While there are numerous problems with the American university system (the cost, the way funds are handled, the adjunct situation, the grade inflation, the capitalistic nature being applied to education, various other politics, etc.), at least the buildings aren't falling apart. The ENS isn't horrible compared to some of the other Parisian or French universities in general (Paris 8, for instance, was just a dump—part of the reason I called it the Paris community college five years ago, but that was mostly due to the quality of education you seemed to receive there), but it is still not great. The place is dirty, first of all. They don't heat it enough, yet students spend all their time in the library even when cold. I once worked there four 5 hours wearing my coat because it was so cold. The bathrooms aren't as bad as Paris 8, but aren't that great either. In the library, they're even coed and rarely have soap or paper towels. The computers they offer for student use are outdated, slow, and rarely work. The Internet isn't much better, and is difficult to connect to the first time. There is a maximum number of books you can take out of the library (about 20), and often you'll take a book out and then receive an email explaining that you need to return it since they shouldn't have let you borrow it in the first place (I'm sorry, but how on earth does that happen?). In any case, it seems I'm not just complaining here because I'm used to a rich American university (though, that is certainly part of it), nor because I have been in France too long and am learning their ways (the French complain a lot—but nowhere near as often as I complain about the French and their complaining!). Rather, it's because I don't find these working conditions very conducive to finishing a dissertation in a timely manner. And it turns out, neither do the French students themselves.
Here is a blog I found where French students post pictures of their horrible working conditions. None of the ENS as far as I can see, but feel free to browse and see exactly what I'm dealing with. (Also, note that I'm writing this post from a very clean house in the suburbs of Buffalo, so I do have some sort of distance!)
http://universiteenruines.tumblr.com/
Friday, December 12, 2014
Friday, November 28, 2014
Stromae
I celebrated Thanksgiving in the most awesome of ways! I got myself a Lebanese sandwich (Halloumi cheese), Berthillon ice cream, and then I went to see Stromae!!
My friend Silvia was supposed to come with me to see him. She was due in from Trier (a small medieval town in Germany, near the border, where she's doing a postdoc) at 5, but then got stranded in Saarbrücken because the train to Paris was cancelled! It was very unfortunate...the later train would have gotten her in too late. So, instead of missing it, she decided not to come to Paris at all. I'll be going to Trier tomorrow morning. Mélanie joined me at the concert instead. And boy was it amazing!
A bit of background: Stromae is a Belgian singer whose name is obviously a pseudonym. It comes from the French slang language known as the "Verlan" (the word "envers" or "backwards" pronounced backwards). By that logic, Stromae is what word backwards? C'mon, you can get the right answer! That's right! Maestro!
Stromae hit the top of the charts with his "Alors on danse" (then we dance) which has become famous even in the US. It sounds like any other club song, with the strong beat and loud bass. But, the words are all painfully ironic, about how life is hard and all we do all day every day is totally useless, so we go out and dance to forget. Most of his songs are about one problematic aspect of everyday life, or social commentary, but put to a positive-sounding beat! They make you want to dance, except they're about: the fact that no one sleeps anymore, the futility of love, missing parents, suicide, sickness, etc. The New York Times wrote an article about him last year (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/arts/15iht-stromae15.html?_r=1&), in which they claimed he captured the disillusionment of an entire generation of Europeans. Judging from the attendance and participation at his concert, I'd say he is doing quite well for himself. There's even a rumor that he wants to retire.
Anyway, I spent Thanksgiving very thankful for Stromae and his catchy tunes and their contrasting ironic lyrics, and not quite as thankful for faulty European railway systems which prevented Silvia from getting here. But, I'll see her tomorrow at a big "Thanksgiving" dinner she's been planning with her friends in Germany!
Below I've added some of my (not very good) pictures from the concert, as well of three of my favorite Stromae music videos. Enjoy!!
My friend Silvia was supposed to come with me to see him. She was due in from Trier (a small medieval town in Germany, near the border, where she's doing a postdoc) at 5, but then got stranded in Saarbrücken because the train to Paris was cancelled! It was very unfortunate...the later train would have gotten her in too late. So, instead of missing it, she decided not to come to Paris at all. I'll be going to Trier tomorrow morning. Mélanie joined me at the concert instead. And boy was it amazing!
A bit of background: Stromae is a Belgian singer whose name is obviously a pseudonym. It comes from the French slang language known as the "Verlan" (the word "envers" or "backwards" pronounced backwards). By that logic, Stromae is what word backwards? C'mon, you can get the right answer! That's right! Maestro!
Stromae hit the top of the charts with his "Alors on danse" (then we dance) which has become famous even in the US. It sounds like any other club song, with the strong beat and loud bass. But, the words are all painfully ironic, about how life is hard and all we do all day every day is totally useless, so we go out and dance to forget. Most of his songs are about one problematic aspect of everyday life, or social commentary, but put to a positive-sounding beat! They make you want to dance, except they're about: the fact that no one sleeps anymore, the futility of love, missing parents, suicide, sickness, etc. The New York Times wrote an article about him last year (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/arts/15iht-stromae15.html?_r=1&), in which they claimed he captured the disillusionment of an entire generation of Europeans. Judging from the attendance and participation at his concert, I'd say he is doing quite well for himself. There's even a rumor that he wants to retire.
