SOURCE: "Ambrose Is Lost in the Funhouse," in John Barth: An Introduction, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976, pp. 80-96.

Morrell is a Canadian educator, nonfiction writer and novelist. Highly acclaimed as a science fiction and fantasy, action, and western writer, he is perhaps best known to popular audiences as the author of the books on which the "Rambo" films starring Sylvester Stallone were based. In the essay below, Morrell discusses those stories in Lost in the Funhouse originally written for tape or live performance. He maintains that although the nonprint media stimulated Barth's interest in oral narrative, Barth ultimately relies on text-based innovations to rejuvenate contemporary fiction.

The experience of writing two novels so long as The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy had been a great strain on Barth. Together they accounted for almost nine years of his life. Giles alone had taken him more than five, and...