Exercises in Style

I love constrained writing. It is one of the places where mathematics and logic meet with literature and poetry. If you can read French be sure to follow what the OuLiPo [1] does. If you are in Paris there are the Jeudis de l'OuLiPo at the BnF once a month, it's always quite some fun and often very interesting.

[1] http://www.oulipo.net/ && https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OuLiPo

Here's the complete original -- in French:

http://www.oasisfle.com/ebook_oasisfle/exercices%20de%20styl...

And for anyone curious, Queneau belonged to Oulipo: "L'Ouvroir de littérature potentielle" or the "workshop of potential literature." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Other members: Georges Perec and Italo Calvino.

I'm afraid the movement has lost its elan now. The founders are dead. The standard bearers are old Frenchmen, for the most part, living for another age. I know because I have met them. The future is elsewhere.

I read this book as a kid and loved it. Since then, I haven't found other works by Queneau to match it, and I've been more fascinated by Perec (especially _La Vie mode d'emploi_, though the constrained nature of the writing is not as visible; and _La Disparition_ which I find is suprisingly more than a linguistic tour de force).

The first implication for me was - well, rewrite the same code in different styles.

Sample : www.almaclassics.com/excerpts/Exercises-in-Style-Excerpt.pdf‎