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Puzzling Failure In Life: A User's Manual/La Vie Mode D'Emploi, William Lambert

Fall Student Research Symposium 2021

From its founding by the poet Raymond Queneau and writer François Le Lionnais in 1960, the French OuLiPo sought to create new literary structures through the introduction of mathematics into the writing process. Among the works generated through the OuLiPian process is La vie mode d’emploi by Georges Perec, a novel of considerable depth describing the lives of residents in an apartment in Paris and weaving throughout numerous themes and leitmotifs. In his preface to the novel, Perec implicitly invites the reader to approach its elements just as they would a puzzle, fitting them together in a ludic search for …