Customer Reviews

Tlooth (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

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

 

 

Wow! This is the first book in a long while that I sat down and read straight through in one sitting, and then read it again the next day. This book is layered and layered again, twisting through puzzles, puns and wordgames that revolve back into itself. It's wildly imaginative in its style and content, and the over the top humor would suit fans of Pynchon and Barthelme, but his control of the language and playfulness is even more extreme once you allow yourself to dig in. This is not a quick read for the subway, but a novel that will challenge your expectations and ideas on what a piece of fiction should and should not be.

This, Harry Mathews' second novel, has been out of print for far too long. Translated by Georges Perec as Les verts champs de moutarde de l'Afghanistan, Tlooth is, like Gray's Lanark, a novel of incredbile and impossible occurences told in a deadpan manner. Set in a Russian prison camp, this novel begins at a baseball game featuring the Defective Baptists versus the Fideists... and it gets progressively stranger and more interesting from there.

Damned if I know, but I'll lean towards the latter. Fascinating stuff; this novel is like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing, pieces from other puzzles thrown in, or maybe just a few too many pieces to make a cohesive whole. Is it genius? It certainly is one of the most unique books I've ever read, and one of the most difficult; the innumerous games spotted about the text almost makes me feel as if the author is challenging us. "Go on, you stupid idjit," he says, "Come along and figure me. If you can." It shure as hell beat me...but even if I can't figure it out, there are enough moments of Heller-esque lunacy to make this book worthwhile...such as the savage tribe whose numbers are dwindling because they believe the sun will not rise without a human sacrifice...or the mysterious bog which utters...er, well...or the ingenious baseball game played with a rigged ball set against the somber backdrop of a siberian prison camp. Lovely stuff...so, it comes highly recommended, but try not to get too frustrated when the book just seems to be written expressely for that purpose. One more game: how do you visualise the narrator? Are you so sure that's who the narrator is? Do you really know this character? (Note: those who finish the book fair and square should know what I'm talking about...Sure caught me by surprise. Hee...)

The imagination runs wild in this book -- rather like a chariot with a wheel slipping from its axis. A maddening read -- I couldn't finish this book in one sitting , as someone commented above. One chapter a night was all I could handle, and with the plot and locales veering all over the map, I had a hard time remembering what I had read the night before. And yet, I knew that I absolutely HAD to finish Tlooth, and when I did, I was glad; the end reveals what this book is about (and it is about something after all). Erudite, staggeringly digressive, subversive, dreamlike, pansexual: TLOOTH gives mainstream fiction a rousing slap on the behind. (Expand that metaphor into something more knuckle-y, and you'll get the gist of what I really mean.) It's not a book in the usual sense of the world. It's a disorientation. Either you are up to it, or you aren't. NOT an Oprah Book Club selection (thank God)!

Excellent word puzzles. I would recommend 2 readings of the book, the 1st time for the story and the 2nd one for the puzzles.