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Tom Harris
At times in his life, Tom Harris is a dull schoolboy, an apprentice barber, a delinquent husband, an old man with a monkey who drinks at the Green Man Pub, "il professore Harris" at the University of Genoa, and possibly a murderer. But the question of who the elusive Tom Harris really is, and what crimes he has really committed, obsesses the narrator of this novel. Tom Harris can perhaps be described as a sort of philosophical detective story, ingeniously plotted and wittily told with a stylistic virtuosity on par with the most playful works of Raymond Queneau.
291 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
80 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Themerson
49 books34 followersStefan Themerson was a Polish, later British poet, novelist, film-maker, composer and philosopher.
Stefan Themerson was born in Plock (Poland) in 1910, the son of a doctor. He studied physics at the University of Warsaw and architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic. In his twenties, Stefan became well-known in Poland as an author of children’s books.
Stefan got married in 1931 to Franciszka. Between 1931 and 1937, the Themersons made several experimental films and Stefan invented new techniques for photograms. 'Adventures of a Good Citizen' (1937) was the fifth and the last of their pre-war films and the only one that has survived.
The Themersons played a major role in the history of independent, experimental and pre-war cinema in Poland, their significance for the development of the Polish avant-garde film is enormous.
The Themersons moved to Paris in 1937, to be at the heart of the art world. Two days after the start of the Second World War Stefan and Franciszka volunteered for the Polish army. In 1940 Franciszka escaped by moving to London. Stefan served in the Polish army in France, ending up in a Polish Red Cross hostel in Voiron, 1940-42.
At this time Stefan wrote his first novel, Professor Mmaa’s Lecture. After two years of separation Stefan and Franciszka were reunited in London in 1942. They made two more films, 1942-44.
In 1948 the Themersons founded a publishing house: the Gaberbocchus Press. In 31 years they published over sixty titles, including works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russell.
In 1953 Stefan’s Professor Mmaa’s Lecture was first published. It is still a classic in Poland.
Through the 60s and 70s, Stefan’s books were published by Gaberbocchus Press, for example philosophical novels, children’s books, poetry, essays and a libretto and music for an opera.
His books have been translated in eight languages.
He invented 'semantic poetry' which first appeared in his novel Bayamus (1949). It is a sort of poetry that prefers the matter-of-fact meanings of words in dictionary definitions to the romantic euphemism of poetic conventions.
Ethics, language, freedom, human dignity and the importance of good manners are the topics Stefan wrote about most.
His novels range from elaborate allegories to satirical thrillers. The humanitarian philosophy that underpins them all was crystallised in The Chair of Decency, a talk given as the Huizinga lecture in Leyden in 1981. It contrasted the innate sense of good with which man is born, with the impassioned pursuit of belief and causes by which he is subsequently deluded.
Stefan Themerson was born in Plock (Poland) in 1910, the son of a doctor. He studied physics at the University of Warsaw and architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic. In his twenties, Stefan became well-known in Poland as an author of children’s books.
Stefan got married in 1931 to Franciszka. Between 1931 and 1937, the Themersons made several experimental films and Stefan invented new techniques for photograms. 'Adventures of a Good Citizen' (1937) was the fifth and the last of their pre-war films and the only one that has survived.
The Themersons played a major role in the history of independent, experimental and pre-war cinema in Poland, their significance for the development of the Polish avant-garde film is enormous.
The Themersons moved to Paris in 1937, to be at the heart of the art world. Two days after the start of the Second World War Stefan and Franciszka volunteered for the Polish army. In 1940 Franciszka escaped by moving to London. Stefan served in the Polish army in France, ending up in a Polish Red Cross hostel in Voiron, 1940-42.
At this time Stefan wrote his first novel, Professor Mmaa’s Lecture. After two years of separation Stefan and Franciszka were reunited in London in 1942. They made two more films, 1942-44.
In 1948 the Themersons founded a publishing house: the Gaberbocchus Press. In 31 years they published over sixty titles, including works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters and Bertrand Russell.
In 1953 Stefan’s Professor Mmaa’s Lecture was first published. It is still a classic in Poland.
Through the 60s and 70s, Stefan’s books were published by Gaberbocchus Press, for example philosophical novels, children’s books, poetry, essays and a libretto and music for an opera.
His books have been translated in eight languages.
