oulipo

[hankhank at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu]

Raymond Queneau and his friend Le Lionnais founded OuLiPo at the turn
of the 60s. Partly as a reaction to surrealists, who wanted to see their 
art as a spontaneous expression of the unconscious. So surrealists never 
really liked Queneau's artificial playfulness. Form and artifice were 
important to him and other OuLiPoans, like Harry Mathews, Italo Calvino, 
George Perec and Jacques Roubaud etc who joined the group a little bit 
later. P-Y Petillon writes in his essay for _The New Essays on Lot 49_ 
X(which I have in a box in Finland) that OuLiPoans felt immediate affinity 
with Pynchon. He also tries to show similarities between _Lot 49_ and one 
of Harry Mathews' novels, the name of which I've forgotten. Can anyone help?

So maybe there's the parallel 
The Beats   -- TRP and other "pomos" of 60s
Surrealists -- OuLiPo
while we should keep in mind, I think, that in both cases it's not only 
a question of reaction, but also that of continuity on some levels. 
                                
Heikki