"Two Serious Ladies" - Jane Bowles

I read this marvellous little book in a rush after finishing "2666". The impetus was an old interview with Harry Mathews I came across about his (at the time) new book, "Cigarettes" (incidentally the first book I read to use Oulipian techniques of creative contstraint). Sadly, having read it I still can't think of a better way to summarise it than using Mathews' words from that interview: "She achieves miracles by just putting one ordinary sentence after the other and she never indicates the way you’re supposed to feel about it." A good example of what he means is offered by the introduction to the edition I read, which was from Virago. It made a very strong case for the book as a feminist classic, whereas to me it seemed to be a book about rich eccentrics. Anyway, it's very funny. I think. Though it may not be to you. Either way, highly recommended...

(Please note, also, that I've finally sussed out using Blogger's labels, which means if you click on the categories listed at the bottom of each post, you can read all related posts. Hurrah! Haven't yet managed to go back and add them to the whole archive of nonsense what I wrote, but I will, I will...)

Harry Mathews - Tangled Up In Blurb

I've been trying to think of a reason to write something about Harry Mathews on here for as long as I've been typing all this nonsense - trying to find something interesting to say about him, or at least to find an interesting link to give to people. I have failed. But my previous post on Paul Griffiths allows me to cast some light on an under-rated part of Mathews' writing - some of the shortest, most haiku-like, most constrained of his output. His book blurbs. I have found over the years that where Harry blurbs, the book is always worth reading. Griffiths gets the following: "I found let me tell you a beautiful and enthralling work, as well as a great success in Oulipian terms." Which is enough for me. Doug Nufer, who I've also posted about before, got "A scientist whose experiments are consistently successful acquires the status of genius, and this is the proper status of experimental writer Doug Nufer." Which, if it were about me, I would have tattooed right across my chest in huge black, Gothic letters. Though, obviously, I would have to change my name to Doug Nufer. Then there was Richard Beard, who received "A wonderful book – hilariously upsetting from beginning to end" for The Cartoonist and "Lovely, funny, touching, and exciting" for Damascus. Now, setting aside the generosity of his compliments, the important thing is that Mathews is always right. All those books were (are) more or less as good as he told me they would be. Yeah, as the Grand Cardinal of English Language Oulipiancy he kind of has a duty to support all members of the church of creative constraint. But unlike the more snotty, academicised wing of this tendency (which I admittedly may have imagined) he seems genuinely to want and foster as broad a church as possible.

In many ways, I think, Mathews is a model of how an author should live his life. He writes exactly what he wants to write when he wants to write it. He doesn't seem to get upset about its reception or the fact that a writer of his skill and talent should be way better known than he is. He appears to do what he does because he loves doing it. And that's reflected in his blurbing and hence support for a kind of writing he genuinely believes offers up a chance to make books new, to liberate readers and writers. So he gives - in his writing and beyond - again and again and again.

I'm sure if I met him he'd turn out to be a right bastard, but luckily I don't need to. I have his books. If you haven't read them, I would recommend you getting them, too.

Nufer Madness

Yes, it's official, I have a new favourite author. Step forward please, Mr Doug Nufer, Seattle-based purveyor of ultra-constrained genius. I can't remember exactly how I came across it, but there's a fantastic interview with Nufer on Madinkbeard's blog and having read it, I had to get hold of one of his books.

The easiest to come across in the UK was "Negativeland," a regressive road trip following former back stroke champion Ken Honochick as he doesn't discover the meaning of life. The chapters count down from -6 to 0 and every sentence in the book contains a negative. But if you didn't know you wouldn't care. It reads brilliantly. It's sad and elegaic as well as funny and clever and it says much more about America and contemporary life in general than any novel Tom Wolfe ever wrote.

His other books include "Never Again," a 200 page text in which no word is ever repeated (and I thought I was clever when I sustained this for the full 100-odd words of a flash fiction...) and "On The Roast," in which "On The Road" is warped into the corporate memoir of a character eerily like the founder of Starbucks (and of which, Nufer reports, Harry Mathews said that it was really great that Nufer had so much time on his hands). I think there's a CD called "The Office," too, but I haven't been able to find out too much about that yet.

And, just to add the final stroke of fortuitous beauty (though probably not for Mr Nufer, who spent years trying to get his work into print), all four were published in the same year by four different publishers.