WRT: Writer Response Theory

cent milles milliards de po?mes
uploaded by mjutabor

In Raymond Queneau’s combinatoric sonnet, “Cent milles milliards de po?mes,” 10 sonnets of 14 lines each are cut in strips. By selecting strips the reader can create 10^14 recombinations, which, as the title says, is 100,000,000,000,000 possible poems. But one can arrive at 10^14 poems by many paths, both in print and online. How do hypertext editions of “Cent milles milliardes de po?mes” compare with print editions?

I’m not sure which edition of the work is pictured in this beautiful photo, however it looks like the strips were part of the original binding, with a slight gap to prevent rubbing (rather than being cut later). This is how I’ve heard the 1961 Gallimard edition described. With even damaged copies selling for between $350 and $400, I haven’t yet laid hands on one. Instead, I’ve read uncut reprints (for example, “One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems” is reprinted in The New Media Reader) and interacted with web editions that try to adapt the paper-strip aspects of the original through hypertext. I’m still looking for an affordable pre-cut edition - and considering making my own - however I’m also wondering how the online alternatives work in creating a similar or different experience.

One example, Magnus Bodin’s edition of “Cent milles milliardes de po?mes” offers the original French text and two translations into English and Swedish. Bodin offers no selection or navigation - instead, clicking a “New Poem” button simply refreshes the page with a random selection. Like a Haiku generator, each new poem appears out of the ether, and the interface emphasizes the vast number of possibilities by streamlining the process of generating outputs. This fully automatic method is quite unlike the print edition, which allowed readers to work with the text, manually building each poem sequence through a series of selections. Still, there is some rhetorical insight to be gained from a simple button labeled “New Poem”: with so many possible poems, it is quite likely that any given poem has never been read by anyone before… and may never be read by anyone again.

Jacob Smullyan’s edition of “Cent milles milliardes de po?mes” provides a command line interface to the text of Stanley Chapman’s English translation “100,000,000,000,000 Poems.” While Bodin’s edition demonstrates the scale of the possibility space through random uncontrollable motion, Smullyan’s edition demonstrates scale through a blind precision. Entering a number between 1 and 100,000,000,000,000 will specify exactly one of the total possible combinations, which is then displayed. Smullyan calls these “Sonnet Numbers,” which is an interesting idea. While referring to “Cent milles milliardes sonnet no. 7,225,081,256,601″ seems reminiscent of other numbering schemes, such as Shakespearean sonnet numbers or classical music opus numbers, it seems preposterous to imagine the numbers actually being used in a similar way: “Ah, yes, I remember good old 7,225,081,256,601, the opening line matches the final couplet so well”, etc…. on the other hand, the Smullyan number is a compact way to indicate which textual configuration is being indicated - a set of generation instructions for any example. Is such a thing useful? If it isn’t, it might be worth asking why we don’t commonly discuss specific arrangements when discussing combinatoric art. Is it because working with examples is too difficult without a good reference system? Or because we find any given specific arrangements beside the point?

Perhaps the most technically impressive implementation is Beverley Charles Rowe’s edition of “Cent milles milliardes de po?mes”. Rowe’s own original English translation is characterized by following Queneau’s rhyme scheme and by the use of intentional archaisms. The interface is a 14×10 grid whose squares mimic the array of choices afforded by the strips in the print codex. After clicking the random button, highlighted squares in the grid create a sense of orientation within the text space - a sense not present in the interfaces of either Bodin or Smullyan. In addition, Rowe makes intentional choice possible. Clicking on any square selects that line, while clicking on any column number selects that entire sonnet. Rowe’s interface goes further by aiding parallel line selection - clicking any row number displays a list of all 10 available choices for that row. Finally, every line of output text can be switched between English and French with a touch of the mouse, and some lines are further annotated with translator’s notes on word choice, meaning, and etymology.

[Some of these features are expanded in the new edition (v2) which came out on January 19, 2006, but I’ve experienced serious javascript problems in Safari, Omniweb, and Firefox - try Opera.]

Florian Cramer’s edition, on the other hand, allows manual recombinations using drop-down menu selection. After using Rowe’s intreface, Cramer’s interface might seem simple and slightly awkward, however the disadvantage of using listboxes might also be the advantage: incrementally browsing the lists interface is somewhat analogous to the experience of flipping through packets of paper strips. While Rowe preserves the sense of the total text space, Cramer preserves the sense of difficulty and the sensation of using something.

Cramer’s edition only contains four of the original ten French sonnets, along with a fascinating disclaimer. Cramer says that, while the work is still under copyright, this sampling represents fair use, as the sample represents a mere 268435456 of the 100000000000000 total poems. Sampling 40% of the extent text only shows you 0.0000027% of the total work? This might seem counterintuitive, but it is true - 4^14 is only the tiniest fraction of 10^14. I’m curious if anyone has ever attempted to make this argument about combinatoric art in a copyright claims lawsuit, and if so how the argument was received. A decision might depend on whether “Cent milles milliardes” is defined as the sum of its parts, at 140 lines, or as more than the sum of its parts, at 100,000,000,000,000 possibilities. If we take Queneau’s title seriously, fair use would handily cover presenting a mere nine of the ten material sonnets. That might be 90% of the source text, however those would render only a modest 23% of the total “po?mes.”

My modest proposal that we sample 90% of Queneau’s work may seem deliberately provocative, but the underlying question is serious. Which is the artwork we might fairly use - the parts, or their combinations? When experienced through Rowe’s grid, the answer “the artwork is 140 lines” feels intuitive, as the parts are all laid out before us. On the other hand, a few minutes of using Smullyan’s command line, and the argument for “the artwork is 100,000,000,000,000 possibilities” is much more clear, as possibilities are what the interface presents us with. While Rowe and Cramer’s interfaces are navigators which focus on manipulating the parts of the work, Bodin and Smullyan’s interfaces treat part-manipulation as the domain of the machine. Instead, they present us with the raw output, the poems themselves, each one distinct and all equal.

The fair use issue is inseperable from the interface method. Both are different ways of considering what constitutes “the artwork” in a combinatoric piece. As a personal experiment or a class project, it might be interesting to learn about Queneau’s work by creating your own - beginning with a simple print version, and letting some vision of what the text “really is” guide the adaptation.