I'd never heard of Harry Mathews or The Conversions when I picked up the book at Moe's based entirely on the plot description and the blurbs ("The tragi-comedy of human ingenuity, which insists upon interpreting the facts of experience even when they are senseless, baffling, or banal..." -- Edmund White).
The narrator receives a gold adze at a dinner party and sets out to learn the meaning of the seven engravings on it. On his quest he meets a variety of colorful characters with fanciful stories to tell: a woman who discovered a sexual position in which it is impossible to get pregnant; a drug dealer who deals in the spines of a particular cactus; a composer with a collection of cowrie shells. Their stories seem to be leading the narrator to his answers, which relate to a suppressed religion.
The tone and story of The Conversions reminded me very much of the French Oulipo writers like Georges Perec, so it didn't surprise me to learn that Harry Mathews was a friend and translator for that group. As with Perec's Life, I enjoyed many aspects of the book but it didn't cross the threshold to a favorite.
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