Here comes an apocalypse of a completely different sort
What happens when an aging novelist writes a semi-autobiographical narrative that incorporates not only his and others' past narratives but also the work of a clever protégé more interested in hypertext than the old "outmoded" novel? And what happens when that protégé begins his own semi-autobiographical narrative based on his elder's work-in-progress? A sizzling competition erupts between an old pro armed only with language ("the original virtual reality") and a fresh wit enamored with hypertext and bent on creating an "e-pic." And when those two narratives are entwined around the central setting of a showboat oxymoronically named The Original Floating Opera II, which is set adrift in the Chesapeake Bay at the dawn of Y2K, you get Coming Soon!!!: A Narrative (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), the latest novel by the dean of postmodern fiction, John Barth.
When the young Hop Johnson, a self-proclaimed "CPRtist of the done-to-death," finds his interest sparked by the showboats of old, he drops by the office of his professor — known variously as Novelist Emeritus, Professor E. Meritus, and simply N.E. — to share his idea for an e-fiction that centers on a showboat not unlike the one detailed in old N.E.'s very first novel. Our Novelist Emeritus, thinking little of the meeting, sets sail on the Chesapeake, following only the winds and his muse. But he soon finds his new work-in-progress navigating themes quite similar — disconcertingly similar, in fact — to those Hop had described.
Hop, meanwhile, returns to his summer job as a script writer aboard The Original Floating Opera II (TOFOII), where he hopes his interactions with characters like the seductive Shelly Singer, the Kane twins (with their truly bizarre pasts), and an old hermaphroditic curmudgeon named Ditsy will inspire and inform his great e-pic. When he adds the Novelist Emeritus as a character in his book, Coming Soon!!! undergoes some rapid-fire narrative swapping and hopping, during which it isn't always evident who's creating who. Narrative levels and meta-levels are applied and stripped off like coats of paint on the ancient TOFOII. The showboat, in dire financial straits due to the storm of competition from Hollywood and TV, soon gets hit by two real storms and winds up stranded in the marsh. How exactly it got there and who's responsible (the Kanes? the Phantom of the Floating Opera?) depends on whose version you believe — provided you can tell whose version is whose!
Though it loosely takes the form of a hypertext document, and even has links for the reader to "click," Coming Soon!!! shows what a wild ride can be had by letting the narrator direct narrative flow — for Barth's deft hand whisks his readers down a series of breathtaking literary rapids and into several unexpected hidden channels. Set at the cusp of the new century, Coming Soon!!! potently and humorously deals with the current shift from printed text to hypertext. Barth juggles narratives with typical Barthian sleight of hand, offering brilliant witticisms on every page — in every sentence, for that matter! Long-time Barth fans know this is no overstatement. New readers will be amazed by Barth's rapid-fire banter and completely unique style.
John Barth is the author of such classic works as The Sot-Weed Factor, The Tidewater Tales, Lost in the Funhouse, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, and the National Book Award winner Chimera. He taught for many years in the writing program at Johns Hopkins University.
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