Anyway, I spent Thanksgiving very thankful for Stromae and his catchy tunes and their contrasting ironic lyrics, and not quite as thankful for faulty European railway systems which prevented Silvia from getting here. But, I'll see her tomorrow at a big "Thanksgiving" dinner she's been planning with her friends in Germany!
Below I've added some of my (not very good) pictures from the concert, as well of three of my favorite Stromae music videos. Enjoy!!
Picasso Museum
Here are some pictures from the newly renovated and reopened Picasso museum which is a short walk from chez moi in the Marais! The day after my birthday, after Jess and I got breakfast and she left, I walked north, picked up a Berthillon on the way, and met my new friend Yao to see this new museum! Afterwards, we took a little stroll through the Marais. It was a lovely post-birthday day!
A picture he painted of the Sacré Cœur! Do you recognize it?
I can't remember what this was. Might have been a guitar. He painted a lot of guitars that don't look like guitars!
This seems to be one of his kiss paintings.
A nude. If he painted me like that, I'd be a bit angry.
This is someone reading. If he painted me like this, I'd be okay with it.
This is supposed to be a woman reading. Except she's clearly not looking at the book.
A GOAT!!
The view was pretty nice too
There's Sacré Cœur, in case you didn't recognize it from Picasso's painting
This might have been another kiss?
Birthday in Paris
These next few posts are going to be a bit out of order. First, I'd like to talk about my birthday in Paris! This was my first time having a birthday outside of the US, and I have to say, it wasn't any different at all! All I did was spend my day being told absolutely nothing about what we were doing that night (it was a surprise organized by Jess and Mélanie) and then had a lovely evening surrounded by good friends (some old, some new) eating fondue and raclette.
The language of the evening was English, since Mélanie was the only French person. It might as well have been French, though, since Macs, Jess, and Jena all speak French fluently. For dessert, Andréa joined us as well, and so she, Mélanie and I started a French side of the conversation. It was too weird speaking to Andréa in English! Her English (like her French, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish) is wonderful, of course. I just realized I had never spoken to her in English!
I even got presents! Mélanie got me northern French cookies which all have part of a sentence written on them and you can mix and match to write full sentences! Very Oulipian, and very appropriate, as was the accompanying book about the literary scene in Paris. And Jess got me traditional African jewelry, which is lovely and matches one of my new sweaters and the turquoise shoes I bought in Berlin perfectly!
After the fondue party (which, by the way, was at an amazing place Jess and I found a few weeks ago when the Beninese place was unfortunately closed. The waitress there is Italian and she gave us free wine when I spoke to her in Italian the last time. This time she just wished me happy birthday), Jess and I went to The Moose (the Canadian bar) where I proudly announced to the bartender that it was my birthday! At that point, the two people next to us announced that they were buying us drinks! Then, we all continued to celebrate my birthday well into the night because, after all, it was still my birthday in the US! Anyway, the next morning, Jess and I had a long talk about constrained literature and the mathematical aspects of Georges Perec's La vie mode d'emploi (Life a User's Manual, translated by David Bellos, of course!). So, clearly we didn't have too much to drink!
The language of the evening was English, since Mélanie was the only French person. It might as well have been French, though, since Macs, Jess, and Jena all speak French fluently. For dessert, Andréa joined us as well, and so she, Mélanie and I started a French side of the conversation. It was too weird speaking to Andréa in English! Her English (like her French, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish) is wonderful, of course. I just realized I had never spoken to her in English!
I even got presents! Mélanie got me northern French cookies which all have part of a sentence written on them and you can mix and match to write full sentences! Very Oulipian, and very appropriate, as was the accompanying book about the literary scene in Paris. And Jess got me traditional African jewelry, which is lovely and matches one of my new sweaters and the turquoise shoes I bought in Berlin perfectly!
After the fondue party (which, by the way, was at an amazing place Jess and I found a few weeks ago when the Beninese place was unfortunately closed. The waitress there is Italian and she gave us free wine when I spoke to her in Italian the last time. This time she just wished me happy birthday), Jess and I went to The Moose (the Canadian bar) where I proudly announced to the bartender that it was my birthday! At that point, the two people next to us announced that they were buying us drinks! Then, we all continued to celebrate my birthday well into the night because, after all, it was still my birthday in the US! Anyway, the next morning, Jess and I had a long talk about constrained literature and the mathematical aspects of Georges Perec's La vie mode d'emploi (Life a User's Manual, translated by David Bellos, of course!). So, clearly we didn't have too much to drink!
I didn't take too many pictures, but here is the "scandalous" chocolate fondue I had for dessert!
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Paris celebrates Christmas before Thanksgiving!
Good thing Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here, because otherwise all the Christmas lights would be a little too early. Just for fun, I figured I'd show you some pictures I've taken.
By the way, some of these pictures were taken as early as November 11th!
By the way, some of these pictures were taken as early as November 11th!
