Harry Mathews (1930–2017)

I keep reading everything I can find by Mathews b/c I'm very interested in OuLiPo & Mathews is the only OuLiPo writer whose 1st language is English. The writing's interesting to me.. but it's never QUITE done it for me.. UNTIL NOW! I generally prefer massive novels to short stories, I like the development, the complexity, but in Mathews' case, I find him to be such a 'master' of short story form that I can't help but luv it!

This bk's divided into 3 sections: "First Stories", "The American Experience: Stories to be Read Aloud", & "Calibrations of Latitude". Just from a writerly perspective, there's so much variety here, so many ways of creating a reading experience. From the incredible overkill of absurd detail in "Country Cooking from Central France: Roast Boned Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)" to the evocativeness of "Journeys to Six Lands" to the more 'classically' OuliPoian formalist "Clocking the World on Cue: The Chronogram for 2001" Mathews' ideas are always very thought-out & realized w/ fantastic & subtle skill.… (more)

The blurb about this (from the back cover) fails to convey the real atmosphere of the book; at best, it describes the first 50 to 100 pages. Much goes on behind the scenes in the journalist's life that we only glimpse momentarily towards the end. The other reviewer turns the character into an "unreliable narrator." A re-examination with this consideration in mind is probably worthwhile, but I never felt he was unreliable, merely personal to a flaw. The book is a journal, and as such, leaves much unstated as anyone would when writing about their own life. As revelations begin to pile up towards the end, I felt as if the journal I was reading took place within a larger novel, with intriguing plots that I never got to witness because my only inlet to the story was a character too wrapped up in his own issues to play a significant role in the larger melodrama.

My first foray in Mathews (I've been meaning to get to him for some time now), and I am delighted. Very very satisfying.… (more)

The blurb about this (from the back cover) fails to convey the real atmosphere of the book; at best, it describes the first 50 to 100 pages. Much goes on behind the scenes in the journalist's life that we only glimpse momentarily towards the end. The other reviewer turns the character into an "unreliable narrator." A re-examination with this consideration in mind is probably worthwhile, but I never felt he was unreliable, merely personal to a flaw. The book is a journal, and as such, leaves much unstated as anyone would when writing about their own life. As revelations begin to pile up towards the end, I felt as if the journal I was reading took place within a larger novel, with intriguing plots that I never got to witness because my only inlet to the story was a character too wrapped up in his own issues to play a significant role in the larger melodrama.

My first foray in Mathews (I've been meaning to get to him for some time now), and I am delighted. Very very satisfying.… (more)