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Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature

Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature In an undergraduate French course at Yale, Levin Becker was introduced to the writings of Oulipo--the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature -- which had been founded in Paris in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais and is still going strong today. Among its early members were Italo Calvino and Georges Perec: when Levin Becker learned that Perec had written La Disparition (The Disappearance), "a mystery novel of some 300-plus pages completely devoid of the letter E," he was hooked. "That is, I thought to myself without hyperbole, one of the five coolest things I have ever heard." Shortly after graduation, Fulbright in hand, he set off for Paris to investigate the group and, before long, was himself granted membership in the exclusive club that is Oulipo. Many Subtle Channels is the happy fruit of this initiation: part history, part theory, part critical evaluation and juicy gossip about individual Oulipians, this delightful and witty book is on a subject usually treated with high seriousness and patient explication. Consider the following account in the opening chapter: Since its creation in 1960, the Oulipo has served as the laboratory in which some of modernity's most http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature

Perloff, M.
Common Knowledge , Volume 20 (2) – Mar 20, 2014
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-2423034
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Abstract

In an undergraduate French course at Yale, Levin Becker was introduced to the writings of Oulipo--the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature -- which had been founded in Paris in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais and is still going strong today. Among its early members were Italo Calvino and Georges Perec: when Levin Becker learned that Perec had written La Disparition (The Disappearance), "a mystery novel of some 300-plus pages completely devoid of the letter E," he was hooked. "That is, I thought to myself without hyperbole, one of the five coolest things I have ever heard." Shortly after graduation, Fulbright in hand, he set off for Paris to investigate the group and, before long, was himself granted membership in the exclusive club that is Oulipo. Many Subtle Channels is the happy fruit of this initiation: part history, part theory, part critical evaluation and juicy gossip about individual Oulipians, this delightful and witty book is on a subject usually treated with high seriousness and patient explication. Consider the following account in the opening chapter: Since its creation in 1960, the Oulipo has served as the laboratory in which some of modernity's most

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Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Mar 20, 2014

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