On Joining Oulipo by Accident
From The Annoying Lacuna: One Unofficial History of the Oulipo in AGNI Online:
Susan Sontag called the group “a seedbed, a grimace, a carnival.” Gilbert Sorrentino argued that the aim of Oulipo was “to destroy the much-cherished myth of inspiration, and its idiot brother, writer’s block.” Jonathan Bing of The Village Voice called the group “a motley organization of writers and mathematicians who use fiendishly elaborate arithmetic formulae as vehicles for the composition of poetry and fiction.” Paul Auster referred to the Compendium of Oulipo works as “a late-20th-century kabala.” And Henry Kissinger devilishly compared the group to an annoying South American country that needed, in his opinion, “to be overthrown with as much force as humanly conceivable.” . . .
But one might ask, what exactly is the Oulipian concept of constraint? According to The nOulipian Analects (2007), Christian Bök proposes six axioms that form a loose definition :
1. It must be simple.
2. It must be difficult to execute.
3. It should reference its own existence.
4. It should exhaust all possibilities.
5. It should be as distanced as possible from any chance operations.
6. It must allow for one ‘anti-constraint,’ a deviation that breaks the rules.
2. It must be difficult to execute.
3. It should reference its own existence.
4. It should exhaust all possibilities.
5. It should be as distanced as possible from any chance operations.
6. It must allow for one ‘anti-constraint,’ a deviation that breaks the rules.
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