In the no man's land of contemporary fiction, Barth has always been a willing occupier of the trenches, a writer concerned both to advance and defend, and this posture has given us works both of great interest and unevenness. His newest, Sabbatical, continues the pattern of engagement and stands as a worthy effort, if a flawed one. As with the earlier novels so with this one: the false starts and rough edges in Sabbatical derive not at all from a lack of skill but rather from the difficulties inherent in juggling diverse rhythms and mixed modes. Some of the features of the new novel remind one of other postmodern writing and also of the asymmetries and unresolved tensions in mannerist art as it sought to move out of the high Renaissance. Sabbatical explores anew Barth's long-standing interest in the way in which writer, text and reader interact, in...