By David Grayson Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist. By Eric Stephan Idith Zertal's From Catastrophe to Power. Edited by Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie.
Many constraints spring from traditional forms.
While many constraints are mathematically based, others aren't, and most of the constraints fall into territory that can seem absurd to writers who believe that grammar and genre provide all the restrictions anyone should have to endure. The form-driven writer has other concerns. This concern for originality may be less a spiritual goal than a practical tool. Although the literary results of following strict rules can be so wacky as to appear surrealistic, Oulipians oppose the self-styled freedoms indulged in by the surrealists, whose work strikes them as being mostly repetitive. Intuition, inspiration, and ideas that come as if by chance are off-limits.