Donald Barthelme Saved from Oblivion by Joyce Carol Oates

The Don Father.

I was going to cap off Donald Barthelme week on this blog with another one of his wonderfully idiosyncratic short-stories. However, it was pure happenstance that I stumbled across this amusing title by Joyce Carol Oates: "Donald Barthelme Saved from Oblivion." Of course, this is a playful reference to another Barthelme short-story with a similar title: "Robert Kennedy saved from Drowning." It somehow seemed very fitting, especially since Barthelme's popularity has certainly declined over the years and he probably isn't widely read as much these days. This is a real shame. I applaud Oates' effort in recognizing and also celebrating one of American short-story writers of the latter half of the 20th century who has largely been forgotten. In a kind of metafictional eulogy, she successfully pays homage to his postmodernist style by utilizing pastiche, irony, parody, collage, intertextuality and a fragmented structure that is split into various sections. For instance, one section is called "Anatomy of the Artist" that uses contradictory juxtapositions to try and understand his complex nature as a person and as a writer that often blur together: "Don is a genius. Don is an idiot savant. Don is a raving lunatic. Don is a saint. Don is a con-man." These witty and humorous anecdotes continue throughout the entire story, taking on various narrative forms. Unfortunately, the end result is a mixed bag that feels bloated and might have been more enjoyable if it was shorter in length. The rambling digressions can be somewhat tedious. 

Yet, Oates skillfully emulates Barthelme's signature aesthetic with great precision. The disjointed and fractured nonlinear storytelling is ripe with his hallmark contradictions, digressions, repetition, paradoxes and self-reflexivity. This dreamlike and hallucinatory atmosphere further contributes to the disorienting nature of the text. Of course, this wouldn't be a proper Barthelme story without the playful and absurdist humor, which Oates delivers in spades. If her name wasn't attached to this work, you might think that this story was published posthumously by the Barthelme estate. 

The fictional biography sections is where the story really shines, especially when DB shows up as a character. You can tell Oates had lots of fun writing this story and integrating some of his works into the narrative was also nice touch ("The School", "Glass Mountain" and "Chablis" to name a few). Readers familiar with Barthelme's oeuvre are sure to relish these references, adding an extra layer of enjoyment. As a celebration of the author and his creative vision, the story triumphs. However, Oates gets a little carried away with indulging in postmodernist aesthetics. It's a bit much at times and really bogs down the narrative flow.