What is this book? It’s a picture. A picture cut into pieces—like a jigsaw puzzle—for the reader to reassemble. They say “a picture is worth 1,000 words”? Well, Perec’s picture is worth approximately 238,560 words (I counted the words on one page and multiplied by the number of pages, hence the “approximately). So what is this massive picture? Well, it’s (view spoiler)[1 The Coronation at Covadonga of Alkhamah's victor, Don Pelage2 The Russian singer and Schonberg living in Holland as exiles3 The deaf cat on the top floor with one blue & one yellow eye4 Barrels of sand being filled by order of the fumbling cretin5 The miserly old woman marking all her expenses in a notebook6 The puzzlemaker's backgammon game giving him his bad tempers7 The concierge watering potted plants for residents when away8 The parents naming their son Gilbert after Becaud their idol9 A bigamous count's wife accepting his Turkish female rescuer10 The businesswoman, regretting that she had to leave the land11 The boy taking down the bins dreaming how to write his novel12 The Australian round-the-worlder and her well-dressed nephew13 The anthropologist, failing to locate the ever-evasive tribe14 The cook's refusal of an oven with the self-cleansing device15 1% sacrificed to art by the MD of a world-wide hotel company16 The nurse casually leafing through a shiny new photomagazine17 The poet who went on a pilgrimage shipwrecked at Arkhangelsk18 The impatient Italian violinplayer who riled his miniaturist19 The fat, sausage-eating couple keeping their wireless set on20 The one-armed officer after the bombardment of General H.-Q.21 The daughter's sad reveries, at the side of her father's bed22 Austrian customers getting just the steamiest "Turkish Bath"23 The Paraguayan odd-job man, getting ready to ignite a letter24 The billionaire sporting knickerbockers to practice painting25 The Woods & Water Dept. official opens a sanctuary for birds26 The widow with her souvenirs wrapped in old weekly magazines27 An international thief taken to be a high-ranking magistrate28 Robinson Crusoe leading a very decent life style on his isle29 The domino-playing rodent who feasted on dried-out Edam rind30 The suffering "word-snuffer" messing around in old bookshops31 The black-clad investigator selling the latest key to dreams32 The man in vegetable oils opening a fish restaurant in Paris33 The famous old soldier killed by a loose Venetian chandelier34 The injured cyclist who then married his pace-maker's sister35 The cook whose master ingested only eggs and poached haddock36 The newly-weds taking credit over 2 yrs to have a luxury bed37 The art dealer's deserted wife, left for an Italian Angelina38 The childhood friend reading the biographies of her 5 nieces39 The gentleman who inserted into bottles figures made of cork40 An archaeologist researching the Arab kings' Spanish capital41 The Pole living quietly in the Oise now his clowning is over42 The hag who cut the hot water to stop her son-in-law shaving43 A Dutchman who knew any No. could be but the sum of K primes44 Robert Scipion devising his supremely clever cross-word clue45 The scientist learning to lip-read the deaf-mute's equations46 The Albanian terrorist serenading his love, an American star47 The Stuttgarter businessman wanting to roast his leg of boar48 Dodeca's owner's son preferring the porn trade to priesthood49 A barman speaking pidgin in order to swap his mother-goddess50 The boy seeing in his dream the cake he had not been allowed51 7 actors each refusing the role after they'd seen the script52 A deserter from US forces in Korea allowing his squad to die53 The superstar who started out as a sex-changed guitar-player54 A redheaded white man enjoying a rich maharajah's tiger hunt55 A liberal grandfather moved to creation by a detective story56 The expert penman copying suras from the Koran in the casbah57 Angelica's aria from Arconati's Orlando requested by Orfanik58 The actor plotting suicide with the help of a foster brother59 Her arm held high a Japanese athlete bears the Olympic torch60 Embattled Aetius stopping the Huns on the Catalaunian Fields61 Selim's arrow hitting the end wall of a room 888 metres long62 The staff sergeant deceasing because of his rubber-gum binge63 The mate of the Fox alighting on Fitz-James's final messages64 The student staying in a room for six months without budging65 The producer's wife off yet again on a trip around the globe66 The central-heating engineer making sure the fueljet ignites67 The executive who entertained all his workmates very grandly68 