Джон Барт: The Sot-Weed Factor

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 wildly 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 farmer 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.