26 December 2011

The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature

The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature (Cow Heavy Books 2011) tips its hat, at least nominally, to the Oulipian movement and in service of "potential" texts. More specifically, blurbs based upon fictitious texts compose the entirety of the book. Some are humorous, others are dull, while most fall somewhere in-between. The most telling, though, is the pseudo-blurb Blake Butler wrote for the pseudo-book Pony House by pseudo-author Richard Meninsensen; it reads as follows:

I guess I just don't care about books really and this is no exception. There has never been a book that walked into my life. Even when this book lit down upon my house and ate my children and my mind, it could not keep me from closing its face against against its face and setting it down, recalling nothing. That one would ask anyone to ever say a word about a book or in a book or in any way to anyone is a sickness unto the human. I am terrified.

To the extent that Butler's blurb is short, funny, and concludes with meta-commentary tinged with self-effacement makes the piece work; those blurbs of a similar nature do as well. Those blurbs that don't? Well, that "one would ask anyone to ever say a word about a book [whether actualized or potential]...is a sickness."



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