I'm fascinated by writing generated by formal restraints. Perec & Raymond Roussell are probably the 2 writers who pursued this approach the most. Perec's "La Disparition" wd be translated into English as "The Disappearance" but then the title wd have the letter "e" in it & the formal constraint of the whole bk is that "e" is missing. As such, translator Gilbert Adair had to not only translate the sense of the bk but had to also translate the form of it by excluding the letter "e". Given that "e" is the most commonly used letter in both French & English, this is phenomenally difficult. At any rate, he did an EXCELLENT job. Astonishingly enuf, I've been told that there's also a translation by Harry Mathews (another OuLiPo writer). I've never seen that one. It wd be interesting to take the 2 translations together & do something w/ them -maybe recombine them & translate them back into French using ONLY words containing "e". This is yet-another bk in my top-10 favorites. Perec has TWO bks in that list. Alas, there're probably at least 20 bks in my top 10 so waddya make of that? ( )

Totally satisfying, though not for folks lacking stoicism and assiduity. Probably most highly thought of by souls familiar with and forgiving of structuralist and po-mo thought. I still cannot avoid basking in our author's playful adaptations of traditional familiar works, such as Ozymandias, Song of Solomon, and a short synopsis of Moby Dick. Playful and succinct (sort of), with not a Vowl too many. ( )

Totally satisfying, though not for folks lacking stoicism and assiduity. Probably most highly thought of by souls familiar with and forgiving of structuralist and po-mo thought. I still cannot avoid basking in our author's playful adaptations of traditional familiar works, such as Ozymandias, Song of Solomon, and a short synopsis of Moby Dick. Playful and succinct (sort of), with not a Vowl too many. ( )

Not to be undertaken without a dictionary, a Who's Who, and possibly an atlas in hand. It reminded me at times of The Crying of Lot 49 with its mysterious conspiracies and unnamed signifier. But it ultimately bogged down under its own cleverness. ( )

Självpåtagna begränsningar kan hjälpa till med kreativiteten; det tydligaste tecknet på det idag är att det fortfarande produceras bunden vers. Inom romankonsten är den mest kända begränsningen troligen den Georges Perec ålade sig själv när han skrev Försvinna: en bok helt utan bokstaven »e«.

Att han skrev den var i sig en bragd. Att den översatts är troligen en större. Mina kunskaper i franska är skrala, men där tycks denna avsaknad främst leda till att feminina ord saknas. På svenska saknas istället bestämda och obestämda artiklar, och dessutom många ändelser för plural och tempus. Lösningar blir bland annat en evig någon agerar, presens och underliga ordval. Engelska blandas också in.

Själva berättelsen är en kriminalhistoria: folk dör, oklart varför. Tydligen finns någon koppling till att en bokstav är borta, för siffror som antyder det dyker ständigt upp. Men det hela vrider sig i det groteska, underliga, knasiga: när allt är över så är intrycket snarast att man läst en ovanligt lång skrivövning, inte en sinnrikt konstruerad roman. Konst, men inte det som normalt kallas romankonst. ( )