The Barthelme Quotient (BQ)™

“The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.”

• Donald Barthelme, “Florence Green Is 81,” collected in Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964).

The Barthelme Quotient (BQ)™ is an easily administered and well-validated scale designed for use by professional academics, amateur bibliophiles, and lay-readers, to provide a comprehensible and comparable rating of books, stories, and poems, as to their ineffable rightness and worthiness as literature.

A work's BQ has little or nothing to do with plot or conformity to the standards of the form, which are considered irrelevant (a work can have an “excellent” plot; or be very “well crafted”; and still receive a low BQ rating; conversely, a work can have no plot to speak of, and be an overall jumbled mess, but can still, at least in theory, register high on the BQ-scale).

The Barthelme Quotient (BQ) has 3 dimensions (X, Y, and Z), which can be considered either independently, or in composite.

• X-axis (BQx): Strange object?
• Y-axis (BQy): Covered with fur?
• Z-axis (BQz): Breaks your heart?

Each dimension can be plotted on a scale of one to five (There is no zero, and no negative or partial values on the scale).

Instructions for calculating Individual Barthelme Quotient Axes:

• X-axis (BQx): Strange object? Rate the work on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the degree to which the work in question is a strange object, with ‘1’ meaning “not at all a strange object” and 5 meaning “very much a strange object.” (1-5)

• Y-axis (BQy): Covered with fur? Rate the work on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the degree to which the work in question is covered with fur, with ‘1’ meaning “not at all covered with fur” and 5 meaning “very much covered with fur.” (1-5)

• Z-axis (BQz): Breaks your heart? Rate the work on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the degree to which the work in question breaks your heart, with ‘1’ meaning “doesn’t at all break your heart” and 5 meaning “very much breaks your heart.” (1-5)

(an underlying assumption is that no human work of art can score a “0” - that is: every creation by a human is by its nature (at least) marginally strange (the fact that human imaginative creation can occur is fundamentally strange); marginally furry (anything that humans do entails a modicum of furriness inherent to it); and marginally heartbreaking (any human expression is, in some way, a scream or cry or laugh into the void; that is, heartbreaking)

The result should be a set of 3 discrete values, 1 through 5, for each dimension of the BQ. These can helpfully be conveyed in brackets, separated by commas, to present what we call the “BQ Profile” of the work:

BQ{BQx , BQy , BQz}

So, for instance, the BQ profile of a book that is not particularly strange (BQx = 2); barely covered in any fur (BQy = 1); and very heartbreaking (BQz = 5), can be summarized as:

BQ{2, 1, 5}

Instructions for calculating Overall Barthelme Quotient (BQo):

To calculate an overall BQ score, simply add all three axes of the Barthelme Quotient (X, Y and Z-axes):

Overall Barthelme Quotient = BQO = BQx + BQy + BQz

Hence, in the example case described above, the book with a BQ Profile of BQ{2,1,5} has an Overall BQ (that is, BQO) of 2+1+5, or 8.

Because each axis score is between 1 and 5, the minimum overall BQ score is 3, and the maximum is 15.

Please note that the overall limitation “flattens” a work’s BQ Profile in a way that can be potentially deceptive. Two works with the same Overall BQ could be very different beasts. Consider:

• Work A has a BQ Profile of BQ{2, 1, 5}, for an overall BQ of 8.
• Work B has a BQ Profile of BQ{2, 5, 1}, for an overall BQ of 8.

Both works have the same Overall BQ, but significantly different profiles. While both are similarly strange, Work A is very heartbreaking, but lacking in fur. Work B, meanwhile, is very furry, but not heartbreaking in the least.

***Warning***

The value of the Barthelme Quotient is in its dimensionality. While it might be tempting to use the Overall BQ as a handy way to compare books, it can be dangerous to do so, for reasons stated above. It is for this reason that we offer the Overall BQ only with caution and trepidation. It should be used with caution, if at all, and at the user’s own risk. When at all possible, we recommend that you use the three dimensional BQ Profile.

Contact

Please contact us with any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback, at:

barthelmequotient@gmail.com

Sharing and attribution

The Barthelme Quotient is offered for others to use, discuss, and develop. If you reproduce or adapt the original materials on this site, please credit The Barthelme Quotient and link to https://barthelmequotient.com.

Original materials on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license applies to the site's original materials, not to Donald Barthelme's work or other third-party content.