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John Barth's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality

Ursula Mackenzie

Journal of American Studies / Volume 10 / Issue 01 / April 1976, pp 91 ­ 101DOI: 10.1017/S0021875800013189, Published online: 16 January 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0021875800013189

How to cite this article:Ursula Mackenzie (1976). John Barth's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality. Journal of American Studies, 10, pp 91­101 doi:10.1017/S0021875800013189

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Amer. Stud. 10, i, 91-101 Printed in Great Britain QI

John Barth's Chimera and theStrictures of Reality

by URSULA MACKENZIE

University of Nottingham

I

Although many contemporary American novelists have rejected the straight-forward representation of social reality in fiction, this rejection may occurfor a number of reasons. In Thomas Pynchon and William Burroughs itstems from a fear that the inanimate world is somehow superseding theanimate, the sovereignty of the individual is being threatened. John Hawkesrefers to the novelists ' who hope for more in the novel than trying to buildbrick walls of brick ', and suggests that ' the true purpose of the novel is toassume a significant shape and to objectify the terrifying similarity betweenthe unconscious desires of the solitary man and the disruptive needs of thevisible world V Norman Mailer also remarks on this relationship in his essay' The White Negro ' :

The second world war presented a mirror to the human condition which blindedanyone who looked into it. For if tens of millions were killed in concentrationcamps out of the inexorable agonies and contractions of superstates founded uponthe always insoluble contradictions of injustice, one was then obliged also to seethat no matter how crippled and perverted an image of man was the society hehad created, it was nonetheless his creation, his collective creation (at least hiscollective creation from the past) and if society was so murderous, then who couldignore the most hideous of questions about his own nature?2

The fear of social reality may lead to a creation of alternative fictionalrealities either as an escape, or in an attempt to shock die reader into arecognition of the danger inherent in that reality. John Barm expresses theidea that creative impulses are imprisoned by the rigorous limitations ofreality in the story ' Petition', from the Lost in the Funhouse collection.3

1 John Hawkes, ' Notes on the Wild Goose Chase', Massachusetts Review, 3 (Summer 1962),785 and 787.

2 Norman Mailer, 'The White Negro', in Advertisements for Myself (2nd ed., 1961; rpt.London: Panther, 1968).

3 John Barth, ' Petition ', in Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for print, tape, live voice (3rded., 1968; rpt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 64-76.

92 Ursula Mackenzie

However, on a more general level, it would seem that he has rejected con-temporary social reality as material for his fiction not because he fears it, butbecause he does not believe in its final importance for the novelist. We findin The Sot-Weed Factor4 that Barth is attempting to make us questionour assumption that history can be relied on as incontrovertible fact. Hemaintains that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the ' true ' fromthe ' fictional' in the various versions we may have of any particular historicalevent. The novel itself starts with so-called 'facts ' ; Ebenezer Cooke wasMaryland's first poet and he did write a satirical poem about Maryland calledThe Sot-Weed Factor, his plantation was called Maiden and it was situatedon Cooke's Point; but the novel's continuation is necessarily fictional. Barthhas so interwoven fact with fiction that we cannot tell where one ends andthe other begins; and, more important than that, he has made us questionthe validity of such distinctions. A similar process occurs in Giles Goat-Boy 5

where the allegorical nature of the work has allowed Barth to mix ourrecognizable world, our history, our politicians and our politics withfabulous elements such as goat-boy saviours.

Barth's fascination throughout his work with the idea of role-playing is aconsistent metaphor for his rejection of the value of living or writing circum-scribed by one ultimate, definable reality. The protagonists of his two earlynovels,6 Todd Andrews and Jacob Horner, both assume a variety of masksto help them through their lives. They are not conspicuously successfulbecause, after all, they are only adopting masks, they are not actuallychanging their identity; the very use of the word ' mask ' implies that thereis something which puts on and takes off the masks. By the time we reachHenry Burlingame in The Sot-Weed Factor, and Harold Bray in Giles Goat-Boy, however, things have changed; these two characters can change them-selves into other people so successfully that their greatest friends do not evenrecognize them. In Barth's most recent novel, Chimera,1 role-playing hasbecome, quite literally, shape-shifting. Polyeidus (significantly Bellerophon'stutor) can change himself into inanimate objects as well as animate ones, buthe has less control over what he becomes. The novelist himself is a shape-shifter appearing in several roles during the course of the book. For Barth arigid conception of reality is closely linked to a rigid conception of man's

4 John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1961).5 John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus, 3rd ed. (1966; rpt. Harmonds-

worth, Middlesex : Penguin Books, 1967).6 John Barth, The Floating Opera (3rd ed., 1956; rpt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin

Books, 1970). John Barth, The End of the Road (3rd ed., 1958; rpt. Harmondsuorth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1967).

