If literary blogs exist to dredge up the underrated authors of our time, I must ask why the litblogosphere, so capable of unearthing the neglected, has remained so silent concerning the great novelist John Barth. If Gilbert Sorrentino, William Gaddis, and David Markson cut the mustard with their postmodernist innovations, then Barth likewise deserves a spot in the This Guy is the Real Deal pantheon. Here is a novelist who playfully uses first person plural in Sabbatical to represent a romantic escapade on the Chesapeake Bay with the apparent descendants of Edgar Allan Poe and Francis Scott Key. Here is a novelist who, in his early trilogy of novels The Floating Opera, The End of the Road, and The Sot-Weed Factor, takes the piss out of absolutist thinking: Todd Andrews, the protagonist of The Floating Opera, is an attorney who contemplates a moment in his life when he should have died. The answer to his conundrum might lie in the ridiculous logic he uses in relation to a court case, unearthed in hilarious fashion over a protracted “logic” reminiscent of the crazy legal brief in William Gaddis’s A Frolic of His Own. Jacob Horner’s reason for living in The End of the Road is predicated upon following the dicta of a mysterious Doctor, with the series of instructions being woefully misunderstood and employed in an insensitive manner that even Horner doesn’t seem to see. Consider, for example, the way that Barth describes this moment in which Jacob Horner shares dinner with the Morgans:

Since there were only four chairs in the kitchen, Rennie and the two boys and I ate at the table while Joe ate standing up at the stove. There would have been no room at the table for one of the sling chairs, and anyhow it did not take long to eat the meal, which consisted of steamed shrimp, boiled rice, and beer for all hands. The boys — husky, well-mannered youngsters — were allowed to dominate the conversation during dinner; they were as lively and loud as any other bright kids their age, but a great deal more physically co-ordinated and self-controlled than most. As soon as we finished eating they went to bed, and though it was still quite light outside, I heard no more from them.

Who is this guy? Is this really a sad domestic situation or is Jacob Horner more concerned with externalizing every situation he comes across? We have all sorts of general details about who this family is and what the dinner entails, but why can’t Jacob Horner pinpoint anything about them? Why the strange comparative qualifiers compared to other boys? Why the concern for the boys’ conversation? These are the questions that pop up when reading a Barth novel.

Likewise The Sot-Weed Factor, possibly Barth’s masterpiece, frames a hypocritical concern for virtue using a real-life historical figure (Ebeneezer Cooke) over the course of a playfully picaresque novel.

Why not Barth? He regularly subverts conventional narrative. He is very funny and regularly irreverent. He is often unapologetically preoccupied with sex. He sneaks in little tidbits about mythology, history, and little-known procedures of the law. And his work often bristles with a warm-hearted sense of mischief, even when the scenario being described is an extremely troubling one involving abortion, rape, or suicide.

If Barth can be accused of any literary crimes, his rap perhaps involves an overwhelming preoccupation with Maryland and Virginia history and a restless ambition. Nearly every Barth reader I’ve talked with gave up on LETTERS at some point. It was the most ambitious volume that Barth produced, involving characters from Barth’s previous novels writing letters to a guy named John Barth. After LETTERS, it seemed that people wanted to forget that Barth even existed. (He is still alive, presumably residing somewhere around the Chesapeake Bay.) Even I, when I first read Barth a decade ago, failed to continue reading Barth’s works in sequence. But now that I’m reading one of the novels that came after LETTERS, Sabbatical, I’m finding it to be a great surprise, just as fun and inventive as his early work. And LETTERS is due for a serious reassessment. (LETTERS and Sabbatical, incidentally, are available from Dalkey Archive Press.)

I have been rereading Barth’s novels in a rather odd manner over the past month, starting with the first two and now including Sabbatical and The Sot-Weed Factor, the latter of which I am reading for the third time. If anything, the playfulness and narrative tinkering that first wowed me when I was feeding on a variety of lengthy and ambitious novels in my early twenties has resonated more.

Has Barth in some sense declined over the years? I don’t think so. I think the guy still has it, even though my reading of his post-LETTERS books remains limited. Nevertheless, I have now obtained almost all of his novels and I aim to figure out precisely what happened.

In the meantime, I jam this message into the bottle and throw it into the tidewater. I cannot be the only guy out here who thinks John Barth is the cat’s pajamas. So what of you, readers? If you tried out Barth, why did you put him back on the shelf? Or have you remained silent over the past few years because Barth ain’t exactly the heppest cat to rave about? Well, I’m here to tell you that Barth is the real deal! You are not alone! Let’s make some noise and get people talking about Barth! Who’s with me?

[UPDATE: Dan Green, wryly quoting me in the manner of a film publicist truncating blurbs, points out that he has written about Barth. The specific words I used were “so silent,” which is not to suggest total silence, but a comparative qualifier. Dammit, let’s make some noise!]

Tod Goldberg has so outdone himself with this very funny post that I feel compelled to respond to him on a point-by-point basis:

1. Whenever I see young children, I do my best to keep my “fucks” to a minimum. I am a polite person. But because I say “fuck” with a cheerful frequency in many social settings, this effort at restraint often backfires. A parent then looks to me, as if putting the face to a photograph she has seen on the Megan’s Law database (never mind that I have no tattoos and don’t look particularly creepy when I have remembered to shave), when I am only treating the kid as an adult and I am only trying to be friendly.

