A reading of The Tidewater Tales (1987) allows the author to focus upon a twofold movement in John Barth's writing, one of which is liable to be overlooked in those critical approaches that make it their main purpose to present and analyse Barth as a metafictionalist writer. Acknowledging this side of his novels, what the article argues are Barth's strategies of immaterialization, the author proceeds to chronologically review Barth's works from The Floating Opera (1956) to Chimera (1972). The author concentrates on Letters (1979) to substantiate his claims. This extraordinary text gives ample evidence for the metafictioanalist procedures in Barth's writing but, interestingly enough, these are coupled with the gravitational pull of the earth and the impingements of a recognizable reality. A common locality serving as background Tor all of Barth's Tiction and the presence of specific historical positivities arc isolated as evidence counterbalancing Barth's strategics of immaterialization. In concluding this article, the author generalizes his findings and shows how these relate to the perennial question of fiction and reality.
