The Review of Contemporary Fiction

On with the Story by John Barth
D. Quentin Miller

John Barth. On with the Story. Little, Brown, 1996. 257 pp. $23.95.

Although On with the Story is John Barth’s first collection of short stories since Lost in the Funhouse (1968), readers of his recent novels will find themselves in familiar territory. Barth once again puts fiction under a microscope to show us how it works, to remind us of its fundamental elements, and to push these elements as far as they will go. He insists that stories are not absolute in any sense, underscoring his point by beginning the book with a story entitled “The End: An Introduction” and concluding the book with continuations of the eleven stories that precede the conclusion, in reverse order.

This inconclusive conclusion is just one of the many dazzling ways in which Barth knits together this collection of stories. Another is the series of interchapters depicting a vacationing husband and wife who exchange stories in bed. In this aspect, the book resembles a Barth novel like The Tidewater Tales or The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor in which storytelling becomes a kind of serious game, as it once was for Barth’s favorite literary predecessor, Scheherazade in The Thousand and One Nights.

This is not to say that there is nothing new in this collection. Barth has in fact discovered any number of new ways to illustrate his ideas about the nature of fiction. In the manner of Italo Calvino, he relies on physics to explain the motivations or actions of characters. (Laws of physics run rampant throughout the book; the first epigraph is a Heisenberg equation, and the book’s final chapter has one character inscribing Schrödinger’s wave-function equation across the buttocks of his naked lover). At one point, Barth cleverly puts On with the Story into the hands of his characters, one of whom has torn out a page from it to use as a bookmark in another book. Perspectives shift, worlds are brought into a new focus, objects or characters resurface, and the reader can only shake his head in admiration.

This is to say that even though the novel has been Barth’s genre of preference, this collection proves that he is still a master of the short story. Not only does he issue graceful pronouncements about the state of fiction, he also manages to tell good stories. Especially admirable in this respect are “On with the Story,” “ ‘Waves,’ by Amien Richard,” and “Ever After.” The characters are thoroughly developed and easily recognizable, the plots are engaging, and one can almost feel the warm sand under one’s feet or taste the dry Chablis that the author describes so lovingly. There is a cheerful, honest texture to these stories for all of their intellectual play that makes them enjoyable while still stimulating. On with the Story could just as easily be a beach book as a classroom text. Barth wouldn’t have it any other way. [D. Quentin Miller]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction On with the Story by John Barth D. Quentin Miller John Barth. On with the Story. Little, Brown, 1996. 257 pp. $23.95. Although On with the Story is John Barth’s first collection of short stories since Lost in the Funhouse (1968), readers of his recent novels will find themselves in familiar territory. Barth once again puts fiction under a microscope to show us how it works, to remind us of its fundamental elements, and to push these elements as far as they will go. He insists that stories are not absolute in any sense, underscoring his point by beginning the book with a story entitled “The End: An Introduction” and concluding the book with continuations of the eleven stories that precede the conclusion, in reverse order. This inconclusive conclusion is just one of the many dazzling ways in which Barth knits together this collection of stories. Another is the series of interchapters depicting a vacationing husband and wife who exchange stories in bed. In this aspect, the book resembles a Barth novel like The Tidewater Tales or The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor in which storytelling becomes a kind of serious game, as it once was for Barth’s favorite literary predecessor, Scheherazade in The Thousand and One Nights. This is not to say that there is nothing new in this collection. Barth has in fact discovered any number of new ways to illustrate his ideas about the nature of fiction. In the manner of Italo Calvino, he relies on physics to explain the motivations or actions of characters. (Laws of physics run rampant throughout the book; the first epigraph is a Heisenberg equation, and the book’s final chapter has one character inscribing Schrödinger’s wave-function equation across the buttocks of his naked lover). At one point, Barth cleverly puts On with the Story into the hands of his characters, one of whom has torn out a page from it to use as a bookmark in another book. Perspectives shift, worlds are brought into a new focus, objects or characters resurface, and the reader can only shake his head in admiration. This is to say that even though the novel has been Barth’s genre of preference, this collection proves that he is still a master of the short story. Not only does he issue graceful pronouncements about the state of fiction, he also manages to tell good stories. Especially admirable in this respect are “On with the Story,” “ ‘Waves,’ by Amien Richard,” and “Ever After.” The characters are thoroughly developed and easily recognizable, the plots are engaging, and one can almost feel the warm sand under one’s feet or taste the dry Chablis that the author describes so lovingly. There is a cheerful, honest texture to these stories for all of their intellectual play that makes them enjoyable while still stimulating. On with the Story could just as easily be a beach book as a classroom text. Barth wouldn’t have it any other way. [D. Quentin Miller]

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