I have have just finished Dunyazadiad when I came across this intellectual group that is formed by people who share the love of the writing of John barth. I want to know about the activities of your group. How do you schedule your topics? How can I take part of the discussions? thamk you.

New member

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, khalid saoui <tiebook2003@y...>
wrote:
>
> I have have just finished Dunyazadiad when I came across this
intellectual group that is formed by people who share the love of the
writing of John barth.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome, salaam a'laikem (spelling?) :)


> I want to know about the activities of your group. How do you
schedule your topics? How can I take part of the discussions? thamk
you.

Jump in at any time for all things Barth related (and even other
related literature).  Yeah, we had started a group discussion about
On With The Story, but for some reason that has fizzled due to
everyones hectic schedule.  Maybe that can happen again from square
one (don't know if I can snag a copy now, guys...)




>
> New member
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now

looks like I still don't have it right!  I believe I have been checking out the
package, running it, then running iadmin and making changes, but I've never
gotten everything fixed yet.  What are your procedures?

seems like lots of rue for me today

>are there no real people left in this group, just racist
nutters?
>- Martin Skidmore

Sorry about the recent couple of spams, friends.  I'm going
to delete them from the archives along with any responses
that include the original messages.

I changed the *Who can post* setting from "Anyone" to
"Members".

Regards,
Mark
________________________________________________
Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/

good; it wasn't very Barthian.

	 -----Original Message-----
	 From: Mark Brawner [mailto:markbrawner@...]
	 Sent: Sun 3/2/2003 10:12 AM
	 To: johnbarth@yahoogroups.com
	 Cc:
	 Subject: [johnbarth] Sorry about the spam



	 >are there no real people left in this group, just racist
	 nutters?
	 >- Martin Skidmore

	 Sorry about the recent couple of spams, friends.  I'm going
	 to delete them from the archives along with any responses
	 that include the original messages.

	 I changed the *Who can post* setting from "Anyone" to
	 "Members".

	 Regards,
	 Mark
	 ________________________________________________
	 Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/

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Hi,

I'm also still here! Life has quite kicked me around lately, so I
haven't
been up to posting anything meaningful in a while. I did manage to
re-read
Sot-Weed and Giles, as I had intended to for some time, and have also
managed to write some 20 pages of my thesis, which my tutor (is that
the
word? ours is 'promotor') is pleased with, but I am not: I can't
actually
focus too well. I think my grasp of my two favourite novels is much
richer
now, with the entire Barth catalogue under my proverbial belt; still,
problems somehow stifle production. Not to mention the *will* to
produce...

I managed to get my hands (finally) on Campbell; also, the Morrell
and
Ziegler books. I read with awe Doug Robinson's study of Giles -
Doug, if you
are receiving anything from this list, here's to you!

I'm also working my way through The Friday Book. Most pieces I've
read so
many times already that I could quote bits from memory; some of them
seems
as if they weren't there last time I looked! I had no recollection
of B's
blurb / review / whatever it was, of the photography book on
Chesapeake, for
instance...

So it's Barth Barth Barth, all the time and relentlessly. And that's
good.
Next year, after graduating, I might be able to teach a class on Am
Lit in a
provincial college here in Poland: hope they'll let me stretch the
syllabus
a bit to include at least a small portion of (almost surely
neglected) Barth
& Pynch.

So much from me; got the blues, but life goes on.

.K

Hey Kris!

So what's the umm... thesis of your thesis?

Derik A. Badman.

---

"Stop living and read!" - Fernando Pessoa

"You read too much, erudition will be your downfall and you'll end up a
librarian." -Queneau

"Others brag of the books they've managed to write; I brag of the books
I've managed to read." - J.L. Borges

I'm suspicious of attached .exe files, especially when there's such
ambiguous/non-existent explanation. Unless the sender provides that,
I'd suggest others be suspicious as well.

Hope all are well; look forward to the next group event!

mike

Yeah, what *is* the deal?  Delete! Delete!  Or risk RESET

I thought I had taken care of this by restricting posting capablity to members only.  I'll have a look at the settings and whatnot again.  Sorry about this.

Say: I met David Foster Wallace last night at a reading in Los Angeles.  Got a couple books signed.  Woo hoo!

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike [mailto:michaelfenger@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 4:08 PM
To: johnbarth@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [johnbarth] what's the deal?

I'm suspicious of attached .exe files, especially when there's such
ambiguous/non-existent explanation. Unless the sender provides that,
I'd suggest others be suspicious as well.

Hope all are well; look forward to the next group event!

mike

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Sorry again for the spam.  Turns out this person *was* a
member.  I booted him.

Mark

________________________________________________
Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/

Sadly, I wasn't getting this spam of which you speak. Has anything else been
going on that I have missed?

Without wishing to get overtly political, I can't help but wonder what Barth
is thinking right now, given his feelings for both Baghdad and the Marsh
Arabs of southern Iraq.

Another thing: a couple of months ago I finally took a look at the Barth
archive in the Library of Congress. If anyone wants a rundown on what I saw
I could cobble something together.