The way I figure it, on any given day, a child bears a considerable brunt harsh linguistical terminology. Indeed, if the environment I experienced two decades ago is comparable to the present, a child’s schoolyard pals are likely to say things far cruder and decidedly more pernicious than anything I could possibly posit in my early thirties. I wish these parents would understand that I reserve my true invective for the true assholes of the world. More often than not, they generally aren’t six years old, even if they may act that way. (To this day, I cannot muster up much in the way of anger towards a character like Richie Rich, despite the great likelihood that he will grow up to be an insufferable asshole. Bless the good folks at Harvey Comics for not going that postpubescent distance.)

Mr. Goldberg’s observations, then, don’t even begin to scratch the surface of a hypocritical double standard that nobody wants to talk about. Are kids really as innocent as their parents claim them to be? Will they really be permanently scarred if they hear about serial killers or overhear the word “fuck?” Are they not more resilient?

(The other thing I don’t get, while we’re on the subject, is how this “don’t swear” dictum is likewise associated with old people, as if old people have never done drugs, fucked in unusual positions, or otherwise experienced active or accidental debauchery — or, for that matter, are presently incapable of misbehaving. This assumption presumes that old people are somehow lesser, which is certainly not the case at all. If anything, with more years on their belt, old people have probably committed countless acts that would cause mere straplings to blush. Ergo, hail the old people! Hail the children! Hail all chronological representatives of the human race!)

2. It isn’t wrong to be obsessed with a song at all. The world today produces more covers of any given tune than it generally needs, presumably because there’s a paucity of vanguards operating at the musical forefront. (Justin Timberlake’s Futuresex/Loveshow? I don’t think so. I find the idea of Justin Timberlake as a sex symbol repellent and ethically objectionable — in part, because this semiotic juxtaposition spawns a terrifying image of Timberlake indolently grunting over a twenty-two-year-old who never bothered to try it any other way but missionary. I have come close to vomiting upon seeing that clean-cut, take-no-chances, white-suited assclown’s image on the subway, caught frozen as he attempts to dance, his spindly wrist barely able to clutch the mike. He cannot dance. Perhaps it’s because he is trying to do too many things. It’s bad enough that he cannot dance during the course of a performance. But the still image in question — if you have seen it — demonstrates that even caught during his best moment, posed to promote some Timberlake ideal, he is a clear incompetent.)

But I have digressed. I usually do.

Okay, cover songs. Every once in a while, there is a good one like Kate Bush’s version of “Rocket Man” or Scissor Sisters’ “Comfortably Numb.” And it is certainly better than Timberlake. So long as Mr. Goldberg isn’t searching around for clips of Justin Timberlake on YouTube, I think the world will be safe for democracy.

3. I don’t think there have been many suicides that ended up clean and grief-free for a suicidalist’s friends and family. In fact, because suicide is such a selfish and shitty thing to do to other people, it doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I’ve always figured that if you were curious enough about life, you could carry on living quite well. I think the happiest people are often those who are the most curious, those willing to find joy and laughter in everything, those who are determined to keep on going in spite of the world’s many faults because the human race does something pretty stellar every once in a while. Or at least this is the sort of “happiest person” I like hanging around. Of course, I bring my own judgments to the table, like any curious savage, although they are always subject to change. One man’s “happy” is another person’s “insufferable,” as the old saying goes.

If Mr. Goldberg is going through something right now, I apologize if I am coming across like some flippant asshole. I don’t intend to. I’m simply trying to understand his question myself, and I don’t think I have an answer.

4. Even if a writer can live up to tough assessments, he will unceasingly believe at some point that he is misunderstood, only to be whacked in the head by a benevolent colleague, persuaded to snap out of it, and proceed to produce.

5. We all want to believe that the Raiders have some kind of chance. This is one of the purposes that the Raiders serve. And if they started winning, then they really wouldn’t be so much fun to root for. They are, as I have written elsewhere, a glorious team of thugs. The players who go onto the field, and commit all manner of needlessly violent plays which then elicit many penalties. And it’s the same each year. Their reliance upon veteran quarterbacks (Rich Gannon and now Daunte Culpepper) is quite wild. They rely upon guys who simultaneously advance yards and throw intereceptions (as Gannon did five times in the 2003 super Bowl), often in the same four downs.

In other words, this is not a team to rely upon. But they are great fun to watch and to hope for.

There were several other points here that Mr. Goldberg addressed, but I fear this may be too long a post. Perhaps what’s necessary here is to have all blog responses to blog responses start with Tod Goldberg.

Despite the fact that Robert Harris’s The Ghost involves a former British prime minister attempting to justify a war in the Middle East, Harris insists that his character Adam Lang is not — repeat, NOT — Tony Blair. Despite a ghost named John Smith (it’s a common enough name; lay off Harris!) appearing to haunt Adam Lang’s residence, Harris insists that this is not Tony Blair. Despite Adam Lang being routinely referred to as “smooth and creamy little bitch” by the President of the United States — also fictitious and also NOT George Bush — Harris insists that this is not Tony Blair.

And despite the presence of a British author named Bobby “Big Shot” Harrison in a manuscript I have been working on for the past three years, with Harrison routinely cribbing experience from past friendships in order to write “novels” while remaining deftly afraid of the more stringent libel laws in the United Kingdom, Harrison is not — repeat, NOT — Robert Harris.

Christopher Hitchens has posted a series of blog entries for Vanity Fair.