Tadeusz Pióro
“Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is”: Harry Mathews’ Figurations of Writing
Polish Journal for American Studies, vol. 19 (2025), pp. 139-152

Abstract: While Harry Mathews’ writing does not answer to the demands of academic critics concerned chiefly with subject matter in fiction, it has a place of its own within an alternative, “other tradition,” as delineated by John Ashbery in his Harvard lectures. Mathews’ principal narrative interest lies in the dynamics of writing and rewriting, as well as in eliciting affective responses from readers. Some of his novels dramatize these themes, and one in particular, The Journalist, dramatizes Laura Riding’s remarks about storytellers’ attempts to strike a balance between assuring readers’ pleasure and not losing sight of matters “important” or “true.”

Keywords: Harry Mathews, Laura Riding, OuLiPo, Raymond Roussel, truth in fiction, autofiction, writing and reading fiction, representation through language

DOI: 10.7311/PJAS.19/2025.10

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