Writing my dissertation at the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève
This is the line for the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève this afternoon. It is right next to the Panthéon (which is hideous right now, since it's been under construction since I got here...), and is generally considered one of the most beautiful libraries in the world! This line is standard. You just have to wait and wait and wait. When I studied abroad in Paris oh so many years ago, I think I went two or three times. I liked it a lot, but you lose so much time in the line that you end up doing all your reading outside rather than inside!
Well, not anymore! I am now the happy owner of a "carte rose" (a pink card), which allows me to bypass this line completely. Yes sir! Now I just waltz past the crowd, right up to the door, and the guard lets me in! Am I the luckiest person in the world? Well, maybe not. It is just a library, after all, and I'm not even sure I can take books out. But, it must be worth it if there are so many people waiting in line, right???
Well, not anymore! I am now the happy owner of a "carte rose" (a pink card), which allows me to bypass this line completely. Yes sir! Now I just waltz past the crowd, right up to the door, and the guard lets me in! Am I the luckiest person in the world? Well, maybe not. It is just a library, after all, and I'm not even sure I can take books out. But, it must be worth it if there are so many people waiting in line, right???
This is a (not so great) picture of the inside. Gorgeous, right? Imagine would a good picture would look like! It's also very quiet, because everyone in there is very serious. They have a very poor free wifi connection and not tons of light (since it's pretty cloudy in Paris nowadays), but if you're typing on the computer, I suppose that's ideal.
Today in this library, I spent maybe 3 hours refining my dissertation introduction. It is now 22 pages long and includes a detailed chapter summary. It also—thanks to a very long Skype conversation with a professor in Maine last night—explains exactly why this work is important in today's academic context, lists the reasons why I am the only person alive who can do the work (well, maybe not in those exact terms...), and expands on the reasons why I chose these chapters and why I put them in this particular order.
Anyway, I was happily productive today in this lovely workplace. Maybe I'll go there again soon!
Saturday, November 22, 2014
The Grand Opening of the OuLiPo Exposition
On Monday evening, I skipped my Hebrew class (and will probably never go again) in order to go to the "vernissage" or grand opening of the new exposition about the OuLiPo at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. If the name sounds familiar, it's where the Perec archives are located (see previous post), and it's also coincidentally enough the home of the OuLiPo archives. Camille (one of the two organizers of the transcription project) did the whole thing and sent out invitations to everyone participating in the project, as well as the beautiful catalogue (which she just gave me in person). It felt very exclusive, especially to get to see the exposition before the official start date, wandering around the displays in the presence of real Oulipians (a few of whom I actually spoke with!).
The exposition is basically a more organized version of this blog and contains just about all the information that was in my first draft encyclopedia entry had. It has basic background information, pictures of every Oulipian, documents and even the typewriter on which Perec wrote La vie mode d'emploi! My favorite part were the ludic exercises, little games for the inclined museum-goer. You could play with Marcel Bénabou's proverbs, recombining them into new nonsensical phrases; or you could try to make a "snowball" poem whose verses increase by a certain number of characters each line.
For anyone who might happen to be in Paris soon, the exposition is at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal until 15 February. Here is the information: http://www.bnf.fr/documents/cp_oulipo_expo.pdf
And here are some pictures from that night:
The exposition is basically a more organized version of this blog and contains just about all the information that was in my first draft encyclopedia entry had. It has basic background information, pictures of every Oulipian, documents and even the typewriter on which Perec wrote La vie mode d'emploi! My favorite part were the ludic exercises, little games for the inclined museum-goer. You could play with Marcel Bénabou's proverbs, recombining them into new nonsensical phrases; or you could try to make a "snowball" poem whose verses increase by a certain number of characters each line.
For anyone who might happen to be in Paris soon, the exposition is at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal until 15 February. Here is the information: http://www.bnf.fr/documents/cp_oulipo_expo.pdf
And here are some pictures from that night:
A comic book in the form of a Möbius Strip, which means it goes on FOREVER since a Möbius Strip has an infinite number of sides.
Calvino's drafts for "Comment j'ai écrit un de mes livres"
More of that
Perec's typewriter on which he wrote La vie mode d'emploi
Friday, November 14, 2014
Beninese food
My friend Jess visits sometimes on the weekends, and last weekend we ate Beninese food! Even though the point of her visit was to see Antigone at the Comédie Française, after not getting the last minute tickets, Beninese food was definitely not a disappointing second choice—I had been dying to try it! Jess Fell, by the way, spent the last two and a half years in Benin, a small country in West Africa. She was teaching English through the Peace Corps and living in a small village. She was lucky, though, and had running water and electricity (unlike some other volunteers). Anyway, she had been telling me about how delicious "amiwo" is since getting to Paris in September, so I was very intrigued.
Background on Jess: She and I met our last year at Hopkins, after I had gotten back from my semester abroad and she had gotten back from her year abroad. While we were coincidentally both in Paris, we didn't know each other, since Hopkins only has meet-and-greets for people studying abroad immediately before leaving, and Jess left in the fall. We met in Wilda Anderson's class on Dumas and Verne, and then spent our entire second semester writing our senior theses together while idolizing ENS graduates. Needless to say, we've both grown a lot since then, and no longer think the ENS is all it's cracked up to be.
