Harry Mathews

About this book

Although his published work covers more than three decades, Harry Mathews until recently was known only among a relatively small coterie of readers. The author of four novels, several collections of poetry, and a number of short stories, Mathews has made a significant contribution to contemporary literature. His work has been compared with such better-known European writers as Italo Calvino, Raymond Queneau, Raymond Firbank, and Georges Perec. Mathews's novels are distinguished by a sense of playfulness that embraces both his language and his narrative structures. His fiction is filled with puns, puzzles, word games, foreign languages, and literary parodies. His stories and plots are resonant but ambiguous, often operating on several levels at once. Mathews himself has said that he does not wish to mirror external reality; rather he seeks to provide the means by which the reader performs the act of creation. As Warren Leamon characterizes it, Mathews's fiction "though erudite, is very entertaining - fast paced, witty, humorous - and deserves a much wider audience." This book is the first full scale critical study of this American writer. Warren Leamon places Harry Mathews firmly within the context of the various currents in contemporary American and European fiction. He traces the significant links between Mathews's work and a number of important modernists - Joyce, Eliot, Firbank, and Graves among them. Leamon's work provides an important introduction and critical assessment of a heretofore neglected writer, as well as providing readers already familiar with Mathews with useful, detailed information and perceptive analysis of individual works.