Jonathan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Brawner" <markbrawner@...>
To: <johnbarth@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 8:10 PM
Subject: [johnbarth] Another spam apology


> Sorry again for the spam.  Turns out this person *was* a
> member.  I booted him.
>
> Mark
>
> ________________________________________________
> Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> johnbarth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Hall" <jmh69@c...> wrote:
> Without wishing to get overtly political, I can't help but wonder
what Barth
> is thinking right now, given his feelings for both Baghdad and the
Marsh
> Arabs of southern Iraq.

I raised my eyebrow a few inches when he mentioned Osama Bin Laden in
Coming Soon!!!

>
> Another thing: a couple of months ago I finally took a look at the
Barth
> archive in the Library of Congress. If anyone wants a rundown on
what I saw
> I could cobble something together.
>

Cobble, J, cobble!

Just wanted to say hello!..Just joined the group, and checked out
some of the recommended reading. Very impressed to see some people
who actually recommend spending the next two years of your life
slugging through 4000 pages of Proust. I'm a big Barth fan
(obviously) and a fellow frustrated drummer. Favourite Barth..Sot
Weed Factor. Looking forward to joining the fray.

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, "drummindiver" <drummindiver@i...>
wrote:
> Just wanted to say hello!..Just joined the group, and checked out
> some of the recommended reading. Very impressed to see some people
> who actually recommend spending the next two years of your life
> slugging through 4000 pages of Proust. I'm a big Barth fan
> (obviously) and a fellow frustrated drummer. Favourite Barth..Sot
> Weed Factor. Looking forward to joining the fray.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome...we need some action here, as you can
thusly see.  I jump between many BBSs, so i rarely come up with a new
idea for posts here.  Drummin, I shall open up the floor with a
friendly question--Why is Sot Weed your favorite, and what else have
you read thus far of JB? (LETTERS is my fave, btw)

-----Original Message-----
From: drummindiver [mailto:drummindiver@...]
Sent: 01 May 2003 03:17
To: johnbarth@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [johnbarth] Saying Hi!!

Just wanted to say hello!..Just joined the group, and checked out
some of the recommended reading. Very impressed to see some people
who actually recommend spending the next two years of your life
slugging through 4000 pages of Proust. I'm a big Barth fan
(obviously) and a fellow frustrated drummer. Favourite Barth..Sot
Weed Factor. Looking forward to joining the fray.



To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
johnbarth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

<a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/national/07INDI.html">Pocahon
tas's village found?</a>

One wonders whether any eggplants could still be preserved . . .

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <michaelfenger@e...> wrote:
> <a
>
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/national/07INDI.html">Pocahon
> tas's village found?</a>
>
> One wonders whether any eggplants could still be preserved . . .

mike, please paste the article--either your link is no longer valid,
or one has to register

-----Original Message-----
From: agrimorfee [mailto:agrimorfee@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 07 May 2003 08:48
To: johnbarth@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [johnbarth] Re: interesting archaeological find

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, "Mike" <michaelfenger@e...> wrote:
> <a
>
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/national/07INDI.html">Pocahon
> tas's village found?</a>
>
> One wonders whether any eggplants could still be preserved . . .

mike, please paste the article--either your link is no longer valid,
or one has to register



To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
johnbarth-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

On Wed, 07 May 2003 15:47:54 -0000
"agrimorfee" <agrimorfee@...> wrote:
>mike, please paste the article--either your link is no
>longer valid,
>or one has to register

Ag, if you've never registered at NYTimes(it's free, and
you can use all bogus info), then have you never seen all
their cool Barth stuff (some of which is in The Friday
Book, granted, but most not)?

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/bookend/bookend.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/books/chapters/02-1st-barth.html?ex=1052452800\
&en=e8a5b0796fc89eab&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-minimalism.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-making.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-muse.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-minimalism.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-college.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-writing.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-simplicity.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-truffle.html

etcetera, plus all their book reviews. . .

Mark
________________________________________________
Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/

--- In johnbarth@yahoogroups.com, "Mark Brawner" <markbrawner@z...>
wrote:
> Ag, if you've never registered at NYTimes(it's free, and
> you can use all bogus info), then have you never seen all
> their cool Barth stuff (some of which is in The Friday
> Book, granted, but most not)?

Duly noted, thanks!

On March 10, Derik asked:

> So what's the umm... thesis of your thesis?

Two months later, the asked replies, with apologies for lateness:

The thesis (and I grant that it's not stunningly original) concerns the two
HBs in my two favourite Barth novels, Henry Burlingame and Harold Bray - the
antagonist-tricksters, who ensure the hero's passing from one stage to
another on the pattern of ritual heroism. So in my seminal chapter - to be
started soon - I'm basically researching Protean characters in various myths
(Campbell will be of use) and trying to pinpoint the functions that the two
characters serve, drawing on their prototypes. Burlingame and Bray have been
haunting me ever since I read both novels, as a nice pair - there are loads
of differences between them, but it's fascinating to seek out all the
parallels. For a while I considered throwing Castine from LETTERS in for
good measure, but he didn't fit the pairing that well (Eben-Henry,
George-Harold) and, more prosaically, I would not manage to reread closely
all three over the last few months. They're all three of them massive,
idea-packed novels (yes, Der, I *know* you don't like SWF!) and I thought
taking on Giles & Sot-Weed is a Herculean task already. After all, Doug
Robinson wrote some 350 pages on Giles alone... and I'm expected to turn in
no more than 100 pages.

