Tell Me About Harry Mathews

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it loaded after i posted that. how odd.

tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link

There were five issues of Locus Solus (published in four volumes).

Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I am entirely willing to admit that I am too dumb and conventional a reader to have gotten much out of Odradek or The Conversions. Odradek was my own fault for (a) reading on a plane, and (b) being too stubborn to slow down and actually work through the pidgin. The Conversions I did in an armchair, though, and apparently never got a firm enough grip on it to even remember a single thing about its characters, setting, or content.

nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link

The Conversions I did in an armchair, though, and apparently never got a firm enough grip on it to even remember a single thing about its characters, setting, or content.

The armchair or the book?

http://www.trendir.com/archives/parri-free-armchair.jpg

Interpreter of dreams predictor of weather (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link

The did. My friend Apparently never got a grip on my did.

nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link

I haven't read any Harry Matthews, so if that's a Matthews joke, I don't get it, but it's probably better than my lame joke up there.

Interpreter of dreams predictor of weather (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Patience with Odradek pays off (albeit only in Mathews' particular coin, which you may not want): the pidgin becomes easier and easier to read as you get used to its quirky regularities, and as it becomes progressively less distorted throughout the novel.

The Conversions is more what they call a romp. Over and over things are elaborately converted from one form or medium to another. E.g., Grent Wayl's will asks for a batch of small pancakes in the shape of the notes of the score of the music played at his funeral to be cooked and eaten by the mourners.

"Singular Pleasures" happens to be anthologized in The Way Home.

Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 23:25 (seventeen years ago) link

two years pass...

Harry Mathews: Name Your Reasons Why He Is So Bad & Hated

Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Hamletmachine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 October 2009 00:41 (fourteen years ago) link

I need my own copy of Singular Pleasures!

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 3 October 2009 11:41 (fourteen years ago) link

I need to reread Tlooth

Matt, Wednesday, 14 October 2009 23:46 (fourteen years ago) link

one year passes...

never read his short stories so I picked some up from the library and holy shit Country Cooking from Central France is incredible

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 15 May 2011 22:51 (twelve years ago) link

this dude is such a great writer, he seems like such a wonderful loveable piece of shit

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 15 May 2011 22:56 (twelve years ago) link

I read the story with like one of those high energy bright eyed but braindead hangovers I sometimes get in a coffee shop this morning and the story just made me like make noises and faces all over the place I hope I didn't look crazy

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 15 May 2011 23:00 (twelve years ago) link

haha I can totally picture that. and have done the same thing myself many times (most often with Barthelme stories; most recently with Flaubert's "A Good Heart" or whatever it's called).

bernard snowy, Monday, 16 May 2011 14:28 (twelve years ago) link

found 'singular pleasures' in a back number of some journal and read it. is the book version longer? or is it just gratuitously formatted?

thomp, Tuesday, 17 May 2011 08:14 (twelve years ago) link

five years pass...

:-(

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/01/25/harry-mathews-1930-2017/

The interview linked within is great and he managed to complete one more novel!

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 January 2017 21:10 (seven years ago) link

Cigarettes-ing now, and loving it

I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Friday, 27 January 2017 00:51 (seven years ago) link

I'm reading _The Conversions_ ... 50 pages in and thoroughly confused and delighted and maybe slightly annoyed. Was tempted to spend some time trying to decipher some of the odder passages, to see if I could figure out what he's doing, but I decided to just push on and see to what extend he reveals it more explicitly later. If not, well, I can always go back!

Rimsky-Koskenkorva (Øystein), Friday, 27 January 2017 01:16 (seven years ago) link

Cigarettes-ing now, and loving it

:)

In Walked Bodhisattva (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 27 January 2017 02:17 (seven years ago) link

I've only read Cigarettes and CIA, keen now to check out some of his shorter writing.

Headphone Jack (seandalai), Friday, 27 January 2017 13:53 (seven years ago) link

i read Tlooth and then Sinking of the Odradek Stadium about 25 years ago, they both had a really big impact but I haven't read anything Oulipian in almost that long. I should revisit Tlooth especially.

his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon), Friday, 27 January 2017 15:07 (seven years ago) link


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