By John Barth
ISBN: 9781628972016
Publication Date: 1/12/2017
John Barth’s second book -- a philosophical black comedy -- “a true novel of ideas” (New York Times).
Struck with a sudden case of “cosmopsis,” a nihilistic paralysis that occurs in those unable to act amid a sea of choice, Jacob Horner turns to the enigmatic, questionably credentialed Doctor for help. The Doctor prescribes Jake a series of therapeutic treatments, one of which involves his acquiring a teaching job at a local college. There, he finds himself entangled—intellectually, ethically, sexually—with an obsessively rationalist couple.
Traversing the 20th century philosophical canon, The End of the Road makes pitstops in logic, existentialism, and the philosophy of language as it tries to make sense of midcentury American man. With his “comedy of intellectual abstraction” (Thomas LeClair), Barth’s early novel of ideas takes hardline moral philosophy to the so-called end of the road.
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