7 John Barth, Chimera (New York: Random House, 1972).

John Barth's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality 93

position in time which explains why in Chimera he presents a constant inter-action between the past and the present. He affirms die value of fiction buthe also takes great care to emphasize the essential humanity of his characters.One of the reasons for die comparative failure of Giles Goat-Boy was diat dieelement of fantasy was too strong. When the hero of a novel is probably theson of a giant computer, human nature itself changes and the reader's rela-tionship with the characters and events in die book is weakened. In ChimeraBarth achieves the delicate balance required to express his philosophy and atthe same time draw the reader into his fictional world.

IIOne of the first things we notice about the novel is diat it returns to die

roots of story-telling, using the tale of Scheherezade's Thousand and OneNights and two Greek myths, those of Perseus and Bellerophon. The firstsection, ' Dunyazadiad ', tells die story of Scheherezade's sister, Dunyazade,who, according to the original fable, sits at die foot of the 'bed in which hersister makes love to King Shahryar, and when they have finished she asksfor a story to be told to her. Scheherezade complies and just before die climaxof the story Dunyazade interrupts with die suggestion that, as they all needto sleep, her sister can carry on widi the story the next night. The king'sinterest is aroused and each morning Scheherezade is spared execution sothat she can spend anodier night in the king's bed and finish her tale. InChimera Dunyazade narrates her story to Shah Zaman, who has vowed withhis brother die king to rape a virgin every night and kill her in die morning,because they have both discovered that the women diey loved have beenunfaithful to them. However it would be wrong to think that Bardi merelyrepeats this traditional story; Scheherezade, an ardent feminist, needs diehelp of a genie from the future who had read The Arabian Nights, and cantell her of the sequence of events she instigates to save the young women ofher nation from destruction. Once she succeeds in making die king forget hisbitterness and wish to marry her, at die same time as his brodier marriesDunyazade, the two sisters plan to kill dieir husbands on dieir joint weddingnight, in revenge. Dunyazade tells Shah Zaman the story while she holds arazor at his genitals. Widiout revealing die outcome of diis situation, it isinteresting to note diat Shah Zaman in his defence tells Dunyazade diat hedid not in fact kill the virgins who came to his bed, but sent diem into exilewhere they founded the Amazon race; a curious cross-reference to diereworking of Greek mythology which follows.

The second section, ' Perseid', opens with Perseus, a star in the heavens,telling his story as he does every night to his fellow-star, Medusa. Towards

94 Ursula Mackenzie

the end of his life he spends some time being tended by Calyxa, an admirerof his and a student of mythic heroism; we receive most of ' Perseid' as arecounting to Medusa of the account of his life which he gave to Calyxa.Barth dispenses quickly with the familiar account of Perseus's heroic actions,the killing of Medusa and the rescuing of Andromeda, in order to explore amore unusual angle. Middle-aged and dissatisfied, Perseus wishes to retracethe route of his travels as a young hero, in the hope of finding a spark of thatenergy and success which had been his in his youth. His relationship withhis wife, Andromeda, has deteriorated, and finally she forces him to continuehis journey alone so that she can conduct an affair with his young half-brother. Perseus repeats many of the actions he did before in the course ofhis heroic adventures, but their essence has changed; he fails where he hadsucceeded gloriously, and is only kept safe by a reconstituted Medusa.Ultimately he has to love Medusa, not kill her, in order to achieve hisimmortality.

