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Mathews, Harry
Mathews, Harry (1930– ),New York City‐born author, long expatriated in France, whose esoteric, experimental works include short novels concerned with curiously convoluted quests. The Conversions (1962) presents a person who can inherit a huge fortune if able to answer three recondite riddles. Tlooth (1966), also told by an obscure narrator, is a kind of plotless story of a search for revenge. The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium (1975) is an odd epistolary account of a search for treasure. Selected Declarations of Dependence (1977) prints a novella and Proverbs and Paraphrases. Cigarettes (1988), another odd novel, deals with complex relations among a small group of people of different generations in Saratoga Springs and New York City. 20 Lines a Day (1988) is a work dealing with various and often odd personal issues. The Ring (1970), The Planisphere (1974), Trial Impressions (1977), and Armenian Papers (1987) collect his poems.
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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Mathews, Harry." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Mathews, Harry." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-MathewsHarry.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Mathews, Harry." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-MathewsHarry.html |
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Mathews, Harry
Mathews, Harry (1930– ), is the only American member of OuLiPo. His early fictions, such as The Conversions (1962) and Tlooth (1966), offer a compendium of eccentric narratives and sophisticated wordplay. His later novels, Cigarettes (1987) and The Journalist (1994), are just as inventive and bewildering, but explore more recognizable American contexts. In these works Mathews disguises the formal constraints underlying his plots and characters. He has also written a number of shorter, more obviously experimental texts such as ‘Their Words, For You’ (1977), which consists wholly of scrambled proverbs. Mathews's poetry (collected in A Mid-Season Sky, 1992) again employs rigid conventions as a means of embodying the surrealism of everyday life.
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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Mathews, Harry." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Mathews, Harry." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-MathewsHarry.html MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Mathews, Harry." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-MathewsHarry.html |
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