Frame-Tale

"Frame-Tale" is a work of short fiction by John Barth published in Lost in the Funhouse by Doubleday & Co..
Lost in the Funhouse was nominated for the National Book Award.

Plot and analysis

"Frame-Tale" serves as a three-dimensional representation of the stories that comprise the Funhouse collection as a whole.
If the reader follows Barth's directions, a Möbius strip will be constructed from a portion of the page on which the story is printed in large font in capital letters. The story will read "ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN" endlessly.
Biographer and critic Edward Walkiewicz suggests that "Frame-Tale" represents a "recycling of elements from Barth's own fictions and of the oral-literary tradition" as well as Barth's fascination with the ancient tale of Scheherazade in A Thousand and One Nights.
Barth, in his retrospective Preface, comments on conceiving "Frame-Tale" and the Funhouse volume:
If the "headpiece" of the collection is "Frame-Tale," the final story, "Anonymiad," is the "tailpiece" of the series, returning to Barth's literary "labyrinth."