Anyway, after Hopkins, Jess did a year-long teaching assistantship program in France, teaching English in a high school in Bordeaux. I visited her that January and got food poisoning, but at least I got to see Bordeaux in the middle of the worst winter on record...after that, Jess went right off to Peace Corps, learned several African languages, taught English in a village for years, helped an entrepreneur with his project to give electricity to more people, and was otherwise awesome. Now she is a student at France's premiere business school, the HEC. It is located in a little town outside of Paris, called Jouy-en-Josas, and so you can imagine how happy I am to be the closest I've been to Jess in over three years!
Beninese food: AMAZING. Except Jess informed me that there were a few key differences between what we ate and "real" Beninese food. First off, the tomatoes were actual tomatoes and did not taste like "red plastic." Second, the chicken was amazing!! Apparently in Benin, the chickens lead very hard lives, and don't really taste like that. Anyway, I really loved this food. Especially the "piment" (spicy sauce) that was so spicy that we went through several pitchers of water. Anyway, here is a picture of the experience! I'm just happy Jess found a Beninese restaurant in Paris, because I've been trying to find Puerto Rican Mofongo and it hasn't been going so well...
Background on Jess: She and I met our last year at Hopkins, after I had gotten back from my semester abroad and she had gotten back from her year abroad. While we were coincidentally both in Paris, we didn't know each other, since Hopkins only has meet-and-greets for people studying abroad immediately before leaving, and Jess left in the fall. We met in Wilda Anderson's class on Dumas and Verne, and then spent our entire second semester writing our senior theses together while idolizing ENS graduates. Needless to say, we've both grown a lot since then, and no longer think the ENS is all it's cracked up to be.
Anyway, after Hopkins, Jess did a year-long teaching assistantship program in France, teaching English in a high school in Bordeaux. I visited her that January and got food poisoning, but at least I got to see Bordeaux in the middle of the worst winter on record...after that, Jess went right off to Peace Corps, learned several African languages, taught English in a village for years, helped an entrepreneur with his project to give electricity to more people, and was otherwise awesome. Now she is a student at France's premiere business school, the HEC. It is located in a little town outside of Paris, called Jouy-en-Josas, and so you can imagine how happy I am to be the closest I've been to Jess in over three years!
Beninese food: AMAZING. Except Jess informed me that there were a few key differences between what we ate and "real" Beninese food. First off, the tomatoes were actual tomatoes and did not taste like "red plastic." Second, the chicken was amazing!! Apparently in Benin, the chickens lead very hard lives, and don't really taste like that. Anyway, I really loved this food. Especially the "piment" (spicy sauce) that was so spicy that we went through several pitchers of water. Anyway, here is a picture of the experience! I'm just happy Jess found a Beninese restaurant in Paris, because I've been trying to find Puerto Rican Mofongo and it hasn't been going so well...
Archives
Today, I finally renewed my BnF library card. I hadn't been planning on it, since I don't particularly enjoy working at the BnF. Two summers ago (see Bisous Ciao blog), I did some work there and at the Richelieu site, where I was researching the convent in Les Misérables. But now that I have access to the ENS library (from which I can actually borrow books and have a mostly working wifi connection), I didn't think I would need to go back to the BnF for any reason. Well, since the OuLiPo archives and the Perec archives are located at yet another BnF site (the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal), I have now needed to renew my card (which couldn't be renewed online).
Yesterday, I had a meeting with Professor Joly, a Georges Perec specialist who also works in the archives. He helped me find several articles and texts that were especially mathematical, put them in a box for me, and sent it up to the reading room. When I tried to access it all, I learned that my card no longer worked, and I would have to go back to Richelieu in order to renew my access. So, I did that today.
One more thing about archives: there will be an exposition on the OuLiPo archives beginning next Tuesday. I have also been invited to the opening, on Monday evening, where Fleur Pellerin will be in attendance (see previous blog post)!!
Yesterday, I had a meeting with Professor Joly, a Georges Perec specialist who also works in the archives. He helped me find several articles and texts that were especially mathematical, put them in a box for me, and sent it up to the reading room. When I tried to access it all, I learned that my card no longer worked, and I would have to go back to Richelieu in order to renew my access. So, I did that today.
One more thing about archives: there will be an exposition on the OuLiPo archives beginning next Tuesday. I have also been invited to the opening, on Monday evening, where Fleur Pellerin will be in attendance (see previous blog post)!!
Friday, November 7, 2014
Visa continued
So, another thing I forgot to mention about my return in France was that I immediately had some new visa procedures to carry out. First off, I was a bit nervous to come back into the country since I might have been in Europe for more than the 90 day allotment for American tourists. Now, this shouldn't have been a problem, since I have a visa within the limits of its validity. However, after what I did by going to London in order to get a stamp to activate (in theory, since nothing is actually scanned into a computer or anything...) the visa, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that the OFII (the French visa office) was going to accept that. But, my fears for reentering the country ended up totally unfounded. Not only did the guy not realize that I had been in Europe for possibly 91 days, but he didn't even look at the stamps that were already in the passport! He just checked the picture, told me my French was amazing, and then stamped it and let me go. I don't even think he saw I have a visa.
