Book 8 - Chimera

"Chimera" by John Barth is a classic postmodern text. It consists of three novellas that are based on and reinterpret ancient myths - the story of Scheherazade from 1001 Arabian Nights, the story of Greek hero Perseus who killed Medusa, and the story of Bellephron who tamed Pegasus. Each story is quite distinct, and yet references each other to create an intertextual "chimera". The book is full of humour and delights in twisting the reader through some fascinating and complex concepts regarding literature, myth and storytelling. I guarentee that anybody who has an interest in mythology will enjoy it - mostly!

Now here's my guilty confession - this book is actually Book 7 and 2/3. I never made it through the third story. The same thing happened the first time I tried to read it. Barth's narrative structure grows increasingly erratic and whimsical. It's a bit like the progress of James Joyce's works - from the quite straightforward "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" to the convoluted "Ulysses" to the incomprehensible "Finnegan's Wake". It may not be that extreme, but that's how it felt to me. It also directly correlated to my knowledge of the myths - to be honest I've never even heard of Bellophron, the hero of the third story. And given the distinct lack of narrative structure by this point, some prior knowledge would be helpful to understand what the hell they're talking about. Anyway, there is a natural progression to the whole text so I will go back and review the stories in order.


"Dunyazadiad", the first story is named after the sister of the famous Scheherezade. For those of you not familiar with 1001 nights, here's a quick summary. A sultan and his brother are both cuckolded by their wives. They vow to marry and kill a virgin every night, for no woman is to be trusted. When the kingdom starts running out of girls, the chancellor sends in his daughter Scheherezade, who devises a cunning plan. After the wedding, she begs the sultan to allow her to tell her younger sister a bedtime story, ending it with a cliffhanger just as dawn arrives. The sultan keeps her alive another day to hear the rest of the story and so on, until 3 years later she runs out of stories and he forgives her (and woman kind etc), he marries her (again?) and the brother marries Dunyazade.

Barth's version is narrated by Dunyazade - to whom we don't find out till the end. His alterations are clever and have all the hallmarks of postmodernism. On the eve of her first night with the sultan, Scheherezade inadvertantly summons an author from our time, who loves her myth and supplies her with all of the 1001 stories. There's a worry for the time-space continuum! This is the first of many plays and discussion around the nature of stories and story-telling - the genesis of stories and the inherent relationship between teller and listener being two of the issues explored. Sex plays a big role as well (it does in all 3 stories) - 1001 nights being enough time to get through a big chunk of the Karma Sutra when you think of it. Sex and gender are tied into the storytelling relationship - telling is a viewed as a masculine, active role, whereas the listener is feminine, passive. Of course that is all convoluted and reversed both in the original myth and this version where the woman regains power over the man through stories.

Dunyazade, too finds her role reversed by the end of this tale. Now married to the Sultan's brother, she finds herself armed with lots of knowledge and no personal experience - of sex or storytelling. And yet she is required to master both in a short amount of time. I won't tell you what happens next - suffice to say the brother has also learnt some quite different lessons on life and women from his years of taking virgins.

The Persiad, narrated by Perseus himself, both relives his glorious adventure and his middle-aged attempts to rediscover his heroic glory. The short version of the Perseus myth is that he's one of the sons of Zeus, who came to his mother as a golden shower (go figure). He was tasked to bring King Polydictis the head of the gorgon Medusa. During the quest he also rescued the Princess Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea monster. Now married to a waspish Andromeda, he is bored with his life and retraces his quest to find new meaning in it.

I won't say quite so much about this story. Again storytelling, sex and gender play a significant role - Perseus tells much of his story to a nymph priestess and lover, Calyxa, who has also been tasked with painting his life in a series of murals. As in the Dunyazadiad, there is another, surprise audience discovered at the end. We also get to hear the story from the point of view of Medusa herself, and how she viewed herself and the events that unfolded is a fascinating reminder of how many of the women in ancient myths, including this one, were perceived. Chained chastity (Andromeda), helpless lover (Perseus' mother Danae), monsterous Gorgon - not much room for a woman to create her own role. Of course thanks to Barth they do get to rearrange their fates in a rather amusing and interesting way.

As for the "Bellerophoniad" - as I mentioned, I didn't get very far. Who is narrating at what time is difficult to work out, it seems even to switch within paragraphs. A little background research indicates that Bellerophon rode Pegasus and killed the Chimera (a creature part lion, snake and goat). The original myth appears in the Iliad, but Perseus often was substituted for Bellerophon in Medieval retellings. So clearly there's still plenty of intertextuality to be explored. Maybe I'll go re-read that part of the Iliad and have another bash at the Bellerophoniad. If it's as good as the first two stories it'll be worth the effort.