yes he was in Oulipo but unlike most of those guys he didn't usually foreground whatever constraints he used...you can just sense there is something weird running in the background and fueling the mood and his choices
if you enjoyed Twenty Lines A Day I wld recommend Singular Pleasures, the collection of masturbation vignettes.
This too:
http://jean-claude-kuner.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/manuskript_farce_double_english.pdf
I think a good entry point w/ the novels is My Life In CIA, and maybe backward toward some of the thornier denser stuff, Tlooth and Sinking of the Odradek Stadium
― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 1 July 2020 15:02 (three years ago) link
Thanks for the tips, Hadrian. I attempted Tlooth but couldn’t find my way in. My Life in CIA looks more my speed.
― Yelploaf, Wednesday, 1 July 2020 16:43 (three years ago) link
Yeah, that, or wikipedia makes this look appealing too:Mathews's next novel, Cigarettes, marked a change in his work. Less whimsical but no less technically sophisticated than his first three novels, it consists of an interlocking series of narratives revolving around a small group of interconnected characters. The book's approach to narrative is generally realistic, and Cigarettes is ultimately moving in a way that none of his previous books attempted to be.[14]
― dow, Wednesday, 1 July 2020 17:38 (three years ago) link
Cigarettes is terrific
― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 1 July 2020 18:01 (three years ago) link
Yup
― Two Spocks Clash (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 1 July 2020 22:09 (three years ago) link
Updike probably. He churned them out.
― fetter, Wednesday, 1 July 2020 22:52 (three years ago) link
probably RL stine lol. i collected tons of them because i liked the covers as a little kid then a couple years later a puritan streak in me made me commit to reading all of them. even at the time i knew they were thin gruel and i remember nothing about them now.
as an adult, probably DFW, in my early 20s
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 1 July 2020 23:35 (three years ago) link