I keep reading everything I can find by Mathews b/c I'm very interested in OuLiPo & Mathews is the only OuLiPo writer whose 1st language is English. The writing's interesting to me.. but it's never QUITE done it for me.. UNTIL NOW! I generally prefer massive novels to short stories, I like the development, the complexity, but in Mathews' case, I find him to be such a 'master' of short story form that I can't help but luv it!

This bk's divided into 3 sections: "First Stories", "The American Experience: Stories to be Read Aloud", & "Calibrations of Latitude". Just from a writerly perspective, there's so much variety here, so many ways of creating a reading experience. From the incredible overkill of absurd detail in "Country Cooking from Central France: Roast Boned Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)" to the evocativeness of "Journeys to Six Lands" to the more 'classically' OuliPoian formalist "Clocking the World on Cue: The Chronogram for 2001" Mathews' ideas are always very thought-out & realized w/ fantastic & subtle skill. ( )

There are not many writers who can write such beautiful skillful prose, and he is funny and effective in many of the stories, but in too many places the extreme intellectual structures poke through and ring hollow, and the cleverness of it all is sometimes just annoying. ( )