Surrealism versus Oulipo

            After reading many of the works done by surrealist artists and Oulipo artists I am torn between which one I like the most because I have never read any of these works and so this is a new form of writing that I am still getting used to and working on interpreting.  When reading the book If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler I saw parts of it that were similar to the story Locus Solus because of the fact that there were story upon story upon story that made up one big story.  For me they both were hard to follow because I am used to reading more direct texts that have a major plot line and tell one main story, and with these I just couldn’t keep my focus on everything that was going on within the stories.     

            One aspect of the Oulipo that I really think is neat is the idea about limitations and writing the same story multiple times using different perspectives or settings, but all in all it is the same story.  I have never thought to write like this before, and I really enjoyed reading the stories by Queaneu.  This is one main difference between surrealism writing and the Oulipo writing.  This may sound like an oxymoron but using limitations makes me expand my creativity because I am limited in what I can use to write and therefore have to push myself as a writer. 

            The last difference between the two is that Oulipo incorporates the use of metafiction by directly addressing the reader.  The use of second person narration has an exceptional way of drawing in the reader (me or you), so that the reader begins to feel apart of the story, like the story was happening to me.  This is one aspect that greatly differs from surrealism.  I guess for me its easier for me to identify what the surrealist artwork/picture forms that we have looked at because then I the viewer can visually see the paintings and drawings and take in the ideas of surrealism.  On the other hand when reading the Oulipo works I have to spend some more time really reading the stories so I am aware of all the characters that are connected and how the stories relate to one another.