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Whether or not Fred is reading this, I want to reply, even if it's just chacun à son gout & all that. One could argue that ' Eunoia IS NOT stimulating, brilliant etc. BECAUSE of the riffs it plays on Oulipo,' & I could even agree to a point; it's brilliant etc because of HOW it plays with the baffles it puts up against its own construction. Each section is a story, dependent to a degree upon the words allowed, as well as the creativity of the writer finding each story in past stories & the words he's allowed himself. Performed,it certainly excites audiences of all kinds (at least that I've seen), & Fred's right, they don't need to know anything about Oulipo conditions, nor even much about the various texts/stories he's borrowed from. I can imagine reader who dont enjoy nit, for sure, but also would argue that those who do, do so genuinely, if only if in awe of the tour de force aspects (though in my case it goes beyond that to an emotional response to some of the tales, as told in this version). Doug On 2-Oct-09, at 12:10 PM, Frederick Pollack wrote: > Doug, Eunoia IS NOT stimulating, brilliant etc. BECAUSE of the riffs > it plays on Oulipo. Literary allusions, showing or implicitly > critiquing influences within a text, may delight the scholar, but > they are not important or delightful in themselves to the reader. > Unless we assume that the only important reader is the scholar, and > that "intertextuality" is the major component of a work's appeal. > Except for bits of Raymond Queneau, Oulipo creations strike me as > typical pointless lifeless French filigree. Eunoia (which I've > looked at because of all the praise it gets from langpos and other > cyborgs) likewise. Douglas Barbour [log in to unmask] http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ Latest books: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy) http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664 Wednesdays' http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html Take away my wisdom and my categories! Phyllis Webb