' Bellerophoniad', the last and longest section of the book, sees Bellero-phon, like Perseus, middle-aged, but with a loving and understanding wifeand children; his kingdom is secure and his subjects faithful. He is miserablebecause this very contentment casts doubts on his status as a bona fide mythichero. By Bellerophon's age all mythic heroes should be outcasts, rejected bytheir relatives and their subjects. Additionally Pegasus, his winged horse, canno longer fly; as the years have gone by the horse's range and power havedecreased until he is unable to get off the ground. Bellerophon is apparentlydictating his story to Melanippe, an Amazonian lover with whom he spendshis latter days. He tells of his early adventures which culminate when he killsthe monster, Chimera, and marries Philonoe. Throughout this period, how-ever, there have been doubts cast on the genuineness of his claim to be amythic hero; all his so-called heroic actions are open to interpretation, andhe himself is unsure of his status. Leaving his devoted wife behind, he setsoff to find the drug hippomanes, which will enable Pegasus to fly again.Nearly castrated by his wife's sister, now ruler of a matriarchal kingdom anddesirous of revenge because Bellerophon as a young man had probablyrefused to sleep with her, he meets Melanippe, a young Amazon spy, whogives him the hippomanes he requires and they escape together on Pegasus.Finally Bellerophon attempts to wrest his immortality from the hands of thegods by flying to Mount Olympus on Pegasus, but Zeus foils his plan and hisonly taste of immortality is in the form of perpetual existence as the story of

his life.Ill

This brief summary does a disservice to Chimera but is necessary in orderto make intelligible the analysis which follows. As we have seen, part of

John Bank's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality 95

Barth's aim is an affirmation of the value of fiction. The curious thing aboutmyths is that they have a kind of objective reality, in that there is an acceptedversion of, for example, the Perseus legend, almost as though it had actuallyhappened. But to Barth's delight this is not in fact the case; myths arefictions, and fictions whose survival indicate the validity of fiction-making.Throughout the novel there is a strong emphasis on the fictional nature ofhis work, no attempt is made to create the illusion of real historical events;different versions of certain parts of the stories abound within the work asa whole. When Bellerophon presents his wife, Philonoe, with three differentversions of his relations with her sister, Anteia, she asks him which is thetrue one, even though she states her awareness of the problems concerningthe concept of objective truth.8 Bellerophon avoids, even ignores, thequestion, as of course he must; none of them is true, they are all fictions,even as he himself is one, just' Bellerophonic letters afloat between two worlds,forever betraying, in combinations and recombinations, the man they for-ever represent' (p. 138). We have two different versions of Shah Zaman'spart in the founding of the Amazons (pp. 50-51 and 218), and two differentversions of how Perseus died (pp. 125-6 and 277); but perhaps the mosttelling example of the conscious fictionalizing in this work is an image.Bellerophon is describing the weapon Polyeidus has given him with whichhe is going to kill the Chimera:

Hence the special spear he'd brought along, a larger version of the writing toolhe'd given Philonoe, which instead of a sharp bronze point had a dull one oflead . . . I was to put upon my spear-tip several sheets of paper from the prophet'sbriefcase impregnated with a magical calorific, and thrust my spear deep into thecave (p. 226).

In other words, the Chimera is going to be killed by the use of pencil andpaper, killed in words but not in deeds. By the end of his tale Bellerophonhas realized that he is not Bellerophon (Bellerus the killer), but just Bellerus;and the story his voice has told is not exactly a lie but it is larger than fact; inother words it is a myth.

The genie who appears at the beginning of ' Dunyazadiad', answeringexactly to a description of John Barth, is a writer from an age in the fardistant future who is having difficulty with his writing. He tells the twosisters: ' " My project... is to learn where to go by discovering where I amby reviewing where I've been-where we've all been " ' (p. 10). Barth's useof myth is taking him back to that past which is so important for an under-standing of the present and the future. This theme is expanded on manylevels throughout the novel. Perseus wanted to retrace his steps because

8 Barth, Chimera, p. 194. Subsequent references to this edition will appear in the text.

Q/O Ursula Mackenzie

' " somewhere along that way I'd lost something, took a wrong turn . . . itseemed to me that if I kept going over it carefully enough I might see thepattern, find the key " ' (pp. 72-3). The constant interaction between pastand present is also emphasized by Barth's references, not always overt, tohis previous novels; which are in the past from the point of view of his ownliterary history, but in the future if we accept the historical perspective givento us by the novel. The description of the grove where Bellerus and Deliades' played ' echoes that of the jungle in the story ' Water Message ' from Lostin the Funhouse:

