indigestible bollocks.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
