LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE a short story by John Barth (1968)
I read this story to plug a gap in my literary knowledge and as background research as part of my re-reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. The style and experimentation certainly helps put Wallace’s magnum opus into context.
When you read of Barth’s Ambrose it hard not to think of DFW’s “communicatively challenged” Hal Incandenza : “Ambrose was at that awkward age. his voice came out all high-pitched as a child’s if he let himself get carried away: to be on the safe side, therefore, he moved and spoke with deliberate calm and adult gravity”.
Above all it is the self referential, ‘metafiction’ of Barth’s story that is most striking and entertaining. Wallace didn’t use this postmodern device so much in IJ but you find the influence in his shorter fiction, notably the closing story in his Girl With Curious Hair collection called Westward The Course Of Empire Takes Its Way. Continue reading
