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Perec was the heir to this mystical—kabbalistic—practice, which he secularized and refined through his association with the Oulipo (an acronym for ouvroir de littérature potentielle, “the workshop for potential literature”)

“Sleeveless errand” is superannuated slang for a fool’s errand, or fruitless endeavor.

Chester returned to New York, where he became one of the foremost critics of the ’60s, writing witty, scabrous reviews for The New York Review of Books, Partisan Review, and Commentary

His best novel, Histoire de l’œil (Story of the Eye), today a classic of obscure symbolism and underage sex, was published in 1928 and peremptorily banned

Hrabal suggested another word for his works: pábení, Englished by the writer Josef Škvorecký as “palavering,” meaning “idle chatter” or “flattering babble,” here intended to characterize looping, loopy conversation