He invented 'semantic poetry' which first appeared in his novel Bayamus (1949). It is a sort of poetry that prefers the matter-of-fact meanings of words in dictionary definitions to the romantic euphemism of poetic conventions.
Ethics, language, freedom, human dignity and the importance of good manners are the topics Stefan wrote about most.
His novels range from elaborate allegories to satirical thrillers. The humanitarian philosophy that underpins them all was crystallised in The Chair of Decency, a talk given as the Huizinga lecture in Leyden in 1981. It contrasted the innate sense of good with which man is born, with the impassioned pursuit of belief and causes by which he is subsequently deluded.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 17, 2024
Tom Harris is a sort of eccentrically philosophical mystery… The style of the novel resembles the exotic style of Raymond Queneau…
First time we meet the hero not long before the war when he walks out of a police station door…
An anonymous narrator watches both the watched one and the watchers and tells his tale with a lot of flowery side remarks…
Now it is 1963 and the place is Genoa…
There is a lot of accidental occurrences and bizarre coincidences but eventually everything adds up into a pattern… And Tom Harris is a genuine and inimitable weirdo…
Without the strange ones the world would be a dull and boring place.
First time we meet the hero not long before the war when he walks out of a police station door…
For a moment he looked like a man who has just woken up and doesn’t yet know very well where he is. He looked to the right and left, he hesitated, turned, took a few steps, stopped, and then crossed on to my side of the road. He glanced at a theatrical poster displayed in the window of a glass-cutter’s shop, turned left and started walking in the direction of Edgware Road. In the meantime, two men in civilian clothes came out of the door under the blue lamp, turned, and went the same way. That was how our strange dance across London began.
An anonymous narrator watches both the watched one and the watchers and tells his tale with a lot of flowery side remarks…
Now it is 1963 and the place is Genoa…
The red sun was shivering on the brink, hesitating to plunge into the sea behind the window by which we were sitting, and the shadows of some minute objects, the legs of a fly, which was slowly walking across the table-cloth, were as long as the tentacles of an octopus, such as the one the bits of which were floating in the dish we had been served.
There is a lot of accidental occurrences and bizarre coincidences but eventually everything adds up into a pattern… And Tom Harris is a genuine and inimitable weirdo…
“He had a monkey,” I tried to explain. “That’s why he was called ‘The Man with the Monkey.’ London is a populous and a smoky city, signora. Much like hell. He felt lonely. He was lonely. So one day he bought himself a monkey. It became his real friend. He loved it. And the monkey loved him.
Neither could live without the other.”
Without the strange ones the world would be a dull and boring place.
July 7, 2013
Like a stubborn knot in a piece of string, this novel takes a good deal of unpicking. But once you attempt to figure out what is happening you realise that the plot is not where the joy of this novel lies. A loose series of investigations occasioned by the death, and possible murder, of a wealthy man provides the excuse for the many diversions, asides and ruminations in which Themerson revels. The extent to which you will like his writing is entirely dependent on your tolerance for continually leaving the main road to check on what might be down a lane-way or a path that leads into a clump of trees. Here's a pretty typical example:
"She looked like a school-teacher, and everything she said was half grief and half annoyance. And half...or should I say a third? or a fifth? to be precise. a fifth of grief, a fifth of annoyance, a fifth of bitterness, a fifth of suspicion and a fifth of jealousy, but whether they were exactly one fifth I don't know, nor what they were fifths of, nor what the whole was that they were fifths of, you know how to apply your arithmetic to adding up the customer's bill and that's the end of it; nobody has told you, and you don't know, whether it makes sense to apply fractions to things that have no length, no weight, but only duration, like love, for instance-you can give your love to five hundred or a thousand persons, like the loaf of bread Jesus gave to the people He liked, and each will receive your full love; on the other hand, to some other person, you can give only one twelfth of your love, no more, you just can't do it otherwise, and it doesn't mean that you have hidden the remaining eleven twelfths somewhere, no, but perhaps for you it is a different kind of sadness from that I have in mind, anyhow, what she said was: " If I were you I wouldn't try to see her"
There are many pages given to some very amusing thoughts about the way notions of beauty and ugliness have been socially constructed and an account of a production of Hamlet which attempts to defy the audiences expectations of what each character should look like, so Hamlet is kitted out in special, and very expensive, pads so that his legs "were bent like a jockey's". Sad to report, it is not well received by the first night audience.
