The Sot-Weed Factor - Tapa blanda

There is no one writing today who has the resources of his imagination or the depth of understanding about the nature of narrative * Los Angeles Times Book Review * Perhaps the most prodigally gifted comic novelist writing in English today. * Newsweek * John Barth is the best writer of fiction we have in America at present, and one of the best we have ever had. * New York Times *

Considered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the widely chaotic odyssey of hapless, ungainly Ebenezer Cooke, sent to the New World to look after his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem. On his mission, Cooke experiences capture by pirates and Indians; the loss of his father's estate to roguish impostors; love for a former prostitute; stealthy efforts to rob him of his virginity, which he is (almost) determined to protect; and an extraordinary gallery of treacherous characters who continually switch identities. A hilarious, 'bawdy tribute to all the most insidious human vices, The Sot-Weed Factor has lasting relevance for readers of all times.