Customer Reviews

The Sinking of The Odradek Stadium

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In a sense, society can be considered the connections between individuals, instead of the individuals themselves. This book explores one such connection, in the form of a series of letters between a married couple. Their connection is exposed as a frail and tenuous thing, buffeted by confusion, frustration, and yearning. Make no mistake though, this is not simply a novel about a relationship. This is avant garde literature of the highest rank. Mathews' wordplay is exceptional and he spins tales, in turn tragic and comic, in and out of the main narrative. The plot is less an arc than a contrail, tightly focused at one end and disturbingly hazy at the other. This is an exceptional novel for lovers of language who like their fiction unconventional. Also, I give Mathews high marks for one of the most imaginative uses of a title for a novel I've ever encountered.

I found this novel to be unreadable. We alternate between letters written by a man in Miami mixed up in treasure-hunting schemes and his "wife," whose early missives are written in some kind of pidgin English that is too difficult to interpret. As we move along, her writing eventually loses its primitive qualities, but it's not worth the struggle to get through the first two-thirds of the book.

Yes, as long as Zachary is doing the narrating, it's interesting. Yes, there is bizarre poetic writing. Yes, there are arcane vocabulary words that will send you to the dictionary. Yes, there is splashy local color about the Carnival celebrations in Miami. Yes, there are amusing details about some secret cult and its rites and initiations. And lots of intrigue about old maps and missing Medici gold. But it's just not worth it. You have to force your way through Twang's subliterate phrasings, and I found it so easy to just skip her letters entirely. And, yes, there is some kind of triple or quadruple twist in the final pages, but I just didn't get a sense that the payoff was worth it.

Probably the only work ever to use the title as a major plot point/punchline (and a damned effective one, at that), Mathews' novel turns the epistolary genre on its head, with a bizarre love story cum treasure hunt, all wrapped into a tight package of slapstick comedy, mystery, history, culture, and linguistic peculiarities.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mathews' work, he's a member of the Oulipo, a group (or groups) of writers, mathematicians, poets, painters, etc., etc. - who both rescue stylistic constraints from the past and create new ones of their own. So you can always expect that their works will be impeccable structured, rich in detail, language play, and erudition. On top of that, at least one of the characters (Twang) is beautifully written, with a wealth of puns and a generous heap of charm.

There are two minor concerns with the novel that forced me to downgrade it to 4 stars, instead of a perfect five. The first is that the big plot twist, while necessary to set up the game of gross misjudgments in the second half of the novel, comes across as a bit contrived. The second is that the style, while often flexible, fascinating, and outright hilarious, is sometimes uneven - there's none of the assuredness in his writing that you'd find in Cigarettes, for example.

Still, a great read, and highly highly recommended. I wish Mathews and the Oulipo gang were more widely read.

This novel is about a man and woman hunting for sunken treasure of gold. The style is a bit abstruse and intellectual, and is not intented for mass audiences. Yet if you pay attention and are persistent, you will find lots of witty lines and some rather poetic phrasings. It is a very unusual book ... the best comparisons I can think of are Fowles' "The Magus" or Umberto Eco's stuff. And maybe John Barth. Stick with it, the ending will surprise you.