The boy sorting medical blotters he'd been collecting avidly69 The actor-cook hired by an American lady who was hugely rich70 The former croupier who turned into a shy, retiring old lady71 The technician trying a new experiment, and losing 3 fingers72 The young lady living in the Ardennes with a Belgian builder73 The Dr's ancestor nearly solving the synthetic gem conundrum74 The ravishing American magician and Mephisto agreeing a deal75 The curio dealer's son in red leather on his Guzzi motorbike76 The principal destroying the secrets of the German scientist77 The historian, turned down 46 times, burning his 1200-pp. MS78 A Jap who turned a quartz watch Co into a gigantic syndicate79 The Swedish diplomat trying madly to avenge his son and wife80 The delayed voyager begging to have her green beans returned81 The star seeking admission by meditating a recipe for afters82 The lady who was interested in hoarding clockwork mechanisms83 The magician guessing answers with digits selected at random84 The Russian prince presenting a mahogany sofa shaped in an S85 The superfluous driver playing cardgames to use up his hours86 A medic, hoping to make a mark on gastronomy with crab salad87 An optimistic engineer liquidating his exotic hides business88 The Japanese sage initiating in great anguish Three Free Men89 A selftaught old man again going over his sanatorium stories90 A relative twice removed, obliged to auction his inheritance91 Customs & Excise men unpacking the raging princess's samovar92 The trader in Indian cotton goods doing up a flat on the 8th93 French-style overtures brought to the Hamburg opera by a Hun94 Marguerite, restoring things seen through a magnifying glass95 The puzzlemaker with his ginger cat taking the name of Cheri96 The nightclub waiter, legging up on stage to start a cabaret97 The rich amateur leaving his musical collection to a library98 A housing and estate agency woman looking at that empty flat99 The lady doing the Englishman's black cardboard puzzle boxes100 The critic committing 4 crimes for 1 of Percival's seascapes101 The Praetor ordering 30000 Lusitanians to be killed in a day102 A student in a long coat staring at a map of the Paris metro103 The building manager, trying to solve his cash-flow problems104 The girl studying the craftsman's rings to sell in her store105 Nationalists fighting the Damascene publisher who was French106 A little girl gnawing at the edges of her shortbread cookies107 The maid, imagining she'd seen the evil eye in an undertaker108 A painstaking scientist examining rats' reactions to poisons109 The pranking student who but beef stock in vegetarians' soup110 A workman gazing at his letter, as he leaves with two others111 The aged gentleman's gentleman recomputing his nth factorial112 The staggered priest offering help to a Frenchman lost in NY113 The druggist spending his fortune on the Holy Vase of Joseph114 The jigsaw glue being perfected by a head of a chemistry lab115 That gent in a black cloak donning new, tight-fitting gloves116 Old Guyomard cutting Bellmer's sheet in 2 through the middle117 Original fine champagne proffered to Colbert by Dom Perignon118 A gay waltz being written by an old friend of Liszt & Chopin119 Agreeably drowsy after lunch, M. Riri sitting at his counter120 Gallant Amerigo learning a continent was to be named America121 Mark Twain reading his obituary long before he'd intended to122 The woman polishing a dagger that was Kleber's murder weapon123 The college endowed by its ex-rector, an expert in philology124 The single mother reading Pirandello's story of Daddi, Romeo125 The historian who used pseudonyms to publish rubbishy novels126 The librarian collecting proof that Hitler continues to live127 A blind man tuning a Russian prima donna's grand piano-forte128 A decorator making the most of the young pig's crimson bones129 The agent trading cowries believing he'd make millions at it130 The disappointed customer who in dyeing her hair lost it all131 The assistant librarian using red pencil to ring opera crits132 The lovelorn coachman who thought he's heard a rodent mewing133 The kitchen-lads bringing up hot tasty snacks for a grand do134 The nurse's milk jug spilt on the carpet by two naughty cats135 A Tommy and his bride-to-be stuck between floors in the lift136 The bookdealer who found three of Victor Hugo's original MSS137 The English "au pair" reading an epistle from her boy-friend138 The ordnance general who was shot in the lounge of his hotel139 The doctor whom loaded fire-arms forced to carry out surgery140 