Anyway, after that I waited a weekend then went to the Cité Universitaire to give them all my documents in person. Usually, you just mail them to the OFII, and they send you a convocation for the medical visit (the final part of the visa process after which they give you a residence card, which may or may not be necessary given I'm here for less than a year—I've found contradictory evidence in all the paperwork). I did that before leaving for the conference, but they mailed the documents back to me, asked for more, and told me to bring them in person. So, that's what I did on my brother's birthday, October 27th. I got there at 10:00am for what should have been a very simple meeting. Instead, I waited in a long line until about 11:30, then a guy took my documents, made a folder for them, and then glued my picture to it (can you believe the French government pays someone to do that?), and told me to sit down in a chair for another half an hour.
At that point, I was starting to get a bit nervous. Not because I thought something was going to go wrong, but because noon is their lunch break and I was worried I'd miss mine. Well, at noon on the dot, they all left for lunch except one guy (the one who glued my sticker), who finally proceeded to look at my information. He gave me a medical visit date for December 4th, at which point I'll FINALLY be done with all of this!
And, that is my visa news. Nothing particularly interesting, but I figured I should be as complete as possible with this blog and I certainly don't want to miss any major updates in the visa procedure!
Anyway, after that I waited a weekend then went to the Cité Universitaire to give them all my documents in person. Usually, you just mail them to the OFII, and they send you a convocation for the medical visit (the final part of the visa process after which they give you a residence card, which may or may not be necessary given I'm here for less than a year—I've found contradictory evidence in all the paperwork). I did that before leaving for the conference, but they mailed the documents back to me, asked for more, and told me to bring them in person. So, that's what I did on my brother's birthday, October 27th. I got there at 10:00am for what should have been a very simple meeting. Instead, I waited in a long line until about 11:30, then a guy took my documents, made a folder for them, and then glued my picture to it (can you believe the French government pays someone to do that?), and told me to sit down in a chair for another half an hour.
At that point, I was starting to get a bit nervous. Not because I thought something was going to go wrong, but because noon is their lunch break and I was worried I'd miss mine. Well, at noon on the dot, they all left for lunch except one guy (the one who glued my sticker), who finally proceeded to look at my information. He gave me a medical visit date for December 4th, at which point I'll FINALLY be done with all of this!
And, that is my visa news. Nothing particularly interesting, but I figured I should be as complete as possible with this blog and I certainly don't want to miss any major updates in the visa procedure!
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Writing an Encyclopedia entry
Maybe lately I've had too many posts about my work and not enough about the fun things to do in Paris. I'll correct that soon, I promise! But, since I'm currently working on an encyclopedia entry about the OuLiPo (for the Literary Encyclopedia, an online reference compiled by academics, meant to be a good tool for students at the university level), the timing seemed excellent to explain here and now exactly what the OuLiPo is (I've mentioned it a lot, and written a bit, but now I have an encyclopedia entry draft to share!). So, without further ado, here is my preliminary draft for the encyclopedia:
The Name
The OuLiPo
(Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle) was founded by Raymond Queneau and
François Le Lionnais in 1960. The name is an acronym, generally loosely
translated into English as “Workshop of Potential Literature.” Looking at each
French term individually reveals subtle indications about the group and their
goals. Ouvroir is an archaic word
that has been mostly eliminated from contemporary French. Etymologically
related to ouvrer or the verb “to
work” and œuvre or “a work,” the term
has three distinct possible meanings: 1. A place of work, where (within a
community of women or a convent) one sews; 2. A workshop (generally
confessional) where benevolent individuals sew objects for use in a church or
another charitable organization; 3. The group of women who work in an ouvroir,
a sewing circle of sorts.[1]
Evoking religious imagery and selfless acts of charity, the word also brings to
mind repetitive manual work, sharing patterns, and group activities. In short,
an ouvroir is a workshop meant to create the LiPo, or Littérature Potentielle. As defined by the OuLiPo on their webpage[2],
literature is “what one reads and what one crosses out,” but with the
adjectival modifier, Potentielle, the
term begs a new definition. The OuLiPo prefers a mathematical one: “literature
in unlimited quantities, potentially producible until the end of times, in
enormous quantities, infinite for all practical means.”[3]
This definition however, as Le Lionnais points out in the first Oulipian
manifesto (of three), is nowhere to be found in any dictionary: “Ouvrons un
dictionnaire[4]
aux mots : ‘Littérature Potentielle.’ Nous n’y trouvons rien. Fâcheuse lacune.”[5]
The Founders
To understand
why the OuLiPo would use a mathematical vocabulary in their own definition, it
is necessary to examine its founders. Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) was a French
novelist, poet, philosopher, and amateur mathematician (among other
professions, job descriptions, and titles). Known for his sense of humor,
strange treatment of the French language, and rhetorical acrobatics, Queneau
participated in several literary groups during his lifetime, including
Surrealism, ‘Pataphysics, and the OuLiPo. Secretary of the reader’s panel at
the Gallimard publishing house (an extremely important position), he most
notably played an editorial role in the Encyclopédie
de la Pléiade. His cofounder, François Le Lionnais, was a chemical engineer
and mathematician by trade, but also a general erudite in all fields including
literature. After being interned in the Dora concentration camp during World
War II, Le Lionnais would be one of the most important collaborators on the
mathematical treatise, Les Grands
Courants de la pensée mathématique (Major Trends of Mathematical Thought). These
two polymaths, disillusioned by postwar literature in general, decided to
reinvigorate the field through the addition of mathematical methods. Their basic
principle: constraint.
