For a dozen years I have been trying to read The Sot-Weed Factor. I have never entirely completed this astonishingly dull book but I have read most of John Barth's published work and I feel that I have done him, I hope, justice. There is a black cloth on my head as I write.

First, it should be noted that Barth … is a professional schoolteacher. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing. He is extremely knowledgeable about what is going on in R and D [Research and Development] land and he is certainly eager to make his contribution. (p. 111)

The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958) are two novels of a kind and that kind is strictly R and R [Rest and Recuperation], and fairly superior R and R at that…. [The Floating Opera] is written in first person demotic (Eastern shore of Maryland...