There was about that place a rich fetidity: grey rats and blackbirds decomposed,by schoolboys done to death; suburban wild dogs spoored the way; part the vinesat the base of any tree and you might find a strew of pellets and fieldmouse-bonesdisgorged by feasting owls. It was the most exciting place we knew; its queersmell retched us if we breathed too deeply, but in measured inhalations it had arich, a stirring savor (p. 161).Jungle-like too, there was about it a voluptuous fetidity: grey rats and starlingsdecomposed where B-B'd; curly-furred retrievers spoored the paths . . . and if youparted the vines at the base of any tree, you might find a strew of brown pellets andfieldmouse-bones, disgorged by feasting owls. It was the most exciting placeAmbrose knew, in a special way. Its queer smell could retch him if he breathedtoo deeply, but in measured inhalations it had a rich, peculiarly stirring savour.9

One version of Bellerophon's relationship with Anteia has them going tobed together almost accidentally (p. 193), and the description of the scene isalmost the same as the scene when Jake Horner and Rennie Morgan sleeptogether for the first time.10 For example, both passages describe the woman'smanner as one of ' exhausted strength ', her movements as ' heavy anddeliberate'. Finally, compare the following quotation with some of the lastlines of the title story in Lost in the Funhouse:

Bellerophon wishes he had never begun this story. But he began it. Then hewishes he were dead. But he's not (p. 170).

He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he weredead. But he's not.11

The examples are many and of course there are the pages when several ofBarth's novels and the characters in them are actually referred to in a veryamusing piece of writing (pp. 248-57). This conscious relationship betweenthe past and the present is the actual working out of what the genie said hewished to do in ' Dunyazadiad': ' he wished neither to repudiate nor torepeat his past performances; he aspired to go beyond them toward a future

9 Barth, Lost in the Funhouse, p. 56.10 Barth, The End of the Road, p. 97.11 Barth, Lost in the Funhouse, p. 101.

John Barth's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality 97

they were not attuned to and, by some magic, at the same time go back tothe original springs of narrative ' (p. 10).

' Since myths themselves are among other things poetic distillations of ourordinary psychic experience and therefore point always to daily reality, towrite realistic fictions which point always to mythic archetypes is in myopinion to take the wrong end of the mythopoeic stick, however meritorioussuch fictions may be in other respects. Better to address the archetypesdirectly ' (p. 199). Although Barth's apparent explanation of some of hisaims and motives appears in the context of the fiction and therefore has acertain dubiety, it seems to me that Barth is aiming to exploit the relationshipwhich exists between myth and daily reality. His heroes in this book are' emblematic' heroes, defined, it may be remembered, in Giles Goat-Boy as' those whose careers were merely epical representations of the ordinary life-cycle \1 2 The essential humanity even of mythic heroes is of course whatmakes their stories interesting to us as readers, apart from the excitement oftheir adventures, that is our delight in pure fable. When Perseus says ' I was,ineluctably and for worse as much as bet ter . . . a bloody mythic hero' (p.124), he is lamenting the humanity which allows him, unlike the gods, tomake mistakes and regret them. Heroes only act heroically some of the timeand though this may be exceptionally fulfilling at the time, their despair at,and rejection of, the ordinariness of much of existence is correspondinglydeeper. John Updike has made a similar point in his novel, Rabbit, Run 13;for Rabbit Angstrom nothing has ever been as exciting as being a high schoolbasketball star.

Bellerophon points towards another problem heroes have to face when hesays: ' What I am experiencing cannot be called an identity crisis. In orderto experience an identity-crisis, one must first have enjoyed some sense ofidentity ' (p. 150). Mythic heroes are defined not by their own personality butby the fact of their being mythic heroes; this adoption of a role is anotherexample of Barth's fascination with masks. In order to function, the hero ofThe Sot-Weed Factor had to adopt the mask of ' Ebenezer Cooke, Virginand Poet', the same is true of ' Bellerophon, mythic hero '. When the maskwears thin, that is, when the memory of their heroic actions becomes dulleven to themselves, heroes are faced with the serious problem of having avery weak sense of their own identity. Their one desire is for immortalitybecause that will at least be proof that they were mythic heroes, and will thusexcuse their failures in everyday life. Melanippe notices a hero's problem of

12 Barth, Giles Goat-Boy, p. 317.13 John Updike, Rabbit, Run (3rd ed., i960; rpt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,

1964).

AM.ST.—7

98 Ursula Mackenzie

identity when she remarks: ' Melanippe knows a private, uncategorizableself impossible for her ever to confuse with the name Melanippe - as Perseusshe believes confused himself with the mythical persona Perseus, Bellerophon,Rellerophon ...' (p. 238). The danger involved with role-playing is that theindividual is attempting- to confer the status of reality on the role he chooses.Actual shape-shifting is what is needed because it involves a recognition ofthe existence of daily reality while also seeing the necessity of attempting toreach beyond its limits.

