Letters : a novel
John Barth (Author), G.P. Putnam's Sons (Publisher)
Basically, [Barth] takes several people from his early novels and has them all starting to write to each other, and to him, their letters and experiences directing the plot. And what starts out as what could be a too-cute literary trick winds up being extremely revealing, as the characters pour themselves into the letters, regardless of whom they're writing to, as the plot skips and slips through time. On one level it acts as a sequel to those early novels, continuing their stories and although it's not really required to read those books, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't help. The best thing to do would be to read those old novels in one block and then move onto this ... I read them some years ago so I was a little fuzzy on the finer points. But I picked it up. But Barth captures the voices of his old characters well and even if you didn't know who was writing what letter, you could tell. And thus they tell the recepient, and us, about their hopes and fears, they mingle together, they lie, they come unglued, and by the end you sort of get a tapestry of their thoughts. There's a plot weaving through here but sometimes it becomes hard to connect it with six different people discussing different angles of it with you, but I just went with it and enjoyed the writing for what it was. --Michael Battaglia at Amazon.com
Epistolary fiction, American
xv, 772 pages ; 24 cm
9780399124259, 039912425X
4983419
Introduction Reflections: Gustave Flaubert's Correspondence I. The Billiard Table, The College, 1821-1840 II. The Law, 1840-1843 III. Breakdown, Travel, Mourning, 1844-1846 IV. Louise Colet I, 1846-1848 V. Voyage en Orient, 1849-1851 VI. Louise Colet II: Madame Bovary, 1851-1855 VII. Publication, Trial, Triumph, 1856-1857 Appendix I: A Self-Portrait of Louise Colet Appendix II: Flaubert and Syphilis Appendix III: A Letter from Maxime DuCamp Works of Related Interest Index
"An old time epistolary novel by seven fictitious drolls & dreamers, each of which imagines himself actual"--Title page