I've got more or less 55 already, things that most Bartheads take for
granted I'm sure. Just a while ago I finished the chapter on the
protagonists, and running them around the pattern was lots of fun. Generally
the work has sustained me in not-so-good-times. Concentrating on the books
while writing about them made me discover new things all the time, like this
time it became clear to me that Bray is literally a humbug, with all his
insectoid behaviour and the humming noise that accompanies him... I never
made that connection before, but the word 'humbug' actually appears in the
text - only once (I ran a string search in a scanned copy I managed to
download off someone, to make sure) - in relation to George, towards the
very end, but it tipped me off.

Enough about the thesis - more messages may come from me today / tonight,
I'm in the mood for writing. There are a few good books to tout, a few
apologies to make... a group to save from falling into perpetual silence. ;)

Take care,

.K

Fellow Barth-heads,

For those of you who are David Foster Wallace fans and who
may not be on the wallace-l listserv, here's a heads-up
that there's an ass-kicking new essay that just became
available.  A must-read.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8175/ij_first.htm
________________________________________________
Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/

> Would you be willing to send me the scanned copy?  How intriguing....

On the web - hush hush - I managed to find as many as four Barthbooks. As I
own all of them anyway, I felt no remorse at downloading them, especially
since Giles came in incredibly handy for searching out quotes and such.
Unfortunately, I didn't find Sot-Weed. If anyone is interested, e-mail me -
I'm willing to mail them out, but only to legitimate Barthfans who will take
an oath not to make bad use of them! Research only.

.K

Hi again,

So let me first apologize for walking out on the On With the Story read. I
was more or less responsible for the sign-ups, I think, and it was generally
a very difficult moment to eke out time for anything. We had managed to
conduct two very fruitful and (in my opinion at least) very pleasant
group-reads before, so maybe we will pull it off once again one day? Maybe
during the summer? I promise to supervise the sign-ups and to see it through
to the end this time - not before July though, until then I'm grounded with
the thesis... So much for apologies (and a bit of a promise, too, I guess).
On to Touts!

I know there are Rushdie fans here on board, I remember Blair mentioning
Fury (though unfavourably, am I right? in comparison to his other works).
Fury I haven't read, but about two years ago I read The Satanic Verses, and
was very much taken with it. After the two colossal Barths which saw me
through January, February and March, and after having lingered on the
American soil for some time now, I decided to switch continents and bought
Midnight's Children.

An incredible book! I strongly recommend the Barthfolk to seek it out if
they haven't already; made me think of Our Man very very often. Nightly
male-to-female storytelling, the number 1001 popping up all over the place,
obsession with history and correspondences, ontogeny recapitulates philogeny
('parallels' would perhaps be a better word in this case), an impossibly
self-conscious narrator with his irresistible, hilarious narration - full of
flash-forwards, digressions, twists and turns... There's a touch of Pynchon
here and there, too, in the zany characters that people the novel. I
literally enjoyed every bit of it. Most highly recommended. Will anyone back
me up here?

I'll leave you to savour the opening lines...

  "I was born in the city of Bombay... once upon a time. No, that won't do,
there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's
Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well
then: at night. No, it's important to be more... On the stroke of midnight,
as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I
came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's
arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world."

.K

I couldn't resist picking up the 100th anniversary (of Orwell's
birth) edition of 1984, with a new 20-page foreward by Thomas
Pynchon. Very well worth reading; haven't yet found it on the web on
its own yet, though I imagine it'll show up eventually.

mike

so happy to hear from this group again.

Significant reading for me has been Richard Powers, with no discussions yet;
I'll have to read at least 4 of them again before I can begin to do anything but
sigh in pleasure and wonder.  Last weekend, however, rather than begin that
project I decided to go back to read JB yet again, from the beginning (except I
won't reread end of the road).  Starting soon.

I did read IJ but am not a big fan.  A recent focus for me has been how much of
the story is 'autobiographical' vs. sheer creativity-which of course explains my
awe of Powers' books.  I bet RP has never been a black women with a fabulous
voice married to a Jewish physicist.

Here's what clicking on the link said:
Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!
The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer.
Visit our help area for more information.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Brawner [mailto:markbrawner@...]
Sent: May 09, 2003 1:56 PM
To: johnbarth@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [johnbarth] OT: The First Draft Version of Infinite Jest


Fellow Barth-heads,

For those of you who are David Foster Wallace fans and who
may not be on the wallace-l listserv, here's a heads-up
that there's an ass-kicking new essay that just became
available.  A must-read.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8175/ij_first.htm
________________________________________________
Don't E-Mail, ZipMail! http://www.zipmail.com/


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