Safari-buffs with their native guide - posing for the camera141 The French prof, getting pupils' vacation assignments marked142 A beautiful Polish woman and her wee son dreaming of Tunisia143 The judge's spouse whose pearls had cooked black in the fire144 The cyclist struggling for recognition for his 1-hour record145 A conscript startled on seeing his old physics schoolteacher146 The ex-landlord dreaming of a "hero" of the traditional kind147 A conductor rehearsing his band for 9 weeks, again and again148 A gifted numerate, aspiring to construct a massive radiomast149 Antipodean fans giving their idol a present of 71 white mice150 The Spanish ex-concierge not too keen to unjam the lift door151 Listening to an enormous phonogram, a smoker of an 89c cigar152 A choreographer, returning to torment the loveless ballerina153 The man who delivered wine on a trike doing the hall mirrors154 An obviously pornographic old man waiting at the school gate155 The botanist hoping an ivory Epiphyllum would carry his name156 The so-called Russian who solved every brainteaser published157 The infant Mozart, performing for Louis and Marie-Antoinette158 A sword-swallower who on medication threw up a load of nails159 A man who made religious articles dying of cold in the woods160 Blind horses, deep down in the mine, hauling railway waggons161 A urologist musing on the arguments of Galen and Asclepiades162 A handsome pilot looking for the castle at Corbenic on a map163 The carpenter's workman warming his hands at a woodchip fire164 Visitors to the Orient trying to solve the magic ring puzzle165 A ballet maestro beaten to death in the U.S.A. by 3 hoodlums166 A princess, who said prayers at her regal granddad's bedside167 The tenant (for 6 wks) insisting on full checks on all pipes168 A manager who managed to be away for four months in the year169 A lady who owned a curio shop fishing for a malosol cucumber170 The man who saw his own death warrant in a newspaper cutting171 The emperor thinking of the "Eagle" to attack the Royal Navy172 Famous works improved by a celebrated artist's layer of haze173 Eugene of Savoy having a list made of the relics of Golgotha174 In a polka-dot dress, a woman who knitted beside the seaside175 The Tommies enjoying girls' gym practices on a Pacific beach176 Gedeon Spilett locating the last match in his trouser pocket177 A young trapeze artist refusing to climb down from his perch178 Woodworms' hollow honeycombs solidified by an Italian artist179 Lonely Valene putting every bit of the block onto his canvas (hide spoiler)]
The painter and collage-ist Robert Rauschenberg came of age during the heyday of abstract expressionism in the New York scene; and while his own work involves a similar level of abstraction (as, for example, 1954's Charlene, pictured above), he often found himself at odds with the dominant rhetoric of the "tortured artist." "There was something about the self-confession and self-confusion of abstract expressionism," he says, "that personally always put me off."There was a whole language that I could never make function for myself; it revolved around words like "tortured," "struggle," "pain" [...:] I could not see such conflicts in the materials and I knew that it had to be in the attitude of the painter [...:] I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," about the sad cup of coffee. I've had cold coffee and hot coffee, good coffee and lousy coffee. But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.Elsewhere, Rauschenberg tells his biographer "Work is my joy [...:] I don't know anybody who loves work as much as I do."1I thought about Rauschenberg a lot while reading Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual, and not just because Perec takes the novel to a conceptual height similar to that of the painter's "assemblage" innovations, or because they share a fondness for surprising connections among seemingly unrelated objects and stories, or because they both craft the unusual out of aggressively ordinary materials. No, what really struck me about the two men is the sheer joy they both seem to take in their chosen art form: their ecstatic fearlessness in the face of constraint, or lack thereof. To adopt Rauschenberg's language, I had seen many of the materials Perec uses before: the humorously overdone cataloging of objects, for example, and the repeated obsession with ordering of objects, both appear in the work of Perec's forerunners Samuel Beckett and Julio Cortázar, and his admirer Roberto Bolaño. But seldom have I seen these elements used as tools of