Well, I'm a huge fan of Oulipo, but don't really know much about Harry Mathews. Is he any good? What books are best? Does he fit in with people like Perec?
― emil.y (emil.y), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― The Redd And The Blecch (Ken L), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link
which is the other cigarette-focussed oulipo novel?
― tom west (thomp), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link
My top six picks might be: The Conversions, Tlooth, Odradek Stadium, The Human Country, Armenian Papers, My Life in CIA.
― Paul Eater (eater), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Paul Eater (eater), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
I was surprised at how good Twenty Lines A Day was. Selected Declarations of Dependence wasn't nearly as good as I hoped. The Orchard, about Perec, is nice.
That Singular Pleasures hasn't been mentioned yet is something of a travesty. One of the most beautiful books about masturbation imaginable.
Everyone has had nice things to say about My Life In CIA, why not you too?
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 6 January 2007 09:11 (seventeen years ago) link
Richard Beard's x20?
― Matt (Matt), Sunday, 7 January 2007 08:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 8 January 2007 23:38 (seventeen years ago) link
Actually, we are overlooking a big contribution of his at the other end of the specturm: his work as co-editor of The Oulipo Compendium. Which contains a nice little alphabet-based thing often credited to him that I can never actually find inside the book, the one that starts "Hey! Be seedy effigy."
― The Redd And The Blecch (Ken L), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― Paul Eater (eater), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:57 (seventeen years ago) link
Also, I wasn't aware that Richard Beard's x20 was meant to be Oulipo. I remember quite liking it at the time, but not being blown away by its form or language.
― emil.y (emil.y), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 23:26 (seventeen years ago) link
found not under alpha- or homophon- but sequence.
I think I'll reread Cigarettes too since it's been years and it's right here and you are all so full of its merits.
― Paul Eater (eater), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 23:55 (seventeen years ago) link
The structure of the novel, based on the number 20 encompasses four basic constraints.
1. The novel covers the first 20 days after Gregory Simpson gives up smoking 20 cigarettes a day, each day comprising a chapter.2. Each chapter has exactly 4000 words, calculated as the number of minutes it would take Simpson to smoke 20 cigarettes a day for 20 days (at ten minutes per cigarette; 10 is also the number of years he has been smoking 20 cigarettes a day).3. Each chapter is divided into sections: 20 sections in the first chapter, 19 in the second, progressing to 1 section in the last and 20th chapter.4. The novel contains the same number of words as Simpson has smoked during the ten year period.
As constraints go it's hardly Alphabetical Africa, but they're there, nonetheless.
― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 09:42 (seventeen years ago) link
also seek out the lit. 'zine he published in the early '60s, 'locus solus' -- edited by koch, schuyler and ashbery. they can be found cheaper than you'd think, or could a few years ago. it only lasted three issues but were exceptional and really thick.
― Michael J McGonigal (mike mcgonigal), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 12:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link
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
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Interpreter of dreams predictor of weather (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link
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
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
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
:-(
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
― 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