Time & Perspective Quote by Harry Mathews

The most interesting thing about Harry Mathews claiming a “first time” is how late in the game it arrives, and how carefully it dodges the standard memoir posture. “In my own name” sounds like a simple fact of authorship, but from Mathews - a writer associated with the Oulipo tradition of constraint, gamesmanship, and deliberate impersonality - it reads like a small rebellion against his own brand. The line positions authorship as something you can withhold, outsource, or encrypt, then finally “own” as an event.

There’s also a sly institutional echo. “CIA” isn’t just a workplace; it’s shorthand for secrecy, pseudonyms, compartmentalization, cover stories. Mathews’ title, My Life in CIA, already flirts with the paradox of confession inside a culture built on concealment. So the sentence works like a double exposure: he’s announcing personal disclosure while reminding you that disclosure has rules, edits, and handlers. Even the phrasing - “written a story” rather than “told the truth” - keeps memoir at arm’s length. He’s not promising candor; he’s promising narrative under his signature.

Intent-wise, it’s a credibility play and a warning label at once. Mathews signals that the “I” on the page is newly authorized, not newly innocent. The subtext is that identity in writing has been one more formal constraint - until the day he chooses to break it, and makes that break part of the story.