Oulipo Laboratory: Texts from the Bibliotheque Oulipienne

by Raymond Queneau (Contributor), Harry Mathews, Paul Fournel

A literary group founded in 1960 by leading French writers and mathematicians, the Oulipo's original aim was to inquire into the possibilities of combining literature and mathematics, and later expanded to include all writing using self-imposed restrictive systems. Contributors include Queneau, Calvino, Fournel, Mathews, etc.

Reproduces booklets no. 3, 20, 46, 62, 67, and 70, in English facsimile, of the series Bibliothèque oulipienne, published between 1976 and 1995.

Contents
- Introduction
- The Two Manifestos / François Le Lionnais
- The Foundations of Literature (after David Hilbert) / Raymond Queneau
- How I Wrote One of My Books / Italo Calvino
- Suburbia / Paul Fournel
- The Great-Ape Love-Song / Jacques Jouet
- Who Killed the Duke of Densmore? / Claude Berge
- The Poet's Eye / Harry Mathews

Genres: France, Nonfiction

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Novelist, poet, and critic Raymond Queneau, was born in Le Havre in 1903, and went to Paris when he was 17. For some time he joined André Breton's Surrealist group, but after only a brief stint he dissociated himself. Now, seeing Queneau's work in retrospect, it seems inevitable. The Surrealists tried to achieve a sort of pure expression from the unconscious, without mediation of the author's self-aware "persona." Queneau's texts, on the contrary, are quite deliberate products of the author's conscious mind, of his memory, and his intentionality.

Although Queneau's novels give an impression of enormous spontaneity, they were in fact painstakingly conceived in every small detail. He even once remarked that he simply could not leave to hazard the task of determining the number of chapters of a book. Talking about his first novel, Le Chiendent (usually translated as The Bark Tree), he pointed out that it had 91 sections, because 91 was the sum of the first 13 numbers, and also the product of two numbers he was particularly fond of: 7 and 13.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A system based obsession that becomes writing. It deals with formula, and a great deal of wit. Oulipo is both extremely silly and serious in how works are processed and thought out on the page.

When I was writing poetry on a regular basis I would often use techniques of the Oulipo as well as standard Surrealist/Burroughs cut-ups, etc. But what I did afterwards was cut out the experimental aspect so the reader wouldn't notice the technique. In 'Oulipo' works the means and ways of getting to the text is as important as reading the final work.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oulipo laboratory is a short book, just over 150 pages set in fairly large type, with one piece each by Lionnais, Queneau, Fourrnel, Jouet, Berge, Calvino, and Matthews (the translator). With the exception of Matthews' poetry, the pieces are all interesting reading, and the introductory manifesto frames the collection well, but the book doesn't have enough depth to give a clear picture of the Oulipo group's work. Oulipo booklets have been published regularly since the mid 70s, so assembling a collection with more depth definitely seems possible.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend recommended this for "Suburbia" by Paul Fournel. It's nice, funny, formally inventive. Unfortunately it is a mostly erased text with footnotes, foreword, afterword, study guide, etc.. Which is all very funny but leaves me wishing he'd actually made the thing rather than made all of the bits talking about the thing. That's probably the point, but not so satisfying. The other pieces in this book seem big on play with the forms of texts as well. I guess Oulipo were about that.

Anyway, I look forward to looking in more detail at the other pieces in the book.

[Oriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok so I admit that I haven't read this entire thing, but I will say that if you look at Calvino's insanely complex mathematical formula by which he wrote If On a Winter's Night a Traveller (one of my most favorite books of ever), it will blow your goddamn mind. These guys are unreal-ly brilliant.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huh.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

head scratching fun

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been fantastically, unexplainably sick for the last two weeks and the biggest sign that I’m on the mend is because my brain finally clicked in over the weekend and demanded to read something a bit challenging (but also fun). And thankfully this turned up in the post during the week (I’m becoming a bit of an Atlas Press obsessive) because it’s not only the best Oulipo collection I’ve yet read but also incredibly, incredibly funny. I suspect the reason it’s so successful is because it doesn’t try to be definitive or to cover every aspect of the movement, and instead just reprints a bunch of issues of material and so is more indicative of a very different form of the Oulipo: a bunch of lads trying to make each other laugh, whilst also dazzling them with their ideas

Some of the material is more on the cerebral end - the quite handy guide by Calvino for the structure of Winter’s Night; and the poetry of Harry Mathews, which is entertaining if a bit dry. The two extracts from Queneau that start it are probably a bit more indicative of the tone, with a manifesto that’s sincere followed by a dazzling but hilarious rewrite of a geometry text book but transposing mathematical terminology for literature ones. This feels like almost the perfect example of Oulipo for me, because it’s very funny whilst also being incredibly clever and eventually begins to make a sort of weird sense. The other mathematical based piece is by Claude Berge, which sort of nods to the role of crime fiction in the Oulipo (and its parallels in Harry Stephen Keeler’s Webwork, which the movement must have ADORED, and Cain’s Jawbone). It’s a bit of a slog if you can’t follow the maths, but is enjoyable in a sort of Rawlinson’s End shaggy dog story

And then there’s the masterpieces. Paul Fournel’s Suburbia takes the concept of Perec’s A Void to its most absurd end whilst also being a genuinely hilarious piece of absurdity. But the classic here, and my vote for one of the funniest pieces I have read in years, is The Great-Ape Love-Song by Jacques Jouet. It’s not entirely clear what the Oulipo aspect of this is, but it’s a brilliant piece of sustained mocking academic writing about love poetry written by gorillas that’s not afraid of being cerebral, ridiculous and also just plain daft. There’s several very po-faced references to Love Truncheons in it which suggests the Oulipo lads were big Spinal Tap fans. And it also reminds me why Oulipo is my favourite experimental form in any artistic medium. It’s all about play - playing with language and playing with ideas and playing with expectations. And sometimes playing is having a daft laugh with your mates. Exquisite

[Ed Erwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oulipo remains for me more interesting to read about than to actually read. The concept of writing poetry in the ape-language from Tarzan, for example, is more interesting than the results that Jacque Jouet comes up with. Likewise, the concept of replacing points, lines, planes, etc., from Euclid's postulates with parts of speech is more interesting than the result that Queneau produces.

However, I did enjoy the eye-rhyme poetry of Harry Mathews. Since tomorrow is 'Feast of Father Ubu d’été' in the 'pataphysical calendar, or Bastille Day in the more mundane one, I give you this one of his poems:

For this best of all army parades
I obtained a seat in the façades
And the tears brought an ache
To my graying moustache
As I heard the tanks rumbling in Hades.