"It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step"
About this Quote
A lesser novelist worries about “the reader.” Harry Mathews, ever the Oulipian saboteur with a gentleman’s smile, worries about the reader’s confidence. The line flaunts a practiced ability - “something I could do” - then immediately treats that ability as suspicious, almost impolite. He’s describing a signature maneuver: he can spin a plot that feels legible, even irresistible, and then he deliberately keeps kicking out the rung you’re climbing.
The intent isn’t simple difficulty-for-difficulty’s sake. Mathews is staging a contest between narrative desire and narrative authority. He knows how quickly readers convert story into a kind of possession: we “follow,” we predict, we settle in. By frustrating “opportunities to follow it at every step,” he refuses the usual contract in which clarity is payment for attention. Instead, he forces you to notice the machinery: how comprehension is assembled, how suspense can be manufactured, how coherence is often just a well-lit hallway.
Subtextually, there’s a sly confession of pleasure. “It may seem odd” is the shrug of someone who knows it’s odd and likes that it is. Mathews came out of a tradition (and a circle) that treated constraints, games, and procedural tricks as serious art, not party tricks. The interesting narrative is bait; the frustration is the point. He’s not blocking meaning so much as relocating it from “what happens next” to “what happens to you” when the text stops behaving.
The intent isn’t simple difficulty-for-difficulty’s sake. Mathews is staging a contest between narrative desire and narrative authority. He knows how quickly readers convert story into a kind of possession: we “follow,” we predict, we settle in. By frustrating “opportunities to follow it at every step,” he refuses the usual contract in which clarity is payment for attention. Instead, he forces you to notice the machinery: how comprehension is assembled, how suspense can be manufactured, how coherence is often just a well-lit hallway.
Subtextually, there’s a sly confession of pleasure. “It may seem odd” is the shrug of someone who knows it’s odd and likes that it is. Mathews came out of a tradition (and a circle) that treated constraints, games, and procedural tricks as serious art, not party tricks. The interesting narrative is bait; the frustration is the point. He’s not blocking meaning so much as relocating it from “what happens next” to “what happens to you” when the text stops behaving.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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