Customer Reviews

The Journalist (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

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The plot of the story, interesting as it is, becomes secondary to how this book is written. Addictive and hard to put down!

One of Harry Mathew' most ambitious and strikingly original novels. His fifth novel, The Journalist, confronts our present day disillusionment with reality and the art of writing. I recommend this novel for its summoning back of all those delicious qualities that I havd found both attractive and mind-expanding when first encountering Mathews' work. The concept is simple: the narrator keeps a journal to help him organize his life. But nothing is ever so simple. His ordinary life as a European businessman receives amazing scrutiny as he becomes meticulous in recording his life's events, shrews details, and his daily thoughts. The characters of his journal include his wife Daisy, his mistress Colette, his son Gert, and his friend Paul. Those designations don't in his life don't last long as the journalist worries about relations between his wife and Paul and his mistress and Gert.

The journalist soon decides that his journal needs subcatergories: certain sections for the objective facts and other parts for his subjective thoughts. As he organizes the journal into more severe categories, the secret meetings around him proliferate. As an Oulipian, Mathews has emploed a poetical structive to create a world unto itself and has refined and updated his language with this novel which, in the context of contemporary Modernism, rivals both Nabokov's Pale Fire and Calvino's Mr. Palomar.

Have you ever worried about that thought that keeps running through your head, again and again? A line from a song that won't let go of you? A need to get into the details of the details of the details? If so, get yourself a copy of The Journalist. Read it. You'll immediately feel the tension draining away: You may be bad, but nowhere near THAT bad. What a relief!

Of course, it won't hurt if you're also a Harry Mathews fan like I am. And an Oulipo fan. And if you're not acquainted with either, this is as good a place as any to get started with both of them. Enjoy!

The title "Journalist" does not refer to a newsman, but rather to an individual who keeps a journal. In my own past having tried to keep a journal, I found myself falling into the same questions, and ever consuming passion. Fortunately, I was able to realize the conflict and stopped myself. The protagonist is unable to stop his own descent into the ever consuming passion of detailing in his own journal. If you are unfamiliar with Harry Matthews, I would not suggest this as a first title, that would be "My Life in CIA" which is absolutely brilliant. Like much of Matthews writing, this book may test your patience as you go deeper into the maniacal consumption of this journal. The conception and execution of the Journalist is brilliant.

If you are tired of the ordinary read, and like the dark side of life. This is a work for you.

For several days upon completing this book, I found myself laughing uncontrollably at the memory of certain passages. Does this book poke fun at Mathew's strategies as an Oulipian? We don't know. We just have to laugh and pity the character's obsession with order and structure. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in observing how we write, think and react to a crisis.