The Goals
A constraint is
a rigorously defined rule for composition. Sometimes a generative device that could,
in theory, produce a text; sometimes an inciting challenge that incites
immediate textual production on the part of an author. Certain constraints
create new texts from preexisting ones (such as Jean Lescure’s famous S + 7,
which replaces every noun or substantif in
a text with the one seven entries later in a dictionary of the author’s
choosing), and some necessitate the creation of new ones (such as the lipogram,
which, though not invented by Georges Perec, was famously employed by him in
order to write the E-less novel, La disparition).
Not only is the definition of a constraint strict in a mathematical sense, it
is also meant to be carried out with a similar level of care, meaning that it
is also demonstrable. In other words, an author can use a constraint to produce
a text, proving in a certain sense the constraints literary potential. The
OuLiPo theorizes this notion and charges itself with the categorization and
invention of constraints. Their goal is twofold: an analytic orientation
(denoted anoulipisme) aims to explore
constrained literature from the past, seeking out and evaluating authors who
predate the OuLiPo and their use of constraint-based writing (otherwise known
as plagiarists by anticipation); the
second, primary goal of the OuLiPo is synthetic (synthoulipisme), which seeks to propose new constraints to propose
to authors.
The Influences
The OuLiPo can
be characterized by its relationship to other movements of the time. In its
early years, it primarily defines itself by simultaneously distancing itself
from surrealism and likening itself to Bourbaki. Surrealism, a group in which
Raymond Queneau voluntarily took part in his younger years, espouses what they
call “automatic writing” in order to release the true literature of the
unconscious. While Queneau left the group largely for personal reasons (a split
with good friend André Breton, whose ex-wife was Queneau’s wife’s sister), the
notion of automatic writing was not compatible with his personal conception of
literature. However, even publishing, Odile,
a roman à clef that criticizes Breton
and his group (not very subtly), Queneau continued to harbor strong
anti-surrealist tendencies in his writing. The OuLiPo was founded in 1960,
years after Queneau’s participation in the group, but from the very beginning,
the use of the surrealists as a foil is quite clear. While the OuLiPo’s
practices can often create nonsensical texts using automatic procedures, its
members insist on the fact that everything they produce is “voluntary
literature.”
Nicolas Bourbaki
was the pseudonym of a group of post World War I mathematicians at the École
Normale Supérieure in Paris. Disillusioned with the possibility of an
international mathematics after the war and feeling cheated due to the loss of
an entire generation of mathematicians, this semi-secret group decided that the
way to save the discipline was to reinvent it from the ground up. They
published their first textbook, Eléments
de mathématique, in order to reinvigorate mathematics by providing it with
a new, more formalized language. Their first volume on set theory drew from the
preceding tradition of Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert, but was also much
more strictly defined. The title, Eléments
de mathématique, draws first from Euclid’s Elements, a foundational text in mathematics generally admired for
its rigor in geometrical proofs. In returning to such basics, the collaborators
of Bourbaki hoped to unite mathematics (generally referred to in the plural in
French) into a singular mathématique,
one that could—like Euclid’s original work—begin with various intuitively
obvious axioms and from there derive everything else. While this Platonic goal
was quite ambitious and has been mocked for its impracticality, the Bourbaki
group still exists today, still publishes new volumes in this series, and runs
a yearly seminar that is considered to deal with the most cutting-edge work in
the discipline.
The OuLiPo
therefore draws its influences from both an avant-gardist literary group and an
extremely formal mathematical one. Their own early years were characterized by
elements of both. Their semi-secret nature at first likened them to Bourbaki,
which still does not reveal its collaborators; the reluctance to expel anyone
from the group (once one is a member of the OuLiPo, one remains so even after he/she
dies and is simply excused from attending the group’s monthly meetings) is a
clear reaction to surrealism. Their insistence on the lack of a dictionary
definition for “Littérature Potentielle” in their first manifesto also appears
to be in direct defiance of André Breton’s dictionary definition for surrealism
in his first manifesto; whereas the insistence on structures (not to be
confused with the literary movement of structuralism)
is a clear reference to the work of Bourbaki. The three Oulipian manifestos (of
which the third only exists in various excerpts) also mock Breton’s attempts at
making his group’s intentions known; whereas the content of these manifestos
theorizes the notion of constraint in mathematical terms, largely dependent on
the work of Bourbaki.
Text Production
In short, these
two strong influences can both be seen when one examines the early work of the
OuLiPo. What is generally considered to be the first Oulipian text, Raymond
Queneau’s Cent mille milliards de poèmes,
is at once mathematical and surreal, functioning according to a certain
automatism with mathematical delimitations, both surpassing the potential of
automatic writing and reproducing a similar effect. The system is simple.
