John Barth, an award-winning writer best-known for his post-modern novels, including Chimera and Letters, died on April 2 at age 93.
We are always distressed by the death of a great writer. Barth was part of the literary scene forever, and one expected him to go on and on. When did he grow so old? I once heard Barth give a reading from The Tidewater Tales, then a work in progress. I jotted down the title in a notebook, which was as close as we got in those days to “pre-ordering,” and I kept an eye out for his book at bookstores.
I am especially fond of Chimera, which won the National Book Award in 1973. As a Visiting Lecturer, I recall impulsively hunting all over town for copies for my students to read in conjunction with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Divided into three parts, Chimera is a wildly imaginative, comic retelling of three myths: The Dunyaziad (Scheherazade’s sister), the Perseid (Perseus), and the Bellerophoniad (Bellerophon). It complemented our reading of Metamorphoses.
I have a lot of Barth to catch up on. Now’s the time!
Ave atque vale, Frater!