Of course the novel is called "Tom Harris" and the man of that name is, in one way or another, central to the book whether - in the early part of the book - being observed, followed and spoken to or, in part two of the book, having his "autobiography" written by someone else. Poor Tom? Lucky Tom? Inventor of the haircutting machine (sabotaged by a mob of angry barbers) and suspect in a murder case, he is a fascinating person to read about and as fascinating to not read about. Such are the knots.
"She looked like a school-teacher, and everything she said was half grief and half annoyance. And half...or should I say a third? or a fifth? to be precise. a fifth of grief, a fifth of annoyance, a fifth of bitterness, a fifth of suspicion and a fifth of jealousy, but whether they were exactly one fifth I don't know, nor what they were fifths of, nor what the whole was that they were fifths of, you know how to apply your arithmetic to adding up the customer's bill and that's the end of it; nobody has told you, and you don't know, whether it makes sense to apply fractions to things that have no length, no weight, but only duration, like love, for instance-you can give your love to five hundred or a thousand persons, like the loaf of bread Jesus gave to the people He liked, and each will receive your full love; on the other hand, to some other person, you can give only one twelfth of your love, no more, you just can't do it otherwise, and it doesn't mean that you have hidden the remaining eleven twelfths somewhere, no, but perhaps for you it is a different kind of sadness from that I have in mind, anyhow, what she said was: " If I were you I wouldn't try to see her"
There are many pages given to some very amusing thoughts about the way notions of beauty and ugliness have been socially constructed and an account of a production of Hamlet which attempts to defy the audiences expectations of what each character should look like, so Hamlet is kitted out in special, and very expensive, pads so that his legs "were bent like a jockey's". Sad to report, it is not well received by the first night audience.
Of course the novel is called "Tom Harris" and the man of that name is, in one way or another, central to the book whether - in the early part of the book - being observed, followed and spoken to or, in part two of the book, having his "autobiography" written by someone else. Poor Tom? Lucky Tom? Inventor of the haircutting machine (sabotaged by a mob of angry barbers) and suspect in a murder case, he is a fascinating person to read about and as fascinating to not read about. Such are the knots.
November 18, 2011
A minor masterpiece. Minor because it did not reflect the spirit of its time. Nor does it reflect the spirit of this or any time. Its spirit is not connnected to the world at large. It has, like stars and fluorescent bulbs, a cold and brilliant spirit; a spirit that doesn't demand to be charged by the reader. Masterpiece because it is well-composed and finely-comported, free of error in style or taste.
When speaking of style, this novel is of two minds. The first half of the book is of the mind of the somewhat typically reserved British English that used to be common in movies and books but now seems antique. The second half, beginning on page 167, sounds more immediate, more urgent, and I would even say more American (although the character is English). The second half is meant to be a journal, or rather a recreation of a journal, and so the immediacy, awkwardness and even amateurishness is explained, as well as appreciated (by me, at least).
This novel muses. That's the other thing I like about it. It chews on ideas. Themerson was primarily a philosopher so it's not a surprise that he should allow his playthings the chance to turn things over, like a chicken on a spit, in their minds. It's a contemplative sort of novel, one that doesn't shy away from eccentricity.
When speaking of style, this novel is of two minds. The first half of the book is of the mind of the somewhat typically reserved British English that used to be common in movies and books but now seems antique. The second half, beginning on page 167, sounds more immediate, more urgent, and I would even say more American (although the character is English). The second half is meant to be a journal, or rather a recreation of a journal, and so the immediacy, awkwardness and even amateurishness is explained, as well as appreciated (by me, at least).
This novel muses. That's the other thing I like about it. It chews on ideas. Themerson was primarily a philosopher so it's not a surprise that he should allow his playthings the chance to turn things over, like a chicken on a spit, in their minds. It's a contemplative sort of novel, one that doesn't shy away from eccentricity.
October 21, 2017
Tom Harris seems like a textualised visual artwork, but the readability gradually falls behind the post-modern/self-interested experimentation. Perhaps the freshest daisy on publication in 1980.
May 7, 2011
I LOVE and ADORE Themerson. I guess I just reached the saturation point with this one. I thought it was terrible.
December 5, 2012
Simply amazing
February 26, 2015
De 'spiegelvraag' is briljant, maar ik vond het allemaal te geconstrueerd om echt heel goed te zijn.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews