“Night-Sea Journey”

1. “Night-Sea Journey” John Barth Lost in the Funhouse

2. Outline • Introduction: John Barth • Lost in the Funhouse: "Oh God comma I abhor self-consciousness.“ • “Night-Sea Journey”

3. Introduction: John Barth • Prolific and influential metafictionist • His first few novels are existentialist dark comedy (e.g. The Floating Opera, The End of the Road), and his novels become longer and more intricate (in the over-plotting track). • Literature of Exhaustion (1967) • Lost in the Funhouse (1968) -- influenced by the revolutionary passion of the time, highly experimental.

4. Literature of Exhaustion & Replenishment • Exhaustion: • Realism –a dead end; • Today’s novelists need to confront the exhaustion of realist literary techniques-- “an artist may paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and means for his work -- paradoxically, because by doing so he transcends what had appeared to be his refutation (71).  • . . .novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by an author who imitates the role of Author (72)” • his own novels as examples –the use of labyrinth • Literature of Replenishment: a creative synthesis of realism, modernism and postmodernism.

5. Lost in the Funhouse • Starts with “Frame Tale” -- the Moebius Strip (《魔比斯環》) --endless circle with a twist in the middle. circular, self-referential • The growth of Ambrose as a sperm a child and then his struggling with writing  and his mythic tales.

6. "Night Sea Journey" • Although this story is about a sperm, it can also be interpreted as a story about an artist or human beings in general. • Clues – p. 7; 8, 11 • A swimmer-hero + a She  in a night-sea and maker of future night-seas;

7. 1. Different interpretation of the journey A. the narrator – lack conviction:   • "my own invention?" p. 3; p. 9; out of blind habit 5 • Exhausted and dispirited. P. 3 • Reflective moments –wonder, doubt and despair. • Two choices: give up and go under; embrace the absurdity p. 5 B. Others or the group: • A common Maker N: the journey partakes of their absurdity. • “Love! Love!” for Love  ignorance of what whips us. Dream of the Shore. • p. 4; out of interest in swimming; • p. 5; conformity • ambition for race at a younger age p. 8

8. 1. Different interpretation of the journey (2): a cynic’s view • Father: pp. 6 -7 • unconscious; • doesn’t care; • wishes us unmade; • perverse, etc. • the end of the journey: extinction? -- nihilism • thousands of seas and Makers, Makers in their own sea, pluralism pp. 7-8

9. No longer scoff p. 9 – purged of opinions, etc. I may be the only survivor, tale-bearer p. 9  may have been drowned; The new emotion The friend Our destination: a mysterious being p. 10 consummation, transfiguration, etc. A hero stops the cycle, refuses her proffered “immortality.” The Sperm in the present What do you think about the ending?

10. The Sperm’s Decision • Not love. • some unimaginable embodiment of myself (or myself plus Her if that’s how it must be) • To You: “stop your hearing against Her song! Hate love!” •  senseless love and senseless death.

11. Ending: A. Personal-biological level: • End of the life of a sperm (or male ego); • sexual intercourse ‘may’ not be for love; B. Personal-Existential level: • Thinkers or doers, we don’t know where the Shore is or whether there is one. • There are different interpretations of the “goal” of human life. C. Global level: • We are in a night-sea (or many seas) producing night-seas, which can be productive or self-destructive.