Georges Perec (1936–1982)

One of the most bizarre books I have ever read. I'm not sure how to describe it, or whether it deserves one star or whether it deserves more stars than any rating system can provide. Laboriously cataloguing the lives, possessions, pasts and futures of the residents and rooms of an entire Parisian apartment building, Perec weaves little threads of puzzles throughout a dense narrative. It can be heavy-going to read, but at the same time feels immensely rewarding, even when you're not quite sure what that reward is.

Okay, this is the vaguest review I have EVER written, but I'm at a loss for words. It's certainly an astounding achievement, but I might need a few decades to figure out why I liked it... or even IF I did!… (more)

A series of scenes, snapshots of the same moment in time (almost 8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975) in each room of an apartment complex in Paris, presented in a generally random order. I thought to read it as a series of short stories with some interlinking, but it doesn't really lend itself to that. For one thing, 'scenes' is a better descriptor than stories since there is practically no dialogue in these. For another, Perec explicitly opens with an essay about jigsaw puzzles, describing how each piece on its own reveals nothing until it is made part of the whole. It would be possible to 'sort' the pieces based on chapter headings, but even then you would not succeed at getting the entire story for any one character that way since some bits about their lives appear in other chapters; thus the pieces may be said to interlink.

Like any story told out of order, perceiving the whole in all its detail is possible but in this case requires more powers of memory and observation than I can bring to bear (I'm not terribly good at either.) An index is offered as an aid, but it runs to sixty pages. Perec at least somewhat relieves the task he's set by using straightforward language, making his pieces plain though very detailed, and he adds entertainment value to what threatens to be dry content with several nested stories that illuminate the occupants while also delving into the lives of several former residents and the building's history.

Why so many descriptions of the artworks in each room? I see a parallel between these and Perec's frozen-in-time rooms themselves; he is painting with literature. Laurence Sterne would have some satiric things to say about this, but Perec shows us the advantage of his medium: he can give us the backstory behind the scene, or at least clues with which to piece that backstory together. This metaphor also suggests a parallel between Perec and the declared aim of Bartlebooth as described in Chapter 26. He has made it his aim to produce scenes which can be perceived as puzzle pieces, that may be brought together to make a whole (a novel), but that whole does not need to have any ultimately deeper meaning in order to achieve his aesthetic aim.

The book offers another lesson or reminder; the mystery of the enormous variety in others' lives with which we are surrounded in our urban environments, as when you pass a few dozen cars on the freeway and have the idle thought of wondering about the business of each. I feel certain that Michael Hutchence was inspired by Perec when he co-wrote "The Stairs" for INXS. It is a melancholy song about isolation in the midst of a crowded space, a kind of starvation surrounded by plenty. Some of the song's lines are cribbed from this novel's opening scene (which is even titled "On the Stairs"). Conversely, Perec's denizens who surround one another are all explicitly linked together in some way, although what the whole looks like is left even more a mystery to them than it is to us. Hutchence and Perec reach the same conclusion, but Perec doesn't see any problem. His stairs, his entire building, is an end in itself that you are welcome to simply wash your mind clean of once more, like the empty building outline which Valene leaves behind.… (more)