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A Univocalist Typo

August 11th, 2014 · 6 Comments

Georges Perec followed his masterful novel La Disparition, a lipogram without the letter E, with Les Revenentes, which avoided all vowels except E.  And Les Revenentes is hilarious, bending all rules of grammar, spelling, and syntax in its rigorous pursuit of univocalism (and becoming increasingly smutty in the process).

But there is a stray O.  It was apparently not intentional, just a typo.  Remember, univocalists: be diligent!  It’s on page 81 of my copy (Julliard, 1991).

PERECTYPO

Tags: Literature

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Joshua Buhs // Aug 17, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    You’ve got me! I’ve been over this like a dozen times and can’t find the typo. What line?

  • 2 Doug // Aug 18, 2014 at 12:28 am

    Oh, it’s on the sixth line; there’s an “o” in “moment.”

  • 3 Joshua Buhs // Aug 19, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    Can’t believe I could not see that.

  • 4 Win // Aug 19, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    Should have gone with “temps” or a slangy “sec.” Beleeve me.

  • 5 Win // Aug 19, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    I think the omission of the u’s after the q’s is inspired, and should become u-neversel u-sege.

  • 6 Doug // Aug 20, 2014 at 11:36 am

    Perec says that he got a special dispensation from Oulipo for “qe.”