Lost in the Funhouse

“Frame-Tale” is a two-page story that defies story in any traditional sense, announcing Lost In the Funhouseas a postmodern book. There are no paragraphs. The title is in capital letters set in the geographic middle of the page. In much larger text along the right margin, and in capital letters, Barth writes, “ONCE UPON A TIME THERE” (1) from the bottom to the top of the page. A column of dots brackets the words to the left. Like geometric points on a rectangle, AB frames the words at the bottom of the page, CD frames the upper margin.

Below the title, using enjambment, the story instructs the reader to: “Cut on dotted line. / Twist end once and fasten AB to ab, CD to cd” (1). Continued on the following page, large capital letters running up the left margin read: “WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN” (2). Bracketed by a column of dots to the left, like on the previous page, the letters ab and cd frame the words at the page bottom and top, respectively, like geometric reference points describing a rectangle. A reader who chooses to follow the story’s directions and twist the page creates a Möbius strip, a one-sided surface that creates a continuous loop.