Constraining Chance
Georges Perec and the Oulipo

Alison James (Author), Marjorie Perloff (Series edited by), Rainer Rumold (Series edited by)

9780810125315

Paperback / softback, published 28 February 2009

320 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.508 kg

Warren F. Motte calls it an erudite, engaging, intellectually intrepid reflection on the ways in which one of the most powerful authors of the twentieth century grappled with the notion of chance. [James] writes with both elegance and authority, inviting us to see Georges Perec's work through a new lens, one where chance may be viewed as a positive potential, fully enlisted in the service of 'intentional' literature.

A token of the world's instability and of human powerlessness, chance is inevitably a crucial literary theme. It also presents formal problems: Must the artist struggle against chance in pursuit of a flawless work? Or does chance have a place in the artistic process or product? This book examines the representation and staging of chance in literature through the study of a specific case - the work of the twentieth-century French writer Georges Perec (1936-82).In ""Constraining Chance"", James explores the ways in which Perec's texts exploit the possibilities of chance, by both tapping into its creative potential and controlling its operation. These works, she demonstrates, strive to capture essential aspects of human life: its 'considerable energy' (Perec's phrase), its boundless possibilities, but also the constraints and limitations that bind it. A member of the Ouvroir de litterature potentielle (known as Oulipo), Perec adopted the group's dictum that the literary work should be 'anti-chance' - a product of fully conscious creative processes. James shows how Perec gave this notion a twist, using Oulipian precepts both to explore the role of chance in human existence and to redefine the possibilities of literary form. Thus the investigation of chance links Perec's writing methods, which harness chance for creative purposes, to the thematic exploration of causality, chance, and fate in his writings.

Introduction
The Notion of Chance
Chance and Literature
Perec and the Oulipo
Mastering History
History, Politics, and La Ligne generale
Commitment or Chance
Conquering the World
Les Choses: Tensions and Tenses
Escaping History: Un homme qui dort
Chance and Circumstance
Questioning Destiny
Power and Passivity
Chance and the Law
Life as Lottery: Perec and Borges
Possibilities
Games of Anti-Chance
Fortune and Fate
Cause and Effect
Incidents and Accidents
Reversals and Recognitions
Chance and Calamity
Stories Without Event
Retrospection and Rupture
Digression and Damnation
Traps and Machinations
Hidden Signals
Means and Ends
Schemes and Disguises
Chance and Detection
Clue and Coincidence
Red Herrings
Text and World
A Challenge to Chance
The Poetics of the Oulipo
Chance and the Oulipo's Critics
Voluntary Literature: Oulipian Anti-Surrealism
Aleatory Art
Controlling Chance
Chance and Language
Mysticism, Mathematics, Meaning
Method and Mechanism: S+7
Perec's Constraints: Combination, Coincidence, Clinamen
La Disparition
Codes and Cliches
Alphabets: Chaotic Language
La Vie mode d' emploi: Combination and Clinamen
From List to Text
Coherence and Multiplicity
Form Versus Diagram
Constraint and Chaos
Labyrinths and Puzzles
Literary Labyrinths
The Rat in the Maze
Ceiling and City
Verbal Ruses and Oulipian Rats
Complications
The Art of the Jigsaw
Artists and Quests
Chance and System
Ordering the Infra-Ordinary
Chance and the Real
Les Choses: Objects as Signs
Common Things: Perec and the Infra-Ordinary
Chance, Perception, Habit: Tentative d' epuisement d' une lieu parisien
The Event and the Everyday
Perec's Lists
Classifications
The World as Jigsaw
Order and Constraint
Conclusion
Bibliography.