WRT: Writer Response Theory

Robert Coover has entered the narratology-ludoloy debate with his new card-story “Heart Suit” published in McSweeneys 16. Narratology seems to be winning this game of Texas Hold ‘em.

This is a tale told via a set of 15 cards, including the entire hearts suit, a joker, and a start card. It is a tale told by a master, but dealt by an idiot. Card story’s have been done before (Composition No.1 by Mark Saporta) and one could even draw a connection between this tale and the Sticker Novels.

It begins with the premise: The King of Hearts is overly fond of the Queen’s tarts, and someone has stolen them. After a list of “the usual suspects,” from the White Knight to the Jester, the hunt begins on the rest of the cards. The instructions tell the reader to follow whatever order they’d like, provided the Joker is read last. What follows is a series of interchangeable lexias that only King Coover could bake up.

Coover employs an ingenious method of creating indeterminacy by ending each card with a new sentence that has the name of a character followed by… Each card begins with a verb… So (7) may end: The Flautist… While (9) begins “…is found, nigh noon, shackled.” While this allows for many different readings, it ultimately suggests a fungibility within the court of people who are shtupping the Queen and all of whom have had some contact with the tarts.

The usual suspects of Coover’s fiction show up:

• Sex, Sex, and bawdy innuendo
• self-referential clues: references to labyrinths, indeterminacy, contingency, unreliable narratives, and dreams
• hypertext allusions: references to nodes (like the pantry) that are frequently traversed, mention of a list of names on a latrine wall that anyone can add to (possible reference to Brown’s “rape lists” of a decade ago).
• Constraints: The text on the cards play off the numbers or face name.
• Usurped Authority: The King plays the roll of the babysitter. He no longer has control of the kiddies of the kingdom and his attempts to assert authority are signs of his loss of power.

In this tale, the kingdom is “a house of cards” –yet ultimately, no many how many times we play it, but after reading it once, as the queen points out “you know everything already” (Joker). (By the way, that’s my all-time favorite MLA citation). The Kind proceds to “shuffle through here again,” as did I (ibid). Coover here comments well on indeterminacy and combinatorics while giving us a pleasantly unified little infinitiy.

As I mentioned, Coover uses a deck of cards, but has set up, most assuredly, a narrative. But what if we used his cards to play a game. Here are some possibilities:

Traditional Card Games: 21 and War can be played reasonably with this deck of cards. In War, you read the “winning” or “losing cards.” Though, I guess there wouldn’t be any “Wars.” 21 would produce the flash fiction version of this story. Will you take another narrative hit.

CLUE/Old Maid King: Now clue is essentially Old Main with an added degree of complexity, so perhaps we should call this Old Maid King. In this version, the 3 (which reveals the thief), the Joker and one other card will be placed in an envelope. The players will each be dealt the remaining cards. They take turns asking each other for cards, keeping track of tropes, puns, and innuendos. The first one to successfully guess the culprit is called the Lord High Chamberlain and mocked for the rest of the evening.

Coover Hearts: Up to 5 players.
Choose a role: Knave, Viceroy, Flautist, High Chamberlain, Holy Father. (The Cook and Jester only appear on two cards, and the Knight could be anyone).
All the cards are dealt. The unmarked card must be played first.
Proceed clockwise from the player who had the unmarked card.
Playing the Joker ends the game.

Your goal is to play the cards so that other characters are humiliated.
You may forfeit a turn by trading a card with a random card from another player.
You cannot play the Joker while you have other cards.

Each player has two bonus cards upon which they can insert a phrase:
Example. Player one drops the 5, which ends “The Holy Father…”
Player two drops the 4, which begins “…runs forth naked out of the pantry…”
Player three, the Holy Father, inserts a bonus card that says, “…lies but the Viceroy….” (this will divert a card.)
(Presumably lying is better than running forth naked)

Now, Bonus cards can also be inserted into bonus cards)
The next player, player three, might insert another bonus card, so that it now reads:
“lies… with sheep…but the Viceroy” (this will diverse the bonus)
(Presumably lying with sheep is more embarassing than lying)
Now, player five resumes with a card that follows, the 4.

Boulderdash:
Everyone writes what they think the subsequent card should be. Then, they vote to see if they can guess which was written by Coover.
(Possible Oulipo variations include not using the letter e, writing in concrete poetry that depicts the queen’s tarts, etc.)

Manic, the gathering. In this version, you each take a card. From the text, you assign various traits “Pith” and “Lechery.” Everyone dresses up like members of the Royal Court and watches Xena reruns.

Writers Respond Thus (but first)
As these examples show, Coover as game would not be any better than Coover the story. Inevitably his work with the play of words and the play of meaning are rewarding games in themselves that play out in their Euclidiean shapes, their vortexes, their infinities, without the need of dice.

Saporta, Marc. Composition No. 1. Paris: Seuil, 1961.