Running Out of Gas Where Three Roads Meet
Running Out of Gas Where Three Roads Meet

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with one of John Barth’s most recent novels, Where Three Roads Meet, which revolves around the symbolism of “Y”, of crossroads, of trivium. Its most interesting connotation is that of indecisiveness leading to impasse – an impasse that the author would like us to read as the deadlock of literature itself, or at least of the novelistic genre. The solution that Barth explores and, its viability proven at the end of the novel, the solution that he proposes is metafiction taken to its ultimate consequences. The reader of this highly self-reflexive book is offered embodiments of the Story, dramatic vehicle, reader and Teller as the main characters of this new Barthian story, who literally keep the ball rolling by chatting about storytelling.

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