John Barth, who died on 2 April 2024 at the age of 93, was at the forefront of experimental literature in the 1960s and beyond. Even before the word ‘postmodernism’ was widely used, Barth attempted to diagnose the state of literature in the post-war period and articulated ways for writers to overcome what he described as a ‘used-upness’ in mainstream novels. His importance as a practitioner and critic was recognised by Anthony Burgess and other writers. His work pioneered many of the postmodern techniques that have since become commonplace.

His first two novels, The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958), were published when Barth was in his twenties. These books are traditionally realist tales, dealing with nihilistic young protagonists who are struggling with controversial issues (suicide in The Floating Opera and abortion in The End of the Road). While these novels show the nascent signs of Barth’s wit and playfulness, it was not until the publication of The Sot-Weed Factor in 1960 that he truly began his experiments in translating traditional aspects of storytelling into wild, unexpected novels.

The Sot-Weed Factor is an explosion of ribald, comedic excess. It tells the story of Ebeneezer Cooke (a real-life poet) as he journeys to the New World to manage a tobacco plantation. Cooke’s adventure is beset by multiple calamities, mistaken identities, characters disguised as different characters, coincidental meetings, foiled love, and a treatise on the aphrodisiac qualities of the aubergine. All this is told in seventeenth-century English, which is commented upon in the narrative: ‘a clever author may, by the most delicate adjustments, make a ridiculous parody of a beautiful style.’

Burgess reviewed The Sot-Weed Factor on publication in 1960 for the Yorkshire Post. He wrote: ‘It owes everything to the episodic booze-and-bawdry boys, and is none the worse for that. It must have been great (though laborious) fun to write.’ Burgess astutely noticed the importance of this early work. In 1967 he wrote that The Sot-Weed Factor is ‘a Rabelaisian book, not only in its rank humour but also in its outrageously perverted erudition, it seemed to many, including myself, to represent one direction the novel might take in order to progress or stay alive, which is the same thing.’

Four years after The Sot-Weed Factor appeared, Burgess published Nothing Like the Sun, his novel about Shakespeare, clearly written under the influence of Barth. Nothing Like the Sun is also a novel which turns an old form of English (this time Elizabethan) into a comedic narrative. Both novels make use of their writer-protagonist’s work – Barth basing his novel on Cooke’s satirical poem of the same name, and Burgess peppering his text with Shakespearean quotations and references.

Barth’s next novel was an even more ambitious project. Giles Goat-Boy was published in 1966 and concerns George Giles, a boy raised as a goat in a world where the countries have been taken over by massive universities and are operated as a strange hybrid of religious teachings, academic inquiry, and political diplomacy. In this novel, Barth stacks allegory upon allegory to make an absurdist vision of the mid-twentieth century that parodies the Cold War and other political events, classical literature, and the stories from the Bible.

When Giles Goat-Boy was published, Burgess wrote a review in the Spectator under the title ‘Caprine Messiah’, later reprinted in Urgent Copy, a mix of high praise and tough criticism. Although he admits that the novel is ‘an impressive achievement’, he goes on to say: ‘Giles Goat-Boy impresses more with its concept than (sheer mastery of length apart) its execution. And the concept is available to any clever undergraduate. On the other hand, self-criticism is built into the book, and any disparagement of mine has already been well taken care of. It makes contemporary British fiction look very lightweight.’

Despite some minor reservations, Burgess recognised Barth as one of the most important writers of his generation. In 1984, when he compiled his list of Ninety-Nine Novels, he included Giles Goat-Boy, writing, ‘I was undecided as to whether to give this slot to Giles Goat-Boy or to Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor, an immense spoof history of early Maryland. Both works extend the scope of the novel — or rather remind it of a scope it has lost, along with a whimsical fantasticality best exemplified in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.’ He concludes: ‘Whatever you may think of him, you cannot ignore John Barth.’

In 1968, Barth published Lost in the Funhouse, a collection of short stories often regarded as the high-water mark of experimental postmodernism in America. They explore the many ways to tell a story, from a Möbius strip that infinitely repeats the words, ‘Once upon a time there was a story that began’, to the title story about a boy who is lost in a carnival funhouse — which is also a metafictional piece about the challenges of being a writer of stories.

Within all his experimentation, Barth was really concerned with the tradition of storytelling. Many later novels, such as Chimera (1972), LETTERS (1979), Sabbatical(1982), and The Tidewater Tales (1987), are inspired by stories such as One Thousand and One Nights, Don Quixote and The Odyssey.  The library of Burgess’s books held at the Burgess Foundation includes The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1992), a postmodern retelling of the Sinbad legend.

John Barth was an important writer whose influence stretched far beyond his immediate sphere. In his articulation of the postmodern, his diagnosis of the challenges facing the artist in a world of ‘used-up’ artforms, his work became intertwined with the development of world literature. There are many writers today who are influenced by John Barth without even being aware of it.

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