"What
arrested me, ankle-deep in
peacock feathers, was a battery of
television sets assembled for the
inauguration as a 'monument to
intercontinental awareness.'" --
Harry Mathews
A novel by Harry Mathews from 1971. The most recent edition was published by Dalkey Archive Press here in Normal, IL at Illinois State University in 1999.
The novel is written as a series of letters between a newlywed couple, a Zachary McCaltex and Twang Panattapam (from a s/e Asian country called Pan-Nam, living in Italy). Zachary is looking for treasure buried off the coast of Florida.
Along with treasure, they're still dealing with being newlyweds, and being from different cultures, and being an ocean away from each other.
The prose is simply
astounding, and I'm only a little way into it. Twang's letters are written in
English, barely, but still easily readable. And
Zachary's observations are really cool. Pick it up . . .