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combinatorial context
In my last post, I quoted a notecard which referenced two Oulipan texts, "Who Is Guilty?" and "Abel and Cain." I'm familiar with these pieces thanks to their inclusion in the excellent Oulipo Compendium, but for those of you who don't know them, I thought I'd provide some contextualizing remarks.
"Who Is Guilty?" is a 1971 "study" which initiates the work of the Oulipopo, the Ourvroir de Litterature Policiere Potentielle (Workshop for Potential Police Literature). It runs through a list of possible combinatorials regarding regarding the identity of a murderer ("x") in a mystery novel, grouping them in outline form.
A short excerpt should give the flavor and a sense of the exhaustive scope:
"B.2.a. [x] is a human being who
B.2.a.I. has no special status (e.g. a tramp) or unsuspected motives (vengeance, financial interest, etc.)
B.2.a.2. is a sympathetic character who commits a legitimate act
B.2.a.2.a. as an executioner
B.2.a.2.b. as a righter of wrongs
B.2.a.2.c. as an unintentional murderer
i. [who] knows he is guilty and conceals the fact
ii. [who] does not know he is guilty
B.2.a.3. seems above suspicion because
B.2.a.3.a. he does not personally know his victim
i. is a taxpayer who kills the Finance Minister to effect a change in the tax-system
ii. is a pedestrian who kills a driver at random
B.2.a.3.b. he knows his victim (x=1) and is
i. a paralytic
ii. a child
iii. a priest
iv. a lawyer
v. a judge
vi. a forensic expert
vii. a policeman
viii. the victim (whose place x has taken)
ix. one of the victims (who was believed dead)
x. someone who dies before his victim (bomb, etc.)
xi. a hypnotist
xii. someone driven to crime
xiii. someone driven to suicide
xiv. a kind, a head of state
xv. the narrator"
And on and on. "Abel and Cain" is a later piece, by Jean de Porla, which treats the Biblical murder of Abel as the first criminal case. Using only three characters (God, Abel, and Cain), dePorla generates a staggering 125 possibilities to supplement the official story ("Cain killed Abel"). The results are again organized in an outline:
"I. Substitution of the murderer One person other than Cain committed the murder: 1. God killed Abel II. Substitution of the victim A person other than Abel has been murdered. Two possibilities: the victim was Cain or the victim was God. The combination of hypotheses I and II gives: 2. Abel killed Cain
3. Abel killed God
4. God killed Cain
5. Cain killed God III. Suicide disguised as a crime This hypothesis provides us with three other possibilities: (a) Abel has committed suicide; (b) Cain has committed suicide; (c) God has committed suicide. But the three possibilities become twelve if we envisage the following scenarios: 6. God has disguised Abel's suicide as a crime to have Cain accused.
7. God has disguised Cain's suicide as a crime to have Abel accused.
8. God has disguised his own suicide as a crime to have Cain accused.
9. God has disguised his own suicide as a crime to have Abel accused.
10. Abel has disguised God's suicide as a crime to have Cain accused..."
Etc etc. It should be evident how this sort of completist rigor could be applied to the various combinations recycled within the genre of pornography. I've just been too lazy to actually work out the entire taxonomy. |
