Comments: OULIPO.

Thanks for jumping on the Band Wagon. We probably should be intercapping it OuLiPo, but why should we be as pedantic as, well, as pedantic as we have been in the past? Hmn?

Exercices de style is always the #1 recommendation that I get at Amazon. Your mention has prompted me to actually pick it up.

What do you think of Harry Mathews?

Posted by Caterina at February 28, 2003 09:28 PM

Haven't read him!

Posted by language hat at February 28, 2003 10:00 PM

I don't think I've ever noticed "Oulipo" being intercapped as "OuLiPo," but it looks cool. Like "NaNoWriMo"...

Also, sometimes I find my brain reparsing it as "Ou Li Bai." Then I think to myself, "Where's Li Bai?"

Posted by nicholas at February 28, 2003 11:27 PM

Nicholas: Now, that's Languagehat humor! For those following along at home, Li Po (mid-8th century) was one of China's greatest poets; "Po" is the traditional (Wade-Giles) spelling of his given name, representing a pronunciation closer to "Bo," which is how it's spelled in pinyin. However (as I discovered when I taught college in Taiwan), the normal pronunciation of his name is "Bai" (like the character for 'white,' with which his name is written, from Old Chinese *bak, which is why the Japanese form is haku). Now imagine a Frenchman asking "Où Li Po?" and Bob's your uncle.

And in the course of this comment I have discovered a truly marvelous Chinese poetry site, which I shall provide forthwith with its own entry...

Posted by language hat at March 1, 2003 10:54 AM

I mentioned Oulipo today, if that's any help.

You should read the Perec in the French, apparently. The English translation is, let us say, "controversial".

Posted by steve at March 2, 2003 07:06 AM