Product Description

In a novelistic romp that is by turns hilarious and brilliant, John Barth, the dean of postmodern fiction, spoofs his own place in the pantheon of contemporary fiction and the generation of writers who have followed in the wake of his literary trailblazing.
Barth's first novel in ten years, COMING SOON!!! is the tale of two writers: an older, retiring novelist setting out to write his last work and a young, aspiring writer of hypertext intent on toppling his master. Inspired by a gently sinking showboat replica called The Original Floating Opera II, grounded on a shoal somewhere in Chesapeake Bay as a hurricane (and Y2K) approaches, they race each other to write a novel about a floating opera -- a reprise of the fictional mentor's first novel, of Barth's own first novel, of Edna Ferber's literary monument Show Boat and its spawn of musicals and films. In the heat of their rivalry, the writers navigate, and sometimes stumble over, the cultural fault lines between print and electronic fiction, mentor and mentee, postmodernism and modernism.
At a time of intense renewed interest in postmodernism, COMING SOON!!! spotlights its legacy with the wit and irreverence that mark Barth as one of our most highly regarded writers. It is an extraordinary addition to, and a playful riff on, Barth's oeuvre, a series of books that have shaped contemporary literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1500693 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-22
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Technical ingenuity is a hallmark of Barth's work, and his latest novel relies almost entirely upon it. A M”bius strip of a narrative, the novel begins with the discovery by Ditsy, a transgendered boat captain, of a computer disk containing a novel, Coming Soon!!, by Johns "Hop" Johnson, an aspiring novelist whose specific aspiration is to use this novel, with its hypertextual accoutrements, to get into the Johns Hopkins creative writing program. Hop's novel concerns a Novelist Emeritus, John Barth, who is retiring from Johns Hopkins and writing a last "narrative," Coming Soon, which involves both a writing student named Hop Johnson and Ditsy's discovery of the Coming Soon floating computer disk. In both narratives, Hop is a member of the Arkangel Players on a showboat plying the Chesapeake Bay under the moniker The Original Floating Opera II, referring to Barth's first novel. Furthermore, the crew/cast is investigating the origin of Edna Ferber's Showboat, which was inspired by an earlier Chesapeake showboat, the James Adams Floating Theater. Unfortunately, the display of metafictional conceits that subtends the novel does not make up for clunky writing and uninspired characters. Hop Johnson, the Novelist Aspirant, seems to write, think and talk just like the Novelist Emeritus, which subtracts from the internecine authorial quarrel that is this novel's main interest. There is much gap filling (for example, we are given condensed reports of the news, from 1995 to 1999), and for large stretches the enterprise is seemingly propelled mainly by the need to fill pages with words. Readers are advised to turn to the original Floating Opera and leave this massy addendum to Barth's academic acolytes.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"This tale of novelists Aspirant and 'Emeritus,' of Unoriginal Floating Operas, and of the possible End et cetera" marks the return after ten years of one of the grand old men of postmodern fiction a status that, charmingly, he does not seem to take too seriously. Indeed, one of the central functions of the novel is to spoof his own career and the experimental writers who have followed in his wake. The two central characters are an older novelist just retired from an academic career who is setting out to write his last novel but is suffering a bit from writer's block and a young M.F.A. student who believes that the future lies in electronic fiction that allows the reader to decide how the story should proceed by choosing from a variety of scenarios. The latter also happens to work on a showboat on the Chesapeake, The Original Floating Opera II, which becomes in a reprise of the fictional mentor's first novel, Barth's own first novel, and the Edna Ferber classic Show Boat the focus of their independent yet intertwined efforts to create a novel for the new millennium. In the end, however, it is not the story that matters but the perspective on the nature of the literary profession in this modern age and on the career of one of its most eminent members. Unfortunately, despite its charm, wit, and erudition, it is not likely to attract a mass audience. Highly recommended for collections of serious fiction in both public and academic libraries.
- David. W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
As the curtain rises on the latest teasing tale from the master of metafiction, a crusty Chesapeake Bay beachcomber finds a computer disk labeled "Coming Soon!!!" Next up is a memo from a newly emeritus professor/novelist regarding the graduate application of one J. H. Johnson, an aspiring novelist. The reader learns that Johns "Hop" Hopkins (named after his parents' beloved alma mater, and Barth's longtime haunt) is writing a showboat novel titled Coming Soon!!!, as is the Novelist Emeritus, who is revisiting his first book (not unlike Barth himself, whose first novel was The Floating Opera). So it's a case of dueling novels as the young upstart seeks to vanquish the aging mentor. Employing his signature wordplay and liberally salting his gleefully postmodern narrative with paeans to sailing, the Maryland coast, sex, and marriage, Barth, witty, wily, and a tad sentimental, muses over the creative process, the thin line between fact and fiction, growing old, and the tenuous survival of literature and theater in the digital age. Barth fans will enjoy this floating house of mirrors, but others, frankly, will be at sea. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Still Barth, after all these years...
...which is all you need to know.

The man has nearly half a century of literary history, all of it jam-packed with the most mind-bending experimental and metafictional gymnastics the literary community has ever had the delight to call its own.

