[UA] Re: Books of Magic

[Will]

Gregory Paul Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com> a écrit :
> 
> I seem to recall hearing of something like that, and I found myself
> wondering how good it could be.  I guess I'm still wary after getting
> burned by "Infinite Jest" and now I have little patience for impressive but
> pointless literature.

Well, this book was part of the Oulipo. Oulipo means "OUvroir de LItteraire
POtentielle" IIRC, which roughly translates to "Opener to/of Potential
Litterature". Ok, not very helpful, I guess.

Anyway, the Oulipo featured several famous french writers in the 50s and 60s
who wanted to explore the possibility of "litterature with constraints". So
the "container" (form) was more important, somehow, than the "contents" (core).
This book is a perfect example of the idea behind the Oulipo: never use the
letter "e". I think it's already hard in english, but just imagine than in
french it's close to impossible. Word as simple as "the, which, what, that, it
is" and so on all contain an "e".

The writers would come with other silly/funny/interesting constraints, and then
try to work something out of them. Usually you don't get great insights from
these works, but rather a very strange feeling, that you can come to really
appreciate after a while. On the other hand I guess most of it is lost if you
read a translation...

Will

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