IV

The basic reason for Barth's use of myth can be summarized with thequotation ' all shape-shifters are revisions of tricky Proteus ' (p. 152), that is,we find the prototypes of all fictions in myth; but we have yet to look at thequestion of how he uses it. None of the three sections has an entirely straight-forward narrative structure. In ' Dunyazadiad' Barth is writing a tale inwhich he himself appears as a genie and talks of writing that same tale.' Perseid' is scattered with remarks that seem to come from nowhere untilwe realize that Perseus has become a star and is relating his story to Medusa,also a star. Thus what appears to be the narration of his life to Calyxa canin fact be interrupted by remarks from Medusa.' Bellerophoniad ' is the mostcomplex of all. Most of the story we receive Bellerophon appears to benarrating to Melanippe, although certain parts of it are in the form of con-versations with his wife, Philonoe. But then we discover that Bellerophononly exists as the story of his life; the tale is told in the first person because heis his myth, not because he is the audior of it. This explains why he does notappear to have control over how he expresses himself, in fact he does notagree with much of what he is apparently saying. He blames this state ofaffairs on Polyeidus, his shape-shifting ex-tutor; but by the end of the storyhe has realized that Polyeidus has no more control over the way the storydevelops than he has himself, for Polyeidus has become nothing more thanthe actual manuscript: ' Polyeidus is the story, more or less, in any case itsmarks and spaces ' (p. 237). The author could be anyone who has everwritten, or will ever write, about the myth of Bellerophon and the Chimera;in this instance it is John Barth. However Barth complicates the narrativestructure even further by having ' the author ' appear within the pages of thebook itself, as the writer of a lecture delivered by Bellerophon (pp. 198—203).This lecture is written in the first person and refers to Barth's own literaryhistory, his interest in the wandering hero myth, the writing of Giles Goat-Boy as a conscious attempt to recreate that myth and so on. Although weknow that the author of this lecture appears to be the same person as theJohn Barth responsible for the work as a whole, we have to distinguish

John Barth's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality 99

between the two personae, because one of them appears in the context of thefiction and as a creation of the other; the John Barth we presume to be theauthor of the lecture Bellerophon delivers is no more objectively real thanPerseus or Melanippe. Here we are being given an example of Barth's ownshape-shifting efforts, while at the same time being reminded that he is awareof the existence of daily reality, and of the difference between his real self andthe new shape into which he has shifted.

Bellerophon complains that the story used to be much clearer, ' if less thanPerseid perfect [it] was anyhow clear, straightforward, and uncorrupted atthat time' (p. 295). The chinese-box effect of the narrative structure is anexcellent metaphor for the inevitable changes in traditional stories as theyare handed down from storyteller to storyteller. Barth also seems to feel thatwriting stories in general is becoming increasingly difficult as time goes on,and this notion is paralleled by the movement from comparative simplicityto complexity in the structure of the three tales which make up the novel.Barth expresses this problem through Bellerophon who says:

It's not my wish to be obscure or difficult; I'd hoped at least to entertain, if notinspire. But put it that one has had visions of an order complex unto madness:Now and again, like mazy marshways glimpsed from Pegasus at top-flight, thedesign is clear: one sees how the waters flow and why; what freight they bearand whither. Between one's swamped; the craft goes on, but its way seemsarbitrary, seems insane (p. 147).

The complexities of the fiction-making process are further emphasized by aconstant blurring between fact and fiction. As I have mentioned before,Barth himself, as the author, becomes part of the fiction; and the frequentallusions to his other works create the impression of an underlying web ofstructure to the book. One of Polyeidus's last shape-shifting efforts endsdisastrously when he turns into ' a repellent little person, oddly dressed, witha sty in his eye and a smell of urine and stale cakes ' (p. 258). Polyeidus hasbeen trying to turn into Perseus and the god in charge, having an affectionfor puns, turns him into Perse, a character in ' Water-Message ', a story fromthe Lost in the Funhouse collection. All these references give the book a kindof internal coherence which is, unusually, purely fictional; this gives us animpression of order and stability, but we get this impression because thenovel relates to other fictions, not because it relates to our conception ofreality. Barth is in fact creating alternative, fictional realities; and the plethoraof possibilities for their creation is what complicates the fiction-makingprocess.

