A Short Treatise Inviting the Reader to Discover the Subtle Art of Go

By Pierre Lusson, Georges Perec, and Jacques Roubaud / Translated, with an introduction, by Peter Consenstein / August 2019 / 4.5 x 7, 256 pp. / 978-1-939663-43-6 Written by a mathematician, a poet, and a mathematician-poet (two of them foundational members of the Oulipo), this 1969 guide to the ancient Japanese game of go was not just the first such guide to be published in France (and thereby introducing the centuries-old game of strategy into France), but something of a subtle Oulipian guidebook to writing strategies and tactics. Go A User's Manual, or how a set of simple rules and constraints can lead not only to infinite complexities, but also an endless array of writing strategies and bad puns. As in the Oulipian strategy of writing under constraint, the role of structured gameplay (within literature and without) proves to be of primordial importance: a means of moving outside an inherent system, of instigating new figures of style and meaning, new paths toward collaboration, and