Absences, Negations, Voids  Absences, Negations, Voids
Examining Doug Nufer’s Negativeland, a constraint-based text,
Louis Bury adopts the same constraint as the novel - an approach
NOT dissimilar to his treatment of Abish’s Alphabetical Africa.
In this case, the constraint is a prohibition against sentences
lacking “some form of negation” - a commitment not unlike the
affirmation of negativity.  If providing somethings will not do,
the writer must provide nothings. I am not playing with words. A
little observation will show you that writers do nothing else.
They make the experience of consciousness available through
nothings - absences, negations, voids. To put it another way,
writing works exclusively by what the writer leaves out.  -
Harry Mathews, “For Prizewinners”  Not to nitpick, but there are
a few things Doug Nufer left out of his 2004 novel,
Negativeland. There aren’t any Sherpas in it. Nor are there any
ice cream trucks. And for the life of me, I couldn’t find one
mention of steroids. In a novel