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the complete review - fiction

Tlooth

by
Harry Mathews

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B- : clever, but a bit too far flung

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Tlooth, in spite of its creative experimentalism and its radical assault on reality (things are simply never what they seem), often loses the sustained interest required to make sense of its elusive complexity." - Peter Buitenhuis, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The marvelously titled Tlooth takes its narrator from baseball games in a Siberian labour-camp named Jacksongrad across much of Asia and Europe in a story of escape and vengeance. This is not realistic satire, political commentary, or dystopic fiction. Mathews' book centers around the absurd -- while relating it in a controlled and calm style that belies the underlying incongruities.
       The camp where the story commences is divided into sectarian groups: Fiedeists, Americanists, Defective Baptists, among others. The narrator is a dental assistant -- a job the she is particularly suited for, having only three fingers on one hand, making it easier to maneuver inside a patient's mouth. She had lost her other digits to a criminal surgeon, Evelyn Roak -- the object of her vengeance.
       The camp is escaped from, and much of the world traversed. There are adventures, puzzles, musical interludes, diverse ailments, a world seen, opportunities missed. The escape and the chase take the narrator to Afghanistan, India, Italy and elsewhere.
       Mathews delights in and with invention, and he does not disappoint in the small episodes that make the novel. Unfortunately the narrative thread is not quite as sturdy as one might like. The story hops and skips. It does not flow smoothly. The absurdities are enjoyable, but put together they still do not quite a novel make.
       An enjoyable entertainment, but not completely convincing.

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Links:

• Dalkey Archive Press publicity page

• reVIEW
• Danny Yee's Book Reviews

• The complete review's Harry Mathews page.
• Brief biography and bibliography
• Interview with John Ashbery (from the Review of Contemporary Fiction)
• Interview with John Ash (from the Review of Contemporary Fiction -- no, it really is a different interview)
• Interview with Alexander Laurence
• Short biography
• Reading Harry Mathews by John Beer in Context
• Alexander Laurence essay on The Novels of Harry Mathews

• Stéfan Sinclair's OuLiPo page

• The Conversions
• The Human Country
• My Life In CIA
• S.
• Selected Declarations of Dependence
• The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium
• Singular Pleasures
• The Way Home
• See also: the Oulipo Compendium, co-edited by Mathews
• See also: AA files 45/46: Georges Perec + Paris

• See Index of Oulipo books under review
• See Index of Contemporary American fiction

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About the Author:

       American author Harry Mathews was born in 1930. He graduated from Harvard. In 1952 he moved to Paris, becoming a member of the OuLiPo in the early 1970s.

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