Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218480 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 768 pages

Synopsis
Considered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished novel, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the chaotic odyssey of the hapless, ungainly Ebeneezer Cooke. Cooke is sent to the new world to oversee his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem. On his mission, he is captured by pirates and Indians; loses his father's estate to roguish impostors; falls in love with a former prostitute;is nearly robbed of his virginity, which he is (almost)determined to protect; and meets a gallery of treacherous characters who continually switch identities. The Sot-Weed Factor is a hilarious, bawdy tribute to all the most insidious human vices with lasting relevance for readers of all times.

Customer Reviews

A masterpiece
Ebenezer Cooke is one of the most moving and endearing characters I've ever come across. The picaresque tale of his hapless adventures will have you laughing out loud at times, and deeply sympathizing with his troubles at the same time. Barth's language is superb too: of course it's not really how people spoke in those days, but it feels ever so right.

Thick as it may be, you'll wish this novel had twice as many pages to enjoy!

Please pass the fags
Without contradiction a masterpiece, rank Barth along with Willie S & Charlie D from England. Mind you its the only book of his I've read. You laugh out loud alot with this one.

A marvellous tale of innocent pride (or pride in innocence)
"The Sot-Weed Factor" is originally a satirical poem, written by a certain Ebenezer Cooke, and is among the earliest pieces of literature to come out of the newly settled America. John Barth has borrowed the name of both author and work, and has sculptured a beautiful work, a grand tale about small and greater men. The characters are diverse, and the striking technique of Mr Barth makes them all come alive. The plotline is too complicated to explain in full, but still easy to follow, and the passages about an earlier journey around Chesapeake bay are hilarious, written in an English only a scholar could contrive (Mr Barth is a professor of English). And for all of those who like good, old-fashioned storytelling from which you may actually learn something, the tale of Ebenezer's (I know him so well that I only use his first name) awowed innocence, with the disastrous results it has for himself and others, gives an opportunity to ponder this aspect of human existenc.