sheer delight in the way Perec uses them. In Bolaño's 2666, the forensic cataloging of corpses reinforces the inhumanity of the Santa Teresa killings, and Beckett's characters' obsessive need to catalog the objects and events around them is a symptom of their sinister (yet hilarious) inability to break out of stagnation. But Perec? It's easy to tell that for Perec, as for Rauschenberg, work—storytelling, word-painting—is a joy. Like his character Bartlebooth, he sets himself a strict yet more or less meaningless structural challenge. In Bartlebooth's case, this challenge consists of an ostensibly zero-sum loop: spend a decade learning to paint watercolors; two decades sailing around the world and painting sea-ports, which are then sent back to France and cut into jigsaw puzzles; two decades, upon his return, solving the jigsaw puzzles, upon which they are reconstituted and returned to their place of composition, dunked in an acid bath, and returned to their original state of pristine white paper. For Perec, the challenge is to construct a novel out of a series of motionless vignettes, each vignette featuring a different room or corridor in the same apartment building, at a moment when one particular event is taking place. Both the author and the character go about their assigned tasks with remarkable vigor, but Perec's performance is more remarkable than Bartlebooth's: whereas the fictioneer is merely competent, the author's narrative expands within his structural framework, flexing and reaching, revealing a tapestry of interwoven stories, all the tales of the current and former residents of the rue Simon-Crubellier as revealed through their rooms: their divans and settees; their crumpled letters lying in waste-paper bins; their traveling trunks stowed in their cellars; their blackened pearls; reproduction wall-hangings; foreign currency; collectible ink-blotters; books and paintings; photographs tucked under arms; all the artifacts of a century or more.Life seems to me at once a compulsively structured exercise and a mass of undifferentiated stuff. In the face of this dichotomy, it's unsurprising that the book displays an obsession with the different possible ways of ordering things. The passages dealing with this obsession were consistently among my favorites; in addition to being great fun, I think they reflect something important about the book's essence. From a multitude of angles, Perec seems to be asking: "Is there a "proper" order to the objects we encounter? Are some methods of ordering better than others? Are all equally valid?" Here, for example, is Bartlebooth's valet Smautf, fretting over how (or, in the end, WHETHER) to sort the labels from his employer's twenty years of travel:He wanted, so he said, to sort the labels into order, but it was very difficult: of course, there was chronological order, but he found it poor, even poorer than alphabetical order. He had tried by continents, then by country, but that didn't satisfy him. What he would have liked would be to link each label to the next, but each time in respect of something else: for example, they could have some detail in common, a mountain or volcano, an illuminated bay, some particular flower, the same red and gold edging, the beaming face of a groom, or the same dimensions, or the same typeface, or similar slogans ("Pearl of the Ocean," "Diamond of the Coast"), or a relationship based not on similarity but on opposition or a fragile, almost arbitrary association: a minute village by an Italian lake followed by the skyscrapers of Manhattan, skiers followed by swimmers, fireworks by candlelit dinner, railway by aeroplane, baccarat table by chemin de fer, etc. It's not just hard, Winckler added, above all it's useless: if you leave the labels unsorted and take two at random, you can be sure they'll have at least three things in common.What strikes me about this passage is Smautf's criterion of "satisfaction": his preference for one classification system over another is pretty much purely a matter of aesthetics. By contrast, Western civilization has a lot of angst tied up in arguments over "true" classification: how closely grouped are humans and apes? Should animals be classed by method of reproduction, type of food, outer body covering, number of appendages, or some other factor? Should pagans be considered closer to Christians than Muslims? What is more valuable: a fabergé egg or a Tiffany lamp? Here is Perec, arguing that all methods of classification are imposed from without, essentially a form of art, and that we are free