Three Percent #36: A Couple Gin & Tonics Does NOT Make Me a Better Oulipian

(My initial plan was to create a title for this podcast that was actually an acrostic spelling out “Oulipo.” The best I came up with was “Our Unique Lab Instigating Poetic Opportunities,” which is decent, self-referential, and strange, but not perfect. Unfortunately, drinking didn’t help me improve upon that, so . . .)

This week’s podcast features a special discussion with Daniel Levin Becker, author of Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Liteature, a history of of the Oulipo, past, present, and future. For the uninitiated, the Oulipo is a 50-year-old group of writers and mathematicians and others interested in the idea of “potential” literature. At times highly technical and esoteric in their thinking about literature, the group also has a sort of prankster streak, which comes out in the liveliness of many of their writings. Some of the most famous works produced by Oulipian writers include Georges Perec’s Life A User’s Manual, Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler . . ., and Harry Mathews’s Cigarettes. (Also see: all of Raymond Queneau and Jacques Roubaud, the works of Jacques Jouet, and those of Paul Fournel.)

Of our thirty-six podcasts so far, this is one of the more serious, thoughtful, and PG-13 rated. To help provide a bit more context for the Oulipo and the discussion, check out my GoodReads review of Many Subtle Channels before listening.

To slightly amend that GoodReads review, I pulled down my copy of Zazie in the Metro today to see what it was that was written on the opening page that so intrigued me and kicked off my lifelong addiction to this sort of linguistic puzzle-making:

In case you can’t read it, that says: “I don’t see why such language must be used in a book. It destroys the good in it. If authors can’t write books without all this unenjoyable language, then they shouldn’t write at all,” with “oh, shut up!” added by a third reader.

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