Pictured is John Barth, who died on April 2, 2024. Barth was ninety-three years old. In an obituary that ran in The Times' April 5, 2024, edition, The New York Times identifies Barth as a "writer who pushed storytelling's limits."
The picture of Barth that I am presenting above is not, actually, from the obituary, but was associated with an article by Dave Kim, labeled as "an appraisal," which article was placed immediately under the obituary on Page B10 of the hardcopy version of the April 5th edition of The Times.
I would like to say that reading Kim's article brought Barth's books vividly back to my mind. I have read some Barth (proven by checking out the underlines I made in Giles Goat-Boy and a couple of other Barth novels that I found on my shelves):
In fact, though, to be honest, I had no specific recollection of any of the Barth books I have read. Thus, Kim's appraisal was a welcome discussion of the themes and approaches taken by Barth. It was a reminder of what I should have known, and what I had either never grasped, or had forgotten.
The main point made by Kim, and alluded to in the title of The Times' obituary, was that Barth's books not only present a story, telling the reader about the fictional worlds that are the subjects of his books, but also incorporate a simultaneous "reflection" upon the process of writing. As Kim puts it, "Barth’s most memorable writing... works on both levels: the gently rising and falling slopes of narrative and the zany mirror maze of self-reflexivity."
As is so often the case, what I read in Kim's apraisal of Barth's writings made me think - and caused me to engage in my own "reflection," as it were, about the world that I inhabit (one that I like to think is "real," not "fictional").
The way I see it (as the title of my blog proclaims), we all live, most immediately, in a "Political World," a world that I believe we collectively construct by way of our actions, bringing into "real life" what begins with our thoughts, and hopes, and dreams.
As my father always told me, "if you don't have a dream, Gary, you can never have a dream come true." Thanks to my father, "possibility" is the category to which I assign primacy within our "Political World." Nothing is "impossible" within the world we create ourselves. The limits that we have to acknowledge and accommodate are the limits set by the "World of Nature," the "World That God Made," which is the world upon which we, and our "Political World," are ultimately and totally dependent. If you have read many of my blog postings, you will remember this picture - the picture of the "World of Nature" upon which we ultimately depend for everything:
But let me return to Barth, and to Kim's appraisal of how his writing is structured. What Kim said, as I have already tried to indicate, made me think about my own writing, which is, pretty much, the writing that appears in my daily blog postings. Don't I, too, spend a lot of my time - maybe most of my time, "reflecting" on my subject, "politics," rather than actually engaging in politics itself?
I used to, of course, actually "do" politics, instead of just "reflecting upon" politics. That period of my concentration on "action," not "reflection," occurred during my twenty years as an elected official. During the twenty-year period that I was a Santa Cruz County Supervisor (1975 - 1995), I was one of five persons given the official and legal responsibility for "supervising" the conduct of Santa Cruz County government, as a "representative" of the voters who put me in office.
During my time as an elected official, I did both "do" politics - my main preoccupation - while also taking at least some time to reflect upon the doing. This is exactly what Kim says Barth did in the books he wrote - he wrote, and he reflected upon the process of writing, all at the same time.
The Kim article made me take stock of what I am doing now. While I am still practicing "politics" a bit, I think most of my time is spent "reflecting" - thinking about "politics," as opposed to "doing" politics. The very last lines of the Kim article made me pull myself up short. In those final lines of Kim's appraisal, Kim "imagines the maestro ... snapping his fingers impatiently... Enough with the diversions, he might say, 'On with the story!'"
I think that may be good advice for all of us, as we consider where we are in that "political world" that is the place we most immediately inhabit. Thinking and reflecting are great - and shouldn't be undervalued - but what may be most important is actually to do what we recognize that we should be doing, as we become aware of where we actually are.
(2) - Gary A. Patton, personal photo
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