OuLiPo: Scour and Discombobulate

And please talk about some of the lesser known writers/pieces, since my experience of them is pretty limited.

And I loved If on a winter's night a traveler... too.

2.) I've been off my OuLiPo kick for quite a while now, and what's rapidly emerging as the lingering favorite is Harry Mathews' Cigarettes (which disappoints me because Cigarettes isn't really an OuLiPan kind of book).

3.) If anyone has read Mathews' The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium and got anything out of it that they can share with me, could they please do so, and then maybe go join some sort of circus?

4.) Cosmicomics is the top of the Calvino pile so far as I'm concerned.

5.) I really like Queneau, and am surprised at any disappointment in Pierrot Mon Ami (which if I remember right I found most "accessible" of Queneau's stuff apart from The Last Days, which zowee).

6.) PEREC RULZ U R ALL FAGS

Anyway, I think what made IOAWNAT worthwhile for me was just the central frame-within-frame-within-etc bit wherein the writer makes notes for his story about the two writers and their two stories.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0243/mcelroy.php

Roubaud: I tend to like the idea of reading him more than the actual experience.

"Invisible Cities" is my fave Calvino but I think "The Castle Of Crossed Destinies" is underrated.

Sometimes I wonder whether Perec & Calvino had terrific translators and maybe some of the others didn't. Didn't Queneau (who I adore) participate in the translation of his own work? Does that contribute to the juddering disclocation of his stuff but get in the way of the (sometimes) glory of Parec's words?

Martin: while packing my books up the other day I was reminded that I have actually read some Abish, which I enjoyed a lot but I've already forgotten the name of the book. Oh well. I've heard him airily dismissed as a fringe / 3rd div. US postmodernist but I thought he made more sense in an Oulipian context.

I cannot speak for Mark (he may actually have read less than me, I suspect from our conversations, but I would bet big money that he has understood all he has read infinitely better!), but there are of course millions of books that I've not read - including anything by Queneau, very relevantly here. I've been meaning to grab Exercises In Style, particularly.

There is of course a big overlap between PoMo writers and OuLiPo, but I do think that the AA experiment above is Abish's best claim to fame, so the OuLiPo link is more fruitful. Some manage both at once - Perec in Life: A User's Manual, Barth in Letters, Calvino in Invisible Cities - and these are something very special indeed, I think.

I have an essay on my site about the specifically Jewish nature of this style. The essay is called Funky Ashkenazi and rambles from Marty Feldman to Perec to Kafka to Gainsbourg.

Nabisco: According to him, Cigarettes is Mathews only purely Oulipian book, though it does not appear Oulipian bc he does not reveal the contraint. (Saratoga might be a clue...) He seems to have gotten *something* out of Sinking, but I am not sure what, so maybe he should just go and join the circus now...?

Ch.:Re Gatsby, check out Gadsby (1929) a proto-Perecian novel by an American (insert random Voice plug here):

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0232/edpark.php

Momus: I heart Toog! [my own thoughts, not those of mysterious Oulipian interloper...]

ILx not for everyone...

Question: is there something inherently male-centric about Oulipo? Where are all of the Oulipettes?

Mary, could the mysterious interloper like email me with the Cigarettes constraint? I'm assuming that whatever it is must be operating on a serious macro-level, since there's very little contraint to the line ... and I'm definitely too lazy to read it again carefully to figure out what the constraint it, then read it again carefully to watch it work. (You could email [email protected])

Mary (and friend): Yes, it is rather male-centric. Michele Metail is the most notable Oulipienne.

"OuLiPian practice might also reflect possible sex differences in terms of cognitive processing of language, and which the processes of linguistic socialization could amplify. The predilection for crystallising writing around constraints seems to favor the development of neurological patterns of linguistic processing that might be absent in other communities of literary practice, such as those of women, where other forms of linguistic adroitness might develop." --Colin Symes

And now I am going to link another review with Mathews, this one from The New York Press (shockah!):

http://www.nypress.com/15/43/news&columns/publishing.cfm

Paul Eater: is a fan of both karaoke and Oulipo, plus lives in New York. I am intrigued. Please tell us more about yourself...your likes and dislikes... Too bad you couldn't have made the last FAP, you and Nabisco could have had some seriously intellectual conversar.

I couldn't even get into Odradek even though it seemed like the sort of book I would love. I still haven't read Cigarettes but 20 Lines A Day was far, far better than I expected.

Perec is fantastic, but I sometimes wonder if I'm enjoying his translator rather than his actual writing. The Belloc [sp?] translations are thrilling; the Adair translation of A Void is fine; the translations in Three (Les Revenentes, etc.) didn't do anything for me. I haven't tried to read him in French (I do have a copy of Les Choses, though.) Search especially: W, which is pre-OuLiPo but still stunning; and the piece in Species of Spaces where he lists everything he ate for a year.

There are some women doing OuLiPo stuff now, I think, but I don't remember any from back in the day. Alas.

Also search: The notes from their meetings. All notes should be written in such a vigorous style!

Anyone know of one?

But it looks like Vian died before 1968, which makes him predate the OuLiPoans, right?

I wrote an "Invisible Cities"-inspired short story once, I was rather proud of it :) It is here if anyone is curious. I really need to write some new stuff.

my blog XVARENAH sometimes dips into suchlike,
when i'm not fuming about current events...

m.

http://graywyvern.blogspot.com

http://www.bookforum.com/review/14775

A Genderless novel.

New book out now.

One of my favourite ludicrous exercises is Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa - every word in chapter 1 starts with 'a'; in ch.2, 'a' or 'b', and so on until any word is available in ch.26, then it counts back down so that ch.52 is only 'a' words again. It ranks with Perec's A Void and The Exeter Text for formal experimentation, I think.

I read this last year, silly stuff.

Title All That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo: 1963 - 2018
Editors Ian Monk, Daniel Levin Becker
Translated by Ian Monk, Daniel Levin Becker
Contributors Ian Monk, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp
Publisher McSweeney's, 2018

Italo Calvino’s daughter will be at some events with one of the editors

...McSweeney's?!

OK, never mind, I see the connection after looking up the book (didn't know Becker had feet in both camps). Still seems odd

He serves two masters

Design of the book is quite nice