I'm now six chapters into John Barth's 1966 fable, and I can't say that I'm very impressed. There's a reason that I don't essay the pomo claptrap which litters the best-seller lists and awards rosters of contemporary American fiction, and this over-precious allegory of 'Sixties sex, politics, and university life is the sort of thing that seems terribly fresh to not-so-bright-as-they-imagine young intellectuals right out of some state college, but it ages prematurely in a post-Cold War world, the sexual drums have moved on, and the novel (if you can realistically call it that) has obviously outlived its shelf-life.
If it's noble savage/bildungsroman I had wanted, I should have picked up "Joseph Andrews" again.
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