to choose whichever schema appeals to us personally. Unless, like Winckler's jigsaws, a puzzle has been crafted with the puzzler in mind (which most of life, Perec seems to argue, is not), there is no "right" or "wrong" order. Obviously, this idea can play havoc with one's idea of propriety and value, but it can also come as a relief, or even be exhilarating. Here, for example, we see the entire apartment building needlessly agonizing over the correct pronunciation of a neighbor's name, spelled "Cinoc":Obviously the concierge didn't dare address him as "Nutcase" by pronouncing the name "Sinok." She questioned Valène, who suggested "Cinosh"; Winckler, who was for "Chinoch"; Morellet, who inclined toward "Sinots"; Mademoiselle Crespi, who proposed "Chinoss"; François Gratiolet, who prescribed "Tsinoc"; and finally Monsieur Echard, as a librarian well versed in recondite spellings and the appropriate ways of uttering them, demonstrated that, leaving aside any potential transformation of the intervocalic "n" into a "gn" or "nj" sound, and assuming once and for all, on principle, that "i" was pronounced "i" and the "o," "o," there were then four ways of saying the initial "c": "s," "ts," "sh," and "ch," and five ways of pronouncing the final: "s," "k," "ch," "sh," and "ts," and that, as a result, depending on the presence or absence of one or another diacritic sign or accent and according to the phonetic particularities of one or another language or dialect, there was a case for choosing from amongst the following twenty pronunciations:SINOSSINOKSINOCHSINOSHSINOTSTSINOSTSINOKTSINOCHTSINOSHTSINOTSSHINOSSHINOKSHINOCHSHINOSHSHINOTSCHINOSCHINOKCHINOCHCHINOSHCHINOTSAs a result of which, a delegation went to ask the principal person concerned, who replied that he didn't know himself which was the most proper way of pronouncing his name.It turns out that the family's original surname was "Kleinhof," a pronunciation nobody would have considered based on the current spelling, and Cinoc himself maintains that "it wasn't at all important whichever way you wanted to pronounce it." Here we have all the humans in the rue Simon-Crubellier attempting to ascertain the "correct" order and combination of sounds to designate their neighbor, when in point of fact there literally IS no correction pronunciation, since Cinoc's name has traveled so far from the original "authentic" Kleinhof (if indeed "Kleinhof" itself was authentic) that it's no longer reasonable to claim that it ought to be pronounced in the old way, but no definitive new way has been settled upon by Cinoc himself or by anyone else. Thus, it seems to me, Perec often shows us puzzle pieces belonging to no puzzle—or, maybe, objects that have a tendency to look like puzzle pieces, but which are actually some quite different object, unless, like the collector of unica who must decide what qualifies as "genuine" and "one-of-a-kind," we can find a way to make them fit into an aesthetically-created puzzle of our own invention. *******Life A User's Manual was, ironically, my April read for the Non-Structured Book Group. Up next month: Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels. 1All Rauschenberg quotes pulled from Robert Rauschenberg, a full-color monograph with text by Sam Hunter, published by Ediciones Polígrafa.
What do You think about Life: A User's Manual (1988)?
This book was pure serendipity: I found it on a shelf of English books at a center in Akita City, Japan, that catered towards foreigners living abroad.I read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it without knowing anything about its construction or the eccentricities of its author, Georges Perec, the man who also wrote an entire novel without using the letter "e." On the surface, it concerns the inhabitants of an apartment building in Paris, and their various experiences, their possessions and obsessions, even their day-to-day existence.After I read the book, however, I found out Perec used an exacting scheme for each chapter of the book, and an even more exacting scheme for progressing through the different rooms of the apartment building, which follows the pattern of a knight in chess.Perec was a member of the Oulipo, a group of writers who generated systems for writing their books, much like John Cage's experiments with chance in the composition of music.The beauty of this book, though, is that the rules seemed to set Perec's creativity on fire: it may be a highly polished and highly controlled piece of architecture, but it's also a marvelous collection of lives and stories.
