The Human Country: New and Collected Stories

by Harry Mathews

Available For The First Time In One Volume, The Very Best Of Mathews's Short Fiction; This expertly designed original paperback presents a comprehensive collection of internationally renowned poet and novelist Harry Mathews' short prose. From the hilarious 'The Broadcast, ' in which the narrator learns from a radio program that everything he needs in life should fit into one sock, to 'Calibration of Latitude, ' which follows Sir Joseph Pernican on a meandering and seemingly aimless but deeply moving journey, this is a long-awaited addition to Mathew's beloved and masterful canon.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Collection, Literature

186 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

Harry Mathews was an American author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays.

Together with John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch, Mathews founded and edited the short-lived but influential literary journal Locus Solus (named after a novel by Raymond Roussel, one of Mathews's chief early influences) from 1961 to 1962.

Harry Mathews was the first American chosen for membership in the French literary society known as the Oulipo, which is dedicated to exploring new possibilities in literature, in particular through the use of various constraints and algorithms. The late French writer Georges Perec, likewise a member, was a good friend, and the two translated some of each other's writings. Mathews considers many of his works to be Oulipian in nature, but even before he encountered the society he was working in a parallel direction.

Mathews was married to the writer Marie Chaix and divided his time between Paris, Key West, and New York.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

The other reviews here sum up my opinion on these stories—a few pearls mixed with opaque, impenetrable rocks written largely for Michael Silverblatt. ‘Country Cooking’ is a notable standout: a perfect spoof of haute cuisine recipes. ‘Clocking the World on Cue’ is an insanely clever piece of Oulipo showboating where each sentence clocks up the mathematical values of any roman numeral letters in sentences (i.e. m, x, i) so that each adds up to 2001. Mathews’s writing is extremely stylish and linguistically impossible—he makes no concessions for the reader unprepared to participate in his games. Sadly, if he doesn’t throw the reader a bone, she won’t be that interested in playing. I had this problem with his novels too. The stories in the section ‘Calibrations of Latitude’ were among my favourite. The ‘American Experiences’ I found for the most part too advanced. My last Mathews book? Probably.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep reading everything I can find by Mathews b/c I'm very interested in OuLiPo & Mathews is the only OuLiPo writer whose 1st language is English. The writing's interesting to me.. but it's never QUITE done it for me.. UNTIL NOW! I generally prefer massive novels to short stories, I like the development, the complexity, but in Mathews' case, I find him to be such a 'master' of short story form that I can't help but luv it!

This bk's divided into 3 sections: "First Stories", "The American Experience: Stories to be Read Aloud", & "Calibrations of Latitude". Just from a writerly perspective, there's so much variety here, so many ways of creating a reading experience. From the incredible overkill of absurd detail in "Country Cooking from Central France: Roast Boned Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)" to the evocativeness of "Journeys to Six Lands" to the more 'classically' OuliPoian formalist "Clocking the World on Cue: The Chronogram for 2001" Mathews' ideas are always very thought-out & realized w/ fantastic & subtle skill.

[Downward · Rating 2 out of 5]

harry mathews novel 'cigarettes' is a sort of wonder of structure: multiple moving pieces of plot, emotion, and character all work together to create a remarkable machine. this is kind of what OULIPO does. they create a mathematical set of rules to make a puzzle our a complex machine or whatever your preferred metaphor for this type of fiction is. sometimes it does not work. when it does not work you have a sort of coldly intellectual, and technically impressive piece of fiction that barely functions as a story and only acts as the thing itself without any measure of the transcendence that we read fiction for. that's what this book is. a collection of short stories by a very smart writer who does not at this point in his career seem to be terribly interested in anything human.

[Joe Drogos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading most of this book, stories from the only American member of Oulipo, is a little like trying to figure out riddles written in a language you've never seen before. Briefly, Oulipo is a French-founded international literary clique who work on writing based on verbal and numerical constraints. For example, Georges Perec's novel La Disparition (In English, "The Void")-- an entire novel written without the letter "e". Marcel Duchamps and Italo Calvino.

So, there are stories here, like "The Dialect of the Tribe," in which the writer of a letter attempts to explain the translation method of an obscure tribe that supposedly conveys literal meaning precisely while at the same time obfuscating any true sense of the original statement. After setting up some of the basic terms of the language, the writer, of course, becomes overwhelmed by the studied language, succumbing to a rush of its words and phrases. Or a story like, "Their Words, for You" in which a few simple nouns serve as the hinges on which a story turns phrase after phrase, swinging from idiom to idiom to make its way through narration.

There are a few straightforward stories that are really enjoyable, like "Mr. Smathers"- two pages about a boy who sets off to butcher the neighbor's dog and finds a frighteningly enthusiastic ally- but for the most part the fun is in decoding or at least attempting to decode these pieces, and seeing how the constraints- whatever they may be- force Mathews occasionally into brilliant phrases. As a fanatic of crosswords, palindromes, and other puzzles- as someone who is interested in language, not just in itself, but even out of itself- words as numerical symbols, etc.- I got a real kick out of it. But the fractured, punctured language in much of this could turn off someone who just wants to read something where language serves the story.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with Harry Mathew's writing after hearing Isaiah Sheffer read his convoluted short story Country Cooking From France. This collection is some of the most brilliant metafiction I've ever come across.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Country Cooking in Central France is pure genius. Genius. I want to say the rest is smart. There are some clever tropes, but there is no sense that the opacity will ever give way to meaning. Maybe some people are into that. I'm not.

[Brent Hayward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two or three wonderful stories that approach the heights of Mathew's great novels, but other stories that seem to be in-jokes or so opaque with cleverness that they are inpenetrable. A bit of a let down.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are not many writers who can write such beautiful skillful prose, and he is funny and effective in many of the stories, but in too many places the extreme intellectual structures poke through and ring hollow, and the cleverness of it all is sometimes just annoying.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a disappointment.

[Peter Zuppardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't finished this yet, so I'm cheating. I seem to keep reading the same pieces over and over.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I was becoming kind of a Mathews fan but I couldn't get into this stuff.

[Muzzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Din't judge Matthews based on this one collection. These shorts feel like exercises, warm-ups for the real work of the novel. Read "Cigarettes" first. Matthews' gift works best with longer books.