Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth Read Free Book Online Page B

odds against my conception were splendid; against my birth excellent; against my continuance favorable. Are yet. On the other hand, if my sort are permitted a certain age and growth, God help us, our life expectancy’s been known to increase at an obscene rate instead of petering out. Let me squeak on long enough, I just might live forever: a word to the wise.
    My beginning was comparatively interesting, believe it or not. Exposition. I was spawned not long since in an American state and born in no better. Grew in no worse. Persist in a representative. Prohibition, Depression, Radicalism, Decadence, and what have you. An eye sir for an eye. It’s alleged, now, that Mother was a mere passing fancy who didn’t pass quickly enough; there’s evidence also that she was a mere novel device, just in style, soon to become a commonplace, to which Dad resorted one day when he found himself by himself with pointless pen. In either case she was mere, Mom; at any event Dad dallied. He has me to explain. Bear in mind, I suppose he told her. A child is not its parents, but sum of their conjoinèd shames. A figure of speech. Their manner of speaking. No wonder I’m heterodoxical.
    Nothing lasts longer than a mood. Dad’s infatuation passed; I remained. He understood, about time, that anything conceived in so unnatural and fugitive a fashion was apt to be freakish, even monstrous—and an advertisement of his folly. His second thought therefore was to destroy me before I spoke a word. He knew how these things work; he went by the book. To expose ourselves publicly is frowned upon; therefore we do it to one another in private. He me, I him: one was bound to be the case. What fathers can’t forgive is that their offspring receive and sow broadcast their shortcomings. From my conception to the present moment Dad’s tried to turn me off; not ardently, not consistently, not successfully so far; but persistently, persistently,with at least half a heart. How do I know. I’m his bloody mirror!
    Which is to say, upon reflection I reverse and distort him. For I suspect that my true father’s sentiments are the contrary of murderous. That one only imagines he begot me; mightn’t he be deceived and deadly jealous? In his heart of hearts he wonders whether I mayn’t after all be the get of a nobler spirit, taken by beauty past his grasp. Or else, what comes to the same thing, to me, I’ve a pair of dads, to match my pair of moms. How account for my contradictions except as the vices of their versus? Beneath self-contempt, I particularly scorn my fondness for paradox. I despise pessimism, narcissism, solipsism, truculence, word-play, and pusillanimity, my chiefer inclinations; loathe self-loathers
ergo me;
have no pity for self-pity and so am free of that sweet baseness. I doubt I am. Being me’s no joke.
    I continue the tale of my forebears. Thus my exposure; thus my escape. This cursed me, turned me out; that, curse him, saved me; right hand slipped me through left’s fingers. Unless on a third hand I somehow preserved myself. Unless unless: the mercy-killing was successful. Buzzards let us say made brunch of me betimes but couldn’t stomach my voice, which persists like the Nauseous Danaid. We … monstrosities are easilier achieved than got rid of.
    In sum I’m not what either parent or I had in mind. One hoped I’d be astonishing, forceful, triumphant—heroical in other words. One dead. I myself conventional. I turn out I. Not every kid thrown to the wolves ends a hero: for each survivor, a mountain of beast-baits; for every Oedipus, a city of feebs.
    So much for my dramatic exposition: seems not to’ve worked. Here I am, Dad: Your creature! Your caricature!
    Unhappily, things get clearer as we go along. I perceive that I have no body. What’s less, I’ve been speaking of myself without delight or alternative as self-consciousness pure and sour; I declare now that even that isn’t true. I’m not aware of myself at all, as far