The characters in both these short novels look for different ways to achieve happiness in a society of the sixties dominated by acquisition and ownership. The author won the Prix Renaudot, 1965 for "Things".

"Things. A Story of the Sixties" and "A Man Asleep"

Literature & Fiction

PEREC, GEORGES

Bellos, David

Leak, Andrew

Contemporary

Vintage/Ebury (A Division of Random House Group)

This digital document is an article from The Review of Contemporary Fiction, published by Review of Contemporary Fiction on March 22, 1993. The length of the article is 5079 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.From the supplier: Georges Perec's 'W or The Memory of Childhood' in both its book and serial forms forces the reader to determine the connections between two very distinct narratives. The part about W is a search for historically real Nazi camps while the other section is autobiographical childhood memories. The factual connection between the two is the loss of Perec's parents, his father to the war and his mother to a Nazi camp. However, the reader is left to figure out the connections in this psychoanalytical autobiography without any guidelines.Citation DetailsTitle: 'W or The Memory of Childhood.' (Georges Perec/Felipe Alfau)Author: Philippe LejeunePublication: The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Refereed)Date: March 22, 1993Publisher: Review of Contemporary FictionVolume: v13  Issue: n1  Page: p88(10)Distributed by Thomson Gale

W. or the Memory of Childhood

Collins, Harvill

Insomniac Anton Vowl is missing from his Paris rooms, and his companions look for information in his diary, in a work using no "e"

A Void

Genre Fiction

Harvill

Georges Perec planned a mystery novel of 28 chapters: he died before completing it. From his notebooks his friends assembled the elements of the unfinished part. The narrator is sent to the French colonies to teach maths - as well as being entrusted with tracking down an arms dealer.

"53 Days"

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Life is an unclassified masterpiece, a sprawling compendium as encyclopedic as Dante's Commedia and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and, in its break with tradition, as inspiring as Joyce's Ulysses. Structured around a single moment in time 8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975 Perec's spellbinding puzzle begins in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, like an onion being peeled, and extraordinary rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, moving, funny, or (sometimes) quite ordinary. From the confessions of a racing cyclist to the plans of an avenging murderer, from a young ethnographer obsessed with a Sumatran tribe to the death of a trapeze artist, from the fears of an ex-croupier to the dreams of a sex-change pop star to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime, Life is a manual of human irony, portraying the mixed marriages of fortunes, passions and despairs, betrayals and bereavements, of hundreds of lives in Paris and around the world.But the novel in more than an extraordinary range of fictions; it is a closely observed account of life and experience. The apartment block's one hundred rooms are arranged in a magic square, and the book as a whole is peppered with a staggering range of literary puzzles and allusions, acrostics, problems of chess and logic, crosswords, and mathematical formulae. All are there for the reader to solve in the best tradition of the detective novel.

Life: A User's Manual

This marvellous book is one of the most ingenious works of modern fiction, an entire microcosm brought to life in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to create an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing a marvellously diverse cast of characters in a series of ever more unlikely tales, which range from an avenging murderer to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime...

Life: a Users Manual: Fictions

Harvill Press

Things: A Story of the Sixties is the story of a young couple who want to enjoy life, but the only way they know how to do so is through ownership of 'things'. Perec's first novel won the Prix Renaudot and became the cult book for a generation. In A Man Asleep, a young student embarks upon a disturbing and exhaustive pursuit of indifference, following his experience in non-existence with relentless logic.

Things: A Story of the Sixties With A Man Asleep

Vintage Classics

This generous selection of Georges Perec's nonfiction, the first to appear in English, features ingenious contemplations on the ways in which we occupy urban and domestic space, engrossing accounts of his experiences with psychoanalysis, depictions of the Paris of his childhood, thought-provoking examinations of the "infra ordinary" -- the commonplace items of our lives eluding our attention -- and a short story executed with a Borges-like finesse. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces puts us in the presence of a virtuoso writer, whom Italo Calvino called "one of the most significant literary personalities in the world".

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (Twentieth Century Classics)

Sturrock, John

Essays & Correspondence

Penguin Group USA

One of a series of small-format books devoted to short texts. This tells of the discovery, by an academic, of widespread plagiarism in the literary world. Returning from National Service, the academic finds the book missing and embarks on a torturous quest for the missing evidence.

The Winter Journey (Syren)

Literary

Penguin Classics

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Books by PEREC, GEORGES

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"Things. A Story of the Sixties" and "A Man Asleep"

W. or the Memory of Childhood

A Void

"53 Days"

Life: A User's Manual

Life: a Users Manual: Fictions

W. or the Memory of Childhood

Things: A Story of the Sixties With A Man Asleep

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (Twentieth Century Classics)

The Winter Journey (Syren)