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 First edition | |
| Author | John Barth |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 366 |
| ISBN | 0-399-12717-8 |
Sabbatical: A Romance is a novel by the American writer John Barth, published in 1982. The story is centered on a yacht race through the Chesapeake Bay. Barth's narrative was inspired by the death of ex-CIA officer John Paisley. [1]
In The Boston Phoenix , John Domini wrote that "like all good journeys, this novel’s full of surprises. Although subtitled A Romance, Sabbatical hinges on the unromantic maneuvers of our heartless CIA; though alive with the specifics of CIA tradecraft and of sailing up Chesapeake Bay, it also visits an uncharted island, shows us several terrifying dreams, and comes across a sea monster. And though Sabbatical ends up as a perpetual work-in-progress, in which the main characters continually polish their own act, it’s nonetheless suspenseful as any spy novel and the smoothest reading from cover to cover Barth has managed since End of the Road. [2]
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the Bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of Washington, D.C.
John Simmons Barth was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include The Sot-Weed Factor, a whimsical retelling of Maryland's colonial history; Giles Goat-Boy, a satirical fantasy in which a university is a microcosm of the Cold War world; and Lost in the Funhouse, a self-referential and experimental collection of short stories. He was co-recipient of the National Book Award in 1973 for his episodic novel Chimera.
Everette Howard Hunt Jr. was an American intelligence officer and author. From 1949 to 1970, Hunt served as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he was a central figure in U.S. regime change in Latin America including the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba. Along with G. Gordon Liddy, Frank Sturgis, and others, Hunt was one of the Nixon administration's so-called White House Plumbers, a team of operatives charged with identifying government leaks to outside parties.
Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament is a contemporary fantasy novel by John Crowley, published in 1981. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1982.
Giles Goat-Boy (1966) is the fourth novel by American writer John Barth. It is a metafictional comic novel in which the universe is portrayed as a university campus in an elaborate allegory of both the hero's journey and the Cold War. Its title character is a human boy raised as a goat, who comes to believe he is the Grand Tutor, the predicted Messiah. The book was a surprise bestseller for the previously obscure Barth, and in the 1960s had a cult status. It marks Barth's leap into American postmodern fabulism.
Bodily Harm is a novel by Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1981.
John Arthur Paisley was a former official of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is a short story collection by American author John Barth. The postmodern stories are extremely self-conscious and self-reflexive, and are considered to exemplify metafiction.
The End of the Road is the second novel by American writer John Barth, published first in 1958, and then in a revised edition in 1967. The irony-laden black comedy's protagonist Jacob Horner suffers from a nihilistic paralysis he calls "cosmopsis"—an inability to choose a course of action from all possibilities. As part of a schedule of unorthodox therapies, Horner's nameless Doctor has him take a teaching job at a local teachers' college. There Horner befriends the super-rational Joe Morgan and his wife Rennie. The trio become entangled in a love triangle, with tragic results. The story deals with issues controversial at the time, such as sexuality, racial segregation, and abortion.
The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth. The novel marks the beginning of Barth's literary postmodernism. The Sot-Weed Factor takes its title from the poem The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr (1708) by the English-born poet Ebenezer Cooke, about whom few biographical details are known.
The Chesapeake Bay Flotilla was a motley collection of barges and gunboats that the United States assembled under the command of Joshua Barney, an 1812 privateer captain, to stall British attacks in the Chesapeake Bay which came to be known as the "Chesapeake campaign" during the War of 1812. The Flotilla engaged the Royal Navy in several inconclusive battles before Barney was forced to scuttle the vessels themselves on August 22, 1814. The men of the Flotilla then served onshore in the defense of Washington, DC and Baltimore. It was disbanded on February 15, 1815, after the end of the war.
The Phoenix Guards is a fantasy novel by American writer Steven Brust, the first novel in the Khaavren Romances series, set in the fictional world of Dragaera. Like the other books in that series, the novel is heavily influenced by the d'Artagnan Romances written by Alexandre Dumas and is written by Brust in the voice and persona of a Dragaeran novelist, Paarfi of Roundwood, whose style is a tongue-in-cheek parody of Dumas, matching both his swashbuckling sense of adventure and his penchant for tangents and longwindedness. Brust describes the book as "a blatant ripoff of The Three Musketeers." The Khaavren Romances books have all used Dumas novels as their chief inspiration, recasting the plots of those novels to fit within Brust's established world of Dragaera. The next several books in the cycle are inspired by the subsequent Musketeers books, while 2020's The Baron of Magister Valley uses The Count of Monte Cristo as a starting point.
The Ryanverse is a term for the political thriller media franchise created by author Tom Clancy centering on the character of Jack Ryan and the fictional universe featuring Jack and other characters, such as John Clark and Domingo Chavez.
An exploding cigar is a variety of cigar that explodes shortly after being lit. Such cigars are normally packed with a minute chemical explosive charge near the lighting end or with a non-chemical device that ruptures the cigar when exposed to heat. Also known as "loaded cigars," the customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a practical joke, rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the smoker of the cigar. Nevertheless, the high risk of unintended injuries from their use caused a decline in their manufacture and sale.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
The Chesapeake–Leopard affair was a naval engagement off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, on June 22, 1807, between the British fourth-rate HMS Leopard and the American frigate USS Chesapeake. The crew of Leopard pursued, attacked, and boarded the American frigate, looking for deserters from the Royal Navy. Chesapeake was caught unprepared and after a short battle involving broadsides received from Leopard, the commander of Chesapeake, James Barron, surrendered his vessel to the British. Chesapeake had fired only one shot.
Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera is a novel by American writer John Barth, published in 1994. A character named John Barth and his female companion set sail on Chesapeake Bay on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America and are unexpectedly caught in a tropical storm. While trying to find his way out of the Maryland marshes, Barth comes across a "metaphysical zone" in which he encounters scenes and characters from his previous novels. The title references Barth's first novel, The Floating Opera (1956).
Mary Lambert Jones Dominis was an American settler of Hawaii and the first mistress of Washington Place in Honolulu. Born into a large New England family, she married merchant sea Captain John Dominis, for whom Honolulu was a frequent port of trade. The couple relocated in 1837 to the Hawaiian Kingdom with their son John Owen Dominis. Their two daughters remained behind to complete their education.
John Domini is an Italian-American author, translator and critic who has been widely published in literary and news magazines, including The Paris Review, The New York Times, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, and Literary Hub. He is the author of three short story collections, four novels, and a 2021 memoir. Domini has also published one book of criticism, one book of poetry, and a memoir translated from Italian. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Domini lives in Des Moines with his wife, the science fiction writer Lettie Prell.
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