—Chris and Yuri
You have to make it through the first 50 pages, which are heavy sledding. But then, somehow, it took off (for me, at least). Which surprised the hell out of me, to be honest. Because normally I just can't abide descriptions of furniture, and rooms and stuff -- I tend to skim right over it. Perec spends an inordinate amount of space in describing the furnishings, when he's not making up amusingly wacky lists, or telling another shaggy dog story about some guy getting fleeced or murdered or jilted in some suitably exotic locale. Then there's the whole Oulipian constraint machinery because, you know, Perec. Apart from a bunch of ruminating about jigsaw puzzles, the big one is that the apartment building is laid out like a 10 x 10 grid, the chapters move around on this grid following a knight's tour trajectory. Then there's some other stuff about matching the constraints to the chapters according to a Graeco-Latin square design, though to be honest it's not clear that those particular constraints add a while lot to the soul of the book.Because yes, the book most decidedly has a soul. It's not just the kind of sterile, cerebral Oulipian exercise you might be imagining. Literary references out the wazoo, fun to spot if you enjoy that kind of game. A surprisingly poignant central trio of characters (the jigsaw jokers).Oh, and quest stories. This book has an inordinate number of quest stories. Mostly they do not end well.What I'm not managing to convey here is how much fun this book is. Clearly Monsieur Perec was a wicked smart dude. Equally clearly, and more importantly, he was a total mensch.
—David
Il rischio più grande, per un'opera così ambiziosa, è che si innamori della propria struttura, trascurando il contenuto: dopotutto questo libro è ambientato, sì, in un condominio parigino; ma lo si esplora locale per locale - dal bagno di un appartamento alle cantine, alle scale di servizio, a una sala da pranzo, all'ascensore, alle camere di servizio e così via - seguendo le mosse del cavallo nel gioco degli scacchi per coprire tutta la scacchiera, visitando ogni casella (tranne una, in questo caso) e quindi ogni locale dell'edificio una sola volta. L'impresa sembra completamente estranea alla narrativa, eppure funziona.Il merito di Perec è di aver saputo sfruttare in modo originalissimo un meccanismo così complesso: ogni ambiente viene descritto in modo estremamente dettagliato, esaminando tutti gli oggetti presenti, i colori, la disposizione dei mobili; vengono raccontate le avventure di tutti gli inquilini presenti e passati - e si tratta spesso di avventure che farebbero invidia a maestri del genere come Verne o Stevenson: questo libro contiene racconti di viaggi, omicidi, vendette, guerre, truffe, malattie e disastri finanziari; elenchi e cataloghi che riescono a dare un carattere poetico a quelle liste di parole che altrove sembrerebbero noiose; descrizioni di oggetti unici e meravigliosi; riproduzioni di documenti, illustrazioni, mappe; paradossi e invenzioni fantastiche. Alcuni inquilini diventano presto antipatici e insopportabili, altri invece guadagnano l'affetto e la stima del lettore che non vede l'ora di tornare a curiosare nelle loro stanze. Inoltre, nel libro sono disseminati vari riferimenti a opere di autori come Calvino, Melville, Sterne, e altri elencati alla fine del volume; e quando (raramente, nel mio caso) capita di riconoscerne uno, si prova un vivo senso di familiarità e partecipazione, una specie di solletico letterario con conseguente autocompiacimento del lettore, che può quindi vantarsi di aver ritrovato nello scrigno di Perec qualcosa che gli appartiene.I momenti meno interessanti sono, dal mio punto di vista, quelli in cui Perec prova a esprimere una morale malinconica che dovrebbe segnare tutto il libro: la fragilità di tutto ciò che nel presente può sembrare eterno. Le persone e le loro famiglie, le imprese e i successi professionali, i cimeli conservati nelle cantine e lo stesso condominio che nasconde, dietro una facciata di normalità, vicende e oggetti meravigliosi, sono tutti destinati a scomparire. Questo pensiero sembra un po' ovvio se espresso in modo troppo esplicito, ma diventa decisamente più interessante all'interno dei singoli racconti: l'avventura di un esploratore o la storia di una vendetta sentimentale rappresentano quest'idea meglio di qualsiasi spiegazione.Non si tratta, secondo me, di una lettura facile: per poter amare questo libro serve soprattutto molta pazienza (se pensate di leggerlo in fretta, è meglio rinunciare: merita attenzione) e una forte curiosità per tutte le sorprese verbali, grafiche e narrative che regala a chi sa aspettare.
—Guido
