Final Fridays

by John Barth

Overview

For decades, acclaimed author John Barth has strayed from his Monday-through-Thursday-morning routine of fiction-writing and dedicated Friday mornings to the muse of nonfiction. The result is Final Fridays, his third essay collection, following The Friday Book (1984) and Further Fridays (1995). Sixteen years and six novels since his last volume of non-fiction, Barth delivers yet another remarkable work comprised of 27 insightful essays.

With pieces covering everything from reading, writing, and the state of the art, to tributes to writer-friends and family members, this collection is witty and engaging throughout. Barth’s “unaffected love of learning” (San Francisco Examiner&Chronicle) and “joy in thinking that becomes contagious” (Washington Post), shine through in this third, and, with an implied question mark, final essay collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619020870
Publisher:	Counterpoint Press
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	767 KB

About the Author

John Barth was born in Cambridge, Maryland, and attended Johns Hopkins University before writing his celebrated first novel, The Floating Opera, in 1956. Since then, he has produced more than fifteen collections of short stories, essays, and novels that have won prestigious accolades, including the National Book Award and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. He divides his time between Maryland and Florida.

Table of Contents

Foreword: To the Hyphen, and Beyond 1

I On Reading, Writing, and the State of the Art

Keats's Fears, Etc. 7

The State of the Art 11

Two More Forewords 33

"In the Beginning": The Big Bang, the Anthropic Principle, and the Jesus Paradox 43

How It Was, Maybe: A Novelist Looks Back on Life in Early-Colonial Virginia and Maryland 57

Further Questions? 75

Incremental Perturbation. 93

"The Parallels!": Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges 103

My Faulkner 121

?Cien Años de Qué? 127

A Window at the Pratt 141

On Readings 145

The End of the Word as We've Known It? 153

"I've Lost My Place!" 173

The Place of "Place" in Fiction 177

Liberal Education: The Tragic View 183

The Relevance of Irrelevance: Writing American 193

"All Trees Are Oak Trees …": Introductions to Literature 201

The Inkstained Thumb 213

Future Imperfect 217

I. 219

"In the Beginning, Once Upon a Time, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…" 221

The Morning After 229

It Can Be Arranged: A Novelist Recalls His Jazz-Drumming Youth 241

The End? On Writing No Further Fiction, Probably 255

II Tributes and Memoria

Introduction to Not-Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme 261

The Passion Artist (tribute to John Hawkes) 265

The Accidental Mentor (homage to Leslie Fiedler) 273

"As Sinuous and Tough as Ivy" (80th birthday salute to William H. Gass) 277

The Last Introduction (memorial tribute to Joseph Heller) 281

Remembering John Updike 285

The Judge's Jokes: Souvenirs of My Father, the After-Banquet Speaker 289

Eulogy for Jill 299

Notes 303

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.

In what the octogenarian Barth (Lost in the Funhouse) warns may be his last collection of nonfiction (and perhaps even his last book), the seminal postmodern novelist engages issues as diverse as colonial American history, Christian exegesis, and the rise of electronic literature. Though Barth's writing is as ebullient and welcoming as ever, his forays into history, science, and religion can seem scattered and amateurish at times (which Barth, to his credit, readily acknowledges). This collection truly shines, however, when Barth focuses on his true passions: the craft of literature and the authors he has spent a lifetime reading, rereading, and admiring. Whether writing about Calvino, Borges, Scheherazade, and Heller, Barth manages to capture the innovation and immediacy of his subject, offering perspectives that give just as much insight into Barth's own work as they do to his subject's. Barth's essays on writing are equally commanding, unsurprising given his long tenure as an instructor at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Reading his thoughts on the essence of story or the importance of dramaturgy, one feels the comforting authority of a master teacher. Whatever legacy Barth may leave as a novelist, this collection confirms his position as one of the most enthusiastic readers and most important novelist-teachers of 20th-century letters.
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Publishers Weekly

Praise for Final Fridays

"Barth's writing is as ebullient and welcoming as ever . . . This collection truly shines, however, when Barth focuses on his true passions: the craft of literature and the authors he has spent a lifetime reading, rereading, and admiring…Whatever legacy Barth may leave as a novelist, this collection confirms his position as one of the most enthusiastic readers and most important novelist-teachers of 20th-century letters."—Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Friday Book and Further Fridays

“There is no one else writing today who has the resources of Barth’s imagination.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A dilettante par excellence, Barth has read intelligently and indiscriminately enough to have something interesting to say at almost any time.” —Kirkus

“A reader leaves The Friday Book feeling intellectually fuller, verbally more adept, mentally stimulated, with algebra and fire of his own.” —The Washington Post

“The pieces brought together in The Friday Book reflect Mr. Barth’s witty, playful, and engaging personality . . . They are lively, sometimes casual, and often whimsical—a delight to the reader, whom Mr. Barth seems to be writing or speaking as a learned friend.” —The Kansas City Star

From the Publisher