On The Artihce Of Novel Writing In John Earth’s Lost In The Funhause

Among John Barth’s postmodernist novels, Lost in the Funhouse is one of themost important experimental novels which provoked the widest range of readingsand got a lot of publicity. For years, different theories and approaches have beenapplied to achieve a better understanding of the novel. It is commonly believed thatLost in the Funhouse is his experimental novel, representing some writing techniquesof postmodern novel—the exhausted possibilities of novel writing seeking forbrand-new techniques. This novel is of a very simple plot and obscure climax. Basedon the post-modern writing techniques employed in Lost in the Funhouse, this paperattempts to illustrate the writing artifices that John Barth has made towardspostmodernist novel in Lost in the Funhouse and analyzes his motives formeta-fiction writing.By analyzing the techniques as well as postmodern themes in Lost in theFunhouse, the paper illustrates the juxtapositions of novel and novel writing,revealing the exhaustion of fiction. In the meantime, as a postmodern novel though,Lost in the Funhouse has reserved some elements of modernism, without which itmay lose more non-professional readers due to its obscurities and ambiguities.