Consider that for a moment: half a century. That piece of knowledge in hand, you know right off you can disregard out of hand the one-star review of any reader calling this yet "another bloated and tiresome (Barth) book." If one is well read in the Barth canon, and has found it wanting, same one could easily have given Barth a pass thousands of pages ago. Barth has never pretended to be anything less than egomaniacal and pretentious. And for that, I thank him, for he stands out magnificently from the body of even the postmodern pantheon. Some people simply don't like, don't appreciate, or don't "get" Barth. It should take only one book to figure out if you're among them.

Then, what of the book's own merits? I tell you this: this is by no means the place to begin your journey into Barth if you've not read him before. In fact, to read this anyplace among them but last (assuming you're made of stout engouh stuff to make it through them all) would be tragic. It's a 300 page, self-indulgent, metafictional going-away party. It's not merely writing about writing; it's writing about Barth's strange and fascinating literary journey. And what a journey it's been.

Ere you pass the threshold, be prepared to accept the following: this book will be pretentious; it will be literary for literary's sake; it will drip with self-reference; it will be twisted, perverse, convoluted, and obscure. If you're familiar enough with Barth to have made it through Floating Opera, Sot-Weed, Giles, Funhouse, et al, and to have loved the whole mad lot, then you're certain to enjoy this bizarre farewell from the master manipulator. If you haven't, don't bother.

Coming Soon!!!
Coming Soon!!! (Or End Time, or The New Show) is a joyous post-modern romp, a witty, intelligent mash of ideas hovering around the central conceit of a showboat, an author, and another author.

The plot is difficult to explain. John Barth - the author - wrote, as his first book, The Floating Opera, a novel that was loosely about The Original Floating Opera, a showboat on the Chesapeake. Johns Hopkins Johnson is an aspiring young author, and for his master's writing thesis, he wishes to create a sequel to The Floating Opera, a sequel that involves Johns writing his version of the sequel, and John Barth - the fictional character - writing another at the same time, in a competition. John Barth (A) reads this thesis submission and is intrigued, deciding that he would like to write the same novel, in a competition as well. So. We have the real author writing a story where the author 'John Barth' is writing a sequel to his previous novel while a young wannabe author attempts it as well, and while this is happening, a young wannabe author is writing a sequel to John Barth's novel while a character of John Barth is doing the same. Confusing.

But it isn't, really. Barth manages to handle this story-within-a-story gimmick quite well, and in fact he does it in a few other ways on top of that. At the beginning of the real, physical novel, we are assuming that we are reading the Novel Emeritus' - the real John Barth - version, but by the end of the novel, there have been enough scattered hints to suggest that maybe Johns Hopkins Johnson won the challenge, and we are actually reading his novel. Maybe it is both? The question is never conclusively answered, and couldn't be, really, as the answer would lie in the universe outside the novel.

Post-modern plot aside, Barth absolutely revels in playing with the English language. He capitalises words to add emphasis, combines words, rambles on, inserts commentary about his own personal life, et ceteras, abbreviates and just has fun: 'Detour now, is it, O Opter of the Options, Clicker of the Clicker, Mastress of the Might Mouse? Detour it is, then, even as Mlle Sherry Singer directed back there in (my) Chap. 1, 'Commencement' - Where last we saw your Novelist Aspirant & Apprentice narrator hip-hopping south and east and south again on wings of desire,...' and so on and so on. There are puns: On the The Original Floating Opera II, there is a character, the Phantom. Phantom of the Opera. Get it? Hilarious. Well, it is, in the narrative structure that Barth has created. He throws in the the elements for a joke, then, several paragraphs later, puts it all together. If you can catch it before he does, you win, if not, you get to giggle at his cleverness.

The plot largely focuses on The Original Floating Opera II, with expositionary detours of what the Novelist Emeritus (Barth) is doing over the five years of the story, and then the Novelist Aspirant (Hopkins) gets a turn, introducing us to his love, Sherry, his parents, his ideas and dreams, and of course, the showboat. They both write the same chapters, a '1995.1' and a '1995.2', but there are little 'off-story' sections as well, including a Cast of Several, which explains all of the characters and their roles. 47 pages into the novel.

The novel can be a difficult read. Barth is very, very clever, and he knows enough of the English language and grammatical structure that he can mix it up and mess it about with ease. And he does. If rambling, largely irrelevant plots coupled with trickery for trickery's sake and a penchant for look-at-me cleverness is not your idea of a rip-roaring novelistic experience, then pass by the pastiche of witticisms. If it is, then settle down and enjoy the work of a master at the top of his game.

Good ol' Barth
I wonder about that "post-modern" label. Why can't stories be left to stand or fall on their own merits? I'll leave the categorization to the academics. I'm just a guy who likes a good read, and this is one. Mr. Barth returns to showboats several decades after "The Floating Opera," with a little reluctance, apparently. Sometimes it seems the story is nothing more than a series of devices stacked upon each other like a house of cards, but Mr. Barth manages to keep the flimsy structure from collapsing under its own weight. Much like "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor," Mr. Barth starts off unevenly (perhaps because of the strange stage he has to set), then really takes off with a great middle. The story ultimately meanders (like a tidewater creek?) and then just sort of peters out. Still, this is a very worthwhile read, if only for the world-weariness of our humble narrator.