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
Socialist Realist fiction was too obviously occupied with schematic surface: A man is discharged from the Red Army a hero and returns to reorganize his hometown around a hyperprogressive cement factory (the novel Cement by Fyodor Gladkov). It was all exterior, a series of events or plot points demo…
