Giles Goat-Boy
Or, the Revised New Syllabus
710 pages.
Original publisher: Doubleday.
Current publisher: Anchor Press.
Buy now from Amazon.com.
Synopsis
If Sot-Weed was a farcical twist on American colonial history, then Giles Goat-Boy is a farcical twist on human history. Structured loosely around Otto Rank’s theories about the ritual wandering hero and Joseph Campbell’s “chart for a perfect mythological hero” (another obsession of Barth’s), the book tells the story of a would-be Messiah raised by goats who launches on a voyage of prophecy and discovery in a giant University, which is really the world in microcosm. Got that?
The book is rigidly structured (as many of Barth’s tales are). But there is so much pleasure to be derived from finding the concordances between the University-world and the real world (East Campus is the Soviet Union, Enos Enoch is Jesus Christ, the Quiet Riot is the Cold War). The mock introduction by four “editors” of the book is a classic text in itself.
Giles Goat-Boy is the book that got me hooked on Barth. In my opinion, this is his greatest masterpiece.
Critical Reaction
“Like Mephistopheles — or perhaps Batman. Giles Goat-Boy is a gothic funhouse of theology, sociology, and sex.”
— Time
“Giles Goat-Boy confirms Barth’s standing as perhaps the most prodigally gifted comic novelist writing in English today.”
— Newsweek
“More than a little overwrought and too clever by half.”
— Michael Dirda on Washingtonpost.com
Resources
- Giles Goat-Boy review by The New York Times
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