Exercises in Criticism: The Theory and Practice of Literary Constraint

by Louis Bury

Exercises in Criticism is an experiment in applied poetics in which critic and poet Louis Bury utilizes constraint-based methods in order to write about constraint-based literature. By tracing the lineage and enduring influence of early Oulipian classics, he argues that contemporary American writers have, in their adoption of constraint-based methods, transformed such methods from apolitical literary laboratory exercises into a form of cultural critique, whose usage is surprisingly widespread, particularly among poets and “experimental” novelists. More, Bury’s own use of critical constraints functions as a commentary on how and why we write and talk about books, culture, and ideas.

Genres: Nonfiction

290 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 2015

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis Bury’s ambitious intention was to mimic Queneau’s Exercises in Style in criticism, with each critical piece mimicking its topic—his original dissertation containing 99 pieces and over 600 pages. This skinnier version contains barely over thirty of his exercises, and while an entertaining and original conceit, seems fairly incoherent. Ranging from short Oulipo homages (an excellent condensed take on Queneau’s Exercises), an N+7, and a fiddle with Mathew’s masturbation collection Singular Pleasures, to tributes and discussions on various overlooked North American “post-Oulipo” productions, such as Sorrentino’s interrogatory masterpiece Gold Fools (written in questions, of course), Doug Nufer’s novels Negativeland and Never Again (no positives or repeated words), and poetic productions by Darren Wershler-Henry, Harryette Mullan, and Dodie Bellamy, to more personal (and oft baffling) material such as a Q+A with his Polish-immigrant father, and 70+ pages of transcriptions from his grandmother’s notebooks, the collection seems to derail entirely from its more interesting critical aims, falling instead into a “personal” project that doesn’t particularly wed the constraint-investigations harmoniously with his Holocaust backdrop in homage to Perec. The explanations preceding each chapter are very appealing however, and his own self-interrogations are illuminating insights into his intentions, making the reader sympathetic with the shifting nature of the project, regardless if the end result seems ultimately unsatisfying. A compelling book, certainly the first of its kind in the scholarly field.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excerpts from texts I sent while reading this book:

"It might end up being terrible but I love the idea of it"

"I really feel like I could send you every page of this intro and you would feel it on a visceral level"

"Anyway yeah so basically this guy is me if I'd gone to grad school, is what it seems like."

"I think I'm in love."


This book legitimately assuaged years worth of shame I've carried over not going to grad school. Because if I had, at some point I would've read this book and it would have destroyed me. Like, you can draw a direct path from my undergrad thesis to this book, which would be great except this book was published when I was still in college. If I'd read this in grad school I would've burned my laptop and moved out to the woods. As it is, I get to enjoy with only the barest hints of jealousy as Bury confidently and adroitly codifies basically everything I hadn't even realized I believed about literary criticism and constrained writing (after casually summarizing my thesis in the final sentence of his intro).

Presented both as a series of experiments (not 99, as the title implies to those in the know, though his dissertation did go the full distance) and as an almost accidental manifesto on the performative nature of criticism and the value of constraint for creative writing, Bury's primary methodology is to write about his subjects (in this case, literary works that use various forms of constraint) in the same manner in which those subjects were written.

Given, for example, my reviews of Dream of the Trenches and Disco Elysium: "wondering if I could accomplish something similar in my criticism: in lieu of seamless argumentation, a patchwork tour of noteworthy passages—a reminiscence rather than an interpretation."

I'm not saying that to toot my own horn (though I am pretty proud of what I did with that Inscryption review), but just to explain why I cannot be in anyway objective about whether this is a good book or not, because in many ways it felt like it was written either for me or by me (or both), simultaneously thought-provoking and validating. It's probably tied with Infinite Jest for favorite book I've read this year, which, you know, is saying quite a lot. But I have absolutely no sense of whether anyone else would care about it (except my friend who his currently finishing up his PhD, this is absolutely right up his alley, but more for the criticisms Bury has of academia and scholarship.)

Which of course is yet another idea that Bury talks about, the ways in which even supposedly "objective" forms of writing like criticism or academic writing are actually deeply personal. Like, I don't know if I will ever be able to write anything that is not somehow prefigured by this book. It's almost Borgesian...which is anothe—

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Oh yeah so I re-read this over the course of the last—couple years?! Didn't realize it had taken that long. But I really wanted to sit with each essay and think about them and underline a bunch of stuff, so I took my time with it. Still absolutely love it, just such a rich and thought/art-provoking project.