Queneau wrote 10 sonnets with two additional constraints beyond those of the
form itself: first, across all 10 poems, not only was the rhyme scheme
identical, but the same rhyming phonemes are reproduced (in other words, the
first line of any poem rhymes with that of any other one); second, each line of
every poem is a grammatical unit, meaning it can be understood on its own
(namely, Queneau did not allow himself any enjambment). The final step in the
composition of this “poetry collection” was to print all the sonnets and stack
them on top of each other, cutting a line between each verse. In this way, one
is left with a book of sorts for the reader to manipulate as he pleases,
creating his own poems from fragments of Queneau’s. The number of potential
poems is the number of sonnets (10) raised to the power of 14 (the number of
lines in each sonnet). Otherwise, there are 100,000,000,000,000, or a hundred
thousand million poems.
In his preface
to the collection, Queneau explains his reasoning and that this type of
exercise is inspired more from children’s games in which one rearranges parts
of dolls, than from surrealist games such as cadavre exquis. He continues to inform the reader that,
unfortunately, 1014 – 10 of these poems do not necessarily have the
“charm” of a theme or continuity. Finally, he discourages any attempt to take
the collection seriously—it would take a reader 190258751 years of continuous
reading (24/7, 365 days a year, counting leap years) to read them all. So not
only does the volume itself resemble a fragmented, ruined book, any attempt to
read it is bound to end in failure unless one discounts mortality. And while it
may seem that Queneau has programmed everything to the letter, allowing no
space for chance to disrupt the mathematical potential of the volume, one is
reminded that the original ten sonnets themselves are hardly coherent. Rather,
Queneau’s poems are filled with obscure rhymes, fanciful vocabulary, and are
therefore themselves a difficult read with a less than satisfying “theme or
continuity.” Herein lie the main questions at the heart of Oulipian work: what
is the role of chance and how does the implementation of mathematical
structures change literature?
The Members
Since its
founding, the OuLiPo has been an eclectic group of individuals from many
professions whose interests were just as broad as those of its two founders:
Noël Arnaud (‘pataphysician, surrealist, post-dadaist, etc.), Jacques Bens
(writer and poet), Claude Berge (mathematician, one of the modern founders of
combinatorics and graph theory, both of which would greatly influence the
OuLiPo), Jacques Duchateau (writer and radio producer), Latis (the pseudonym of
another ‘pataphysician, Emmanuel Peillet), François Le Lionnais, Jean Lescure
(poet), Raymond Queneau, Jean Queval (translator), and Albert-Marie Schmidt
(linguist and specialist of the French Renaissance). This early group
established, they began to coopt new members beginning with a first wave in
1961 consisting of computer scientist Paul Braffort, and foreign members Ross
Chambers and Stanley Chapman. Eminent contemporary artist and inventor of the
ready-made, Marcel Duchamp, was inducted as the group’s “American
correspondant” the following year. A second wave of new members began with
Jacques Roubaud in 1966, Georges Perec in 1967, Luc Etienne in 1970, Marcel
Bénabou in 1971, Paul Fournel in 1972, Harry Mathews in 1973, and Italo Calvino
in 1974. Since then, the OuLiPo has coopted even more members and now consists
of 41 members (as of November 2014). Let us examine a few of the most
prominent.
Jacques Roubaud
(b. 1932) is considered one of France’s greatest contemporary poets. A retired
mathematics professor (at University of Paris X), he was first coopted into the
OuLipo in 1966 when Raymond Queneau read his first collection of poetry, Signe d’appartenance, a collection of poems organized according
to the rules of the traditional Chinese board game, Go. Since then, Roubaud has
been stretching the boundaries of literature, composing poetry with
mathematical rules, writing a multi-volume biography that is about both poetry
and mathematics and all the space between, theorizing traditional French poetic
forms (such as the sonnet), historical poetic movements (the Troubadours) and
versifications (notably the alexandrine), as well as translating and creating
new constraints.
Georges Perec (1936-1982)
is best known for his love of experimental wordplay and puzzles as well as the
thematic presence of the Holocaust in his works. Born to Jewish immigrants in
France, Perec was one of the many orphans of the Holocaust, his father having
died in the French army during World War II and his mother having died after
being deported to Auschwitz. Many of Perec’s works can be seen as
autobiographical searching, trying to understand his loss through the work of
writing. Constrained writing was especially useful to Perec, who was able to
create a new language in his famous lipogrammatic novel, La disparition (A Void:
trans. Gilbert Adair), which recounts an overwhelming absence without recourse
to the most common vowel in the French language, the E. Perec’s other Oulipian
masterpiece, La vie mode d’emploi (Life
a User’s Manual: trans. David Bellos), was awarded the Prix Médicis and lauded
for its encyclopedic nature in terms of story and style.
Italo Calvino
(1923-1985) was one of Italy’s greatest 20th century authors. Known
for his Our Ancestors trilogy and his
collection of Italian Folktales (Fiabe
italiane), some of his most famous novels were produced under Oulipian
influence while he lived in the French capital after having broken his ties
with the Italian Communist Party. Il
castello dei destini incrociati (1969, The
Castle of Crossed Destinies: trans. William Weaver), Le città invisibili (1972, Invisible
Cities: trans. William Weaver), and Se
una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979, If on a winter’s night a traveler: trans. William Weaver) are three
of his most well-known works, and were all written according to mathematical or
otherwise Oulipian-inspired constraints.
