Son of a Computer
Malin, Irving
Son of a Computer Giles Goat-Boy, or The Revised New Syllabus, by John Barth. Double-day. 710 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Novelist John Barth believes that ' conventional forms hide deceptive and...
...His new novel, he tells us, is "a work of fiction, any resemblance between whose characters and actual persons living or dead is coincidental...
...it is this very position, however, which appears so unbalanced to us because we live by programmed principles...
...They unsettle us because we expect the novel to open with simple declarations...
...They are employed for two reasons...
...he must be his own author and critic...
...he embraces fantasy, parody, and fakery...
...He learns that "contradictions could be passed at the same time, in the same respect...
...But Barth hastens to inform us that the adventures of Giles—the novel itself—has been produced by the Computer, which has recorded and "scrambled" the Gilesian messages and stories...
...The fusion of metaphor and reality is so playfully disturbing that we learn as Giles does to see things in terms of "flunking out" and commencement...
...It is Giles' task as computer-man (or goat-boy) to stand on the line—without falling to one side...
...learn to foresee the eventual triumph of the unconventional syllabus...
...He realizes that it must be battled constantly...
...He situates his hero in "the University," which is, ironically enough, a "down-to-earth" university with its petty struggles and a cosmic metaphor of life itself...
...There are no underlying differences between "pass" and "fail," east and west, man and animal...
...The more he lies for truth, the more successful he becomes in his own mind...
...It is possible to say, then, that although Barth and we have been taught miraculous realities by Giles, we have been really led astray by the Computer...
...It has seduced us into assuming that someone can fight the system and win...
...It has used guile...
...We realize that we are perpetual students who must someday be "graduated...
...they also allow him to introduce the tricky, elusive qualities of the entire "syllabus...
...He must write it as he reads it...
...At first Giles literally interprets his Assignment-sheet, but he soon discovers that he must metaphorically explicate it...
...To what ends...
...He inverts (or subverts) these...
...What are the lessons of Giles...
...Because he is so inventive—simultaneously realistic, fantastic, farcical, and serious—Barth is a match for the Computer...
...We acquire "Gilesian" knowledge so that we can better ourselves...
...When Giles...
...By not beginning when and how he "should," Barth attacks the "system"—be it the novel, the business world, or the "computerized" communications which now rule both...
...He is "balanced...
...Barth uses comic strategies to shape these complex philosophical and metaphysical issues...
...for example, tries to be heroic—or to assert his essential "herohood"—by embracing and defending one principle, he helps to confuse himself and his disciples...
...It begins with a "publisher's disclaimer" and a "cover-letter to the editors and publishers...
...To become goatish, saintly, or dunce-like...
...Not only do they help Barth to satirize all "respectable" moralities...
...He teaches us that truths which depend on differentiation are really lies...
...Barth presents, in seven hundred pages, the adventures of Giles Goat-Boy, who is, we eventually discover, the son of-a woman and a computer...
...We need it to become heroes and to write heroic books—even if, presumably, it programs our ambiguous, comic, and non-lasting victories...
...We never find out, but we do...
...Reviewed by Novelist John Barth believes that ' conventional forms hide deceptive and terrifying reality...
Vol. 30 • November 1966 • No. 11
