Writing Against Death in The Floating Opera In the opening chapter of The Floating Opera, Todd Andrews observes that narrative is not his cup of tea, because digressions are impossible to contain, and this makes it difficult for him to concentrate on a particular narrative line; every image he creates begets other images, words beget other words, there being no end to “new figures and new pursuits” (Barth 2). This observation suggests that Todd's existence is, in fact, limited to the reality he forges by telling his story; this fictitious reality is regenerated. The tone of the passage also implies that Todd enjoys quite the unprecedented freedom this realm allows to ramble at will, chasing the figures and implications of his sentences down their rabbit holes; this image is reminiscent of modern hypertext. The relationship between Todd's fiction and reality is as problematic as the authenticity of the events of his Floating Opera. Charles Harris points out that the novel is largely a lie passed off as autobiography (44): for example, referring to the chronology of the writing of his novel, Todd Andrews mentions that he spent three years reading books on medicine, shipbuilding, philosophy, minstrelsy, marine biology, law, pharmacology, Maryland history, and gas chemistry to make sure he understood what had happened. But if we look more closely we will find that these are exactly the books the narrator should read to actually compose the story, not to understand it. Of course, one could argue that a thorough reading is entirely consistent with the completeness of the character. But Todd Andrews, "perhaps the best lawyer on the East Coast," as he claims to be later in the novel, would be... middle of paper... Schecherazade's vanguard, escape death. Works Cited: Barth, John. The floating work. Garden City, New York: Doubleway & Company, 1967. Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Knopf, 1971. Harris, Charles. “Todd Andrews, Ontological Insecurity, and the Floating Opera.” Criticism: Studies in Modern Fiction. 18 (1976): 34-51.LeClair, Thomas. “John Barth's Floating Opera: Death and the Art of Fiction.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language: a Journal of the Humanities.14 (1973): 711-30.Martin, Dennis M. “Desire and Illness: The Psychological Model of the Floating Opera.” Criticism: Studies in Modern Fiction. 18 (1976): 17-33. Merrill, Robert. "John Gardner's Grendel and the Interpretation of Modern Fairy Tales." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography. 56 (1984): 162-80.