' Don't mistake the key for the treasure ' is Eidothea's message to Menelausin ' Menelaiad ' ; 1 4 in Chimera all are agreed ' The key to the treasure is the1 4 Barth, Lost in the Funhouse, p. 150.

ioo Ursula Mackenzie

treasure ' (p. 8). When Scheherezade is trying to work out how to save thenation's young women from the king, she explains to her sister that if theirsituation was the plot of a story the answer to their problem would alwaysbe in words: ' And those words are made from the letters of our alphabet: acouple-dozen squiggles we can draw with this pen. This is the key, Doony!And the treasure too if we can only get our hands on it! It's as if the key tothe treasure is the treasure ' (p. 8). As she says these words the genie appears,in the persona of John Barth, and tells her how she can solve her problem. Ofcourse the key to the treasure is the treasure for him as well, because in thecourse of telling the sisters of the work he wishes to write and cannot, hecreates that very work. This concept is referred to throughout the book andit emphasizes the value of words and fiction-making. It is also closelyconnected with one of the most important themes in the book, the searchfor immortality.

Both mythic heroes are seeking immortality, partly as a recognition oftheir status, but also as a condition of existence in itself. Perseus is immor-talized as a star but all he can do is spend half the night telling his story andthe other half talking to Medusa, and he cannot even see her. Bellerophontries to fly to Mount Olympus, but all he achieves is the immortality of beingin some way his own life story. He comes to realize that he is ' cursed withimmortality' (p. 164); Melanippe is right when she says ' this isn't immor-tality : it's suspended animation' (p. 294). Barth's point is that it is a mistaketo desire literal immortality and to be immortalized in art is an immortalitywe cannot actually experience or control. The only kind of immortality wecan have which is worth having is imaginative: that is, we can use theimagination, or story-telling, to move backwards and forwards in time, justas Barth has done in this book. The immortality Bellerophon and Perseussought depends on rigid conceptions of man's position in time; if we canmove within time, and we can imaginatively, then we have achieved animmortality we can control and which we could never call ' suspendedanimation.'

This is why Barth emphasizes ' the magic words " as if " ' (p. 48). They,like Abracadabra and Open Sesame, are a key, and as we now know, the keyto the treasure is the treasure.' Dunyazadiad ' ends with the traditional Arabdenouement: ' until there took them the Destroyer of Delights and Desolatorof Dwelling-places, and they were translated to the ruth of Almighty Allah,and their houses fell waste and their palaces lay in ruins, and the Kingsinherited their riches' (pp. 55-6). The final paragraph comments on thisand shows us the link between the theme of immortality and the keysentence: ' To be joyous in the full acceptance of this denouement is surely

John Bank's Chimera and the Strictures of Reality 101

to possess a treasure, the key to which is the understanding that Key andTreasure are the same. There (with a kiss, little sister) is the sense of our storyDunyazade: The key to the treasure is the treasure ' (p. 56). We are able to behappy in the acceptance of our actual mortality, unlike Bellerophon andPerseus, because we realize that the immortality achieved through theimagination is more fulfilling than a literal immortality. The Key (that is,the words or thoughts we use to move backwards and forwards in time) isthe Treasure of immortality or, if we return to the terms set out earlier, theTreasure of alternative realities. Additionally the traditional Arab denoue-ment is what we need in order to apprehend the ' Delights ' of life, and alsoto combat the stasis of which Melanippe complains.

In this novel we can see that Barth is reaching beyond a mere acceptanceand representation of everyday reality; he does not deny its existence but heproposes that we all need to transcend its boundaries by using the imagina-tion. Novelists are peculiarly equipped to help others find the treasure ofalternative realities. Barth's description of myths as ' poetic distillations ofour ordinary psychic experience ' (p. 199) is an accurate one and indicates hisconcern with everyday reality. We should notice the word ' psychic ' how-ever; Barth uses myth because his central interest lies with the individualconsciousness, not with social behaviour. The human mind is a free-rangingcreature and the element of fantasy in all our lives should indicate the validityof the truth presented to us in this novel: that we need to allow our imagina-tion a certain freedom from the strictures of reality. This for Barth is thefunction of art: ' which if it could not redeem the barbarities of history orspare us the horrors of living and dying, at least sustained, refreshed,expanded, ennobled, and enriched our spirits along the painful way ' (p. 17).