Other more
recent members have been very active in today’s French literary scene. Paul
Fournel, for instance (coopted in 1972, currently the Oulipian president), has
experience working in publishing as well as writing about publishing—his recent
novel, La Liseuse, being a
typographically restricted novel about publishing in the age of e-readers. Anne
F. Garréta (coopted in 2000) was highly regarded when, at 23, she published her
first novel, Sphinx, a traditional
love story in which both protagonists have grammatically unidentifiable
genders. Ian Monk (coopted in 1998) is a
British poet and translator who has succeeded in translating several of Perec’s
more constrained works such as La
disparition (Vanish’d) and the
monosyllabic What a man! (this is the
French title, strangely enough). Jacques Jouet (coopted in 1983) is known for
participating in the radio program “Des Papous dans la tête” (with fellow
member Hervé Le Tellier) and also for inventing the “Poème de métro” whose
composition is done entirely during a trip in the subway, the verses composed
while the train is moving and written down when it is stopped. Hervé Le Tellier
(coopted in 1992), armed with a PhD in linguistics and oulipian constraints has
written many fragmentary texts, in which series of chapters or pieces are
constructed according to the (sometimes hidden) constraint. Michèle Audin, on
the other hand (coopted in 2009) is a well-known symplectic geometer who, along
with Roubaud, does much to theorize the mathematical elements at play in the
OuLiPo and their methods.
The OuLiPo Today
While the OuLiPo
is no longer secret, it is still not entirely open to the public. For one
thing, if a writer expresses interest in joining, he or she is immediately
disqualified for life. The group’s monthly meetings are additionally not open
to the public, however a volume of the first three years of their meeting
minutes has been published by Jacques Bens and Jacques Duchateau in Genèse de l’OuLiPo : 1960-1963 (Paris:
Le Castor Astral, 2005). Currently there is a project underway to make the
remaining minutes available on an online database in a digitized and searchable
medium. The OuLiPo has also begun giving monthly public readings, one Thursday
each month at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Through such initiatives,
the work of the OuLiPo has become performative. Through organized writing
workshops in which they assist amateurs and enthusiasts in writing with
constraints, their work has become pedagogical. While their analytic and
synthetic goals were defined early on, Le Lionnais also made it clear that the
OuLiPo was in the business of inventing constraints and not creating texts.
Those constraints can be used by writers (or by anyone) in any way they wish.
In this vein, the recent efforts of the OuLiPo serve to disseminate the product
of the group—to propose to anyone who is interested various constraints that
can create potential literature.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Georges Perec: A Life in Words
When I was choosing a graduate school, Princeton was clearly one of my top choices. Not only because it is a very old, historical, and important institution; not because it is the American university that has the best endowment per student ratio; certainly not because of the location (the town is cute, but expensive, and I prefer cities anyway); but rather because my potential advisor at Princeton was the translator and biographer of Georges Perec. Before going to interview, I read the chapters of this book that dealt with the texts that I knew, as well as excerpts of his translations. I wanted to be extremely prepared for my interview. We ended up talking about a different person's translation of a different Perec text, followed by some math jokes. Anyway, I have now finished the entire biography and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has ever read (or intends to read) Georges Perec.
Perec's life was truly one in words, as David Bellos carefully demonstrates throughout the course of this biography. His name sounds quite French, Bellos notes at the beginning, a fact that is really just a happy coincidence produced by a history of misspellings and changes, all of which mirror Perec's own childhood and memory of it. You see, Perec's parents were Jewish immigrants. They left Poland and headed west, choosing to settle in France which was, at the time, a religious haven for European Jews. A country with a history of antisemitism, perhaps, but France also did not have any institutionalized bias against people of any religion. Jews didn't even need to register their religion anywhere.
Perec grew up, therefore, the son of Jewish immigrants in France, but was nevertheless considered a full French citizen. However, World War II decimated his family unit—his father losing his life defending France from Nazi Occupation and his mother subsequently being deported to Auschwitz. Perec was raised by his aunt and uncle, never formally adopted, and throughout the war was taught to forget his Jewishness, which could have gotten him sent away as well (he was away in a Catholic boarding school).
These beginnings would irrevocably characterize all of Perec's work as a writer. Themes of lost family, corrupted memories, hidden Jewishness, would pervade many of his works. But also, word games, multilingualism, and a sense of humor would contribute. In short, Perec as an author had an exceptionally craftsmanlike view of his craft—to clarify, he needed to write, and did so every day. Writing helped him understand his life and his history, the fabric of language itself, and the power of literature.
Bellos' biography is as thorough as it is thought provoking. Consisting of both descriptions of Perec's life and readings of his books and how they were constructed, Georges Perec: A Life in Words is at once a gripping biography of one of France's most well-known 20th century authors and an indispensable tool for any Perec scholar. Its Index and Bibliography alone are some of the most complete catalogues of every paper Perec ever touched. But it is also a book that—as with Perec's novels themselves—touches on everything. It tells not only the story of Perec, but also gives a larger historical perspective, situates the author's life within a larger perspective, and is therefore just as historical as it is literary. Anyone who has read—and fallen in love with (as often happens)—Perec will do the same with this biography, I have no doubts.
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