The Literature of Exhaustion by John Barth

The literature of exhaustion by John Barth
The essay The literature of exhaustion written by the American novelist John Barth appeared in 1967, and it is considered to be the manifest of postmodernism. Barth explains that by exhaustion he does not mean anything so tired as the subject of physical, moral, or intellectual decadence, only the used-upness of certain possibilities. From his point of view, if an artist doesnt keep up with the present, with the reality that surrounds us, with all the new technologies and concerns, he is doomed to literary failure. He says that art and its forms live in history and certainly do change; he focuses his essay on this change, providing various examples of authors and works that succeeded adjusting in character to present times without losing their artistic charm. By far, he has a great admiration for the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. He seems particularly fascinated by his story Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote. The story is about a turn-of-the-century French Symbolist who produces, not copies or imitates, but actually composes several chapters of Cervantes' novel. Borges brings up issues as diverse as the death of the author, intellectual property rights, and the historical specificity of aesthetic and cognitive modes. What impresses Barth is that Borges reuses Cervantes' novel in order to produce a "remarkable and original work of literature, the theme of which is the difficulty, perhaps the unnecessity, of writing original works of literature. His artistic victory, if you like, is that he confronts an intellectual dead end and employs it against itself to accomplish new human work". I found really interesting his example from The 1001 Nights, inspired also by Borges. It is about the 602nd night, when, owing to a copyists error, Scheherezade begins to tell the King the story of the 1001 nights, from the beginning. If the King didnt interrupt her, thered be no 603 rd night ever, and while this would solve Scheherezades problem which is every storytellers problem: to publish or perish it would put the outside author in a bind. According to Barth, the contemporary writer resembles Scheherezade, whose life depends on her ability to entertain the king with old stories made new. Like her, contemporary writers assume the task of creating new stories through the retelling of the old. The literature of exhaustion is shorthand for the belief that every story has already been written, already been told, and that the only new thing a writer can do is to refashion the old stories. Borges is interested in the 602nd night because its an instance of the story-within-the-story turned back upon itself, and his interest in such instances is threefold. First, as he himself declares, they disturb us metaphysically: when the characters in a work of fiction become readers or authors of the fiction theyre in, were reminded of the fictitious aspect of our own experience [...] Second, the 602nd night is a literary illustration of the regressus in infinitum [...] Third, Scheherezades accidental gambit, like Borgess other
versions of the regressus in infinitum, is an image of the exhaustion, or attempted exhaustion, of possibilities in this case literary possibilities. Barth also mentions an interesting thing about Borges, namely his fascination for labyrinths (his most substantial translated volume is called Labyrinths). He says that a labyrinth, after all, is a place in which, ideally, all the possibilities of choice (of direction, in this case) are embodied, and barring special dispensation like Theseuss must be exhausted before one reaches the heart. Where, mind, the Minotaur waits with two final possibilities: defeat and death or victory and freedom [...] Its a heroic enterprise, with salvation as its object. He also states that Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth becomes in the end the aptest image of Borges after all, showing in very subjective way his admiration for Borges, comparing him with a myth. Even if he refers to his favorite author, I found this comparison between a labyrinth and literature itself very profound and explicit for his attempt to explain the exhaustion which he talks about. In my opinion, this essay its very well written, and I gave the exampl es which I found interesting and relevant. I cannot say I totally agree with all its been written in it, but there are a lot of ideas which worth reading and discussing. As a conclusion, I agree that there are no new ideas left in the world, but I dont think that there are no new ways in which to present the ideas that already exist. No one, according to Barth, has the possibility of originality anymore; the material and formal conventions of writing (and of other activities) have limits, and we have finally come to them. Authors are struggling with the idea that there is nothing to write that hasn't already been written, but here I disagree because I think that if someone wants bad enough to accomplish something original and outstanding, that someone will succeed by means of hard work and healthy imagination.

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