Name: Chimera
ISBN: 0618131701

John Barth

Chimera

Анастасия Розова

Dunyazadiad - 4/5
Perseid - 3/5
Bellerophoniad - not finished. 
*Read for class. 

Okay, lemme explain. I've read this for my class and I didn't have time to finish it before I got spoiled the last part, ahah, so I'm not gonna finish Bellerophoniad. However, I will consider this read because I do know what happened and I really wanna talk a little about the first two parts. 

The story told by Dunyazad, Sheherazada's little sister, was my favorite. I loved how the author included himself and complicated the narrative by telling the stories from A Thousand and One Night to Sheherasada so she could recite them to the king. That was brilliant. 
Secondly, I didn't expect to get a story from king's brother and that made me like this part even more. Can we all appreciate how great it was? 

Perseid was a little bit boring, especially in the beginning. We basically have Perseus dealing with midlife crisis and impotence. It was sort of pathetic, although I can understand the man. He used to be a great hero! But then we got to the parts with Medusa's revival, now that was an interesting twist I didn't know about. And I very much enjoyed how the author resolved it. 

Don't have much to say about the last one, duh. At first Bellerophon's story looks just like Perseus's with some exceptions. And it's the longest of them all. So I realized I didn't have time, cause I have so many more books to read for school I'm not gonna be stuck with just one. Especially when it was driving me into a reading slump I can't have. 

Still, it's a postmodern classic and I'm glad we got to read it. An interesting insight for a future philologist.

Daryl Houston

Parts of these stories are really interesting and fun, but for me they became too clever and a bit tiresome.