Perec belonged to the Oulipo group of writers and mathematicians. Fellow member, the late American author Harry Mathews, once described the group as "relatively uninterested in literature that purports to describe the 'real' world or that even pretends to be the product of sincere feeling". Long term readers of this blog - and bizarrely those appear to be the only type that there are - will perhaps recognise a resonance.
Poetry has recently made a comeback blogwise (and full apologies to everyone, especially the poet, for your bloggist's rather free-form translation from the Serbo-Croat yesterday; a much better translation can be found here) so I give you 'La Vie', a sonnet by Oulipo member Jacques Roubaud, which on this occasion I have left in the original French:
000000 0000 01
011010 111 001
101011 101 001
110011 0011 01
000101 0001 01
010101 011 001
010111 001 001
010101 0001 01
01 01 01 0010 11
01 01 01 01 01 11
001 001 010 101
000 1 0 1 001 00 0
0 0 0 0 0 110 0 0 0 101
0 0 0 0 01 0 0 0 0 0 0
While we are on the subject, this coming weekend sees the only non-imaginary 29th day of the month in this pataphysical year and o let' end with ome Beatle:
If we recite the poem in English, each '1' sounds remarkably like 'wan' (ワン), the Japanese onomatopoeic word for woof. As well as providing reliable comedy material for cripplingly hungover Japan-based ESL instructors, 'La Vie' neatly returns us to the original topic: the poesy of Geoffrey Boycott.
ReplyDeleteExcellent! An accurate imitation of one of his innings would also have record the running out of numerous batting partner along the way. Anyway, best wishes to Sir Geoff, who is currently recovering from major heart surgery.
DeleteRecitations of the poem - in French - can be found on Youtube, including some very enthusiastic audience responses. It's a bit like a Gallic version of 'Mornington Crescent'.