Sunday, March 1, 2015

Harry Mathews on writing

Harry Mathews, from 20 Lines a Day (Dalkey Archive Press, 1988), a book that developed from a daily writing exercise:

Writing well is so hard — that’s why it’s fun to go for.

comments: 9

Chris said...

One of the editors of Christopher Smart's poems claims that "Jubilate Agno" was written at the rate of one or two lines a day, which certainly suggests a high level of discipline on the part of someone whose mind was supposedly disordered. It's also not what you'd expect to be the case reading the poem (if it is "a poem").

Michael Leddy said...

No, not at all. It seems to have great momentum.

Virgil is said to have written at the rate of three lines a day.

Mathews’s lines in this work are prose, following Stendahl, “twenty lines a day, genius or not.”

Chris said...

As it happens, I'm actually a big Harry Mathews fan. And the weird thing is I was just thinking about that book a couple of days ago. I don't now how these things move about underground and suddenly surface, but they do seem to.

Michael Leddy said...

Go figure!

I can’t claim to know his work that well — more the poetry. I’ve had 20 Lines on a shelf for years and somehow thought to take it down.

You’re not a Gilbert Sorrentino fan too, are you?

Chris said...

No, I've never read GS, except maybe a page here and there in literary magazines and such.

I like HM's sestina beginning "Tina and Seth met in the midst of an overcrowded militarism." If you ever want to try his fiction, The Conversions is a good place to start.

Michael Leddy said...

I like Raymond Roussel, so I probably will. Thanks, Chris.

Chris said...

You'll get at least one gag, then, that flew over my head the first few times I read it.

Michael Leddy said...

Okay, I’ll see.

Anonymous said...

Riding mower in the yard -- that's why it's to gopher.