blog#8 – the burden of Names — Georges Perec’s book ‘W, or The Memory of Childhood’ was by far the book with the most interesting formatting. (Out of the books that I’ve read for this class anyway). The two parallel stories and the switching back-and-forth took a lot of getting used to, and admittedly, I […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, family, France, identity, living experience, lost in translation, memory, names, or the Memory of Childhood, perspective, time, vestige
Perec’s W is a fascinating read for a multitude of reasons. The book starts with a disclaimer warning readers about the dual nature of the upcoming story – an unusual thing to begin a story with!
I found the idea of calling the book ‘W’ because of the double ‘V’ incredibly smart. I came across another interpretation of how the choice of the double ‘V’ was creative because of how ‘vie’ in French translates to life in English. This is pertinent to the book because of the two parallel stories and how they influence each other.
Perec’s description of pictures in the somewhat autobiographical portion of the book is what stood out to me the most. I would like to think that he went the extra mile with his descriptions of the images because of how desperately he wanted to remember his childhood and his parents. The idea of placing importance in memory is a very interesting concept for many reasons. The desperation to cling to one’s childhood is unfortunately very common, especially as we age and desire to cling on to the “good old days.” Moreover, given that the author lost his parents at a young age, he is more inclined to preserve any memory.
One of the moments in the book that highlighted this idea of broken memory is when the author describes the three memories that he recalls from his school days. They progress from blurry to gradually more coherent and eventually lead to a fourth memory. The following quote stood out to me the most when he was describing his memories:
“…remains so deeply imprinted on my body that I wonder this memory does not, in fact, conceal its precise opposite: not the memory of a medal torn off, but the memory of a star pinned on.”
This particular quote reminds me of flashbulb memories and how the emotions associated with these memories are often triggered because of the intensity of the event. This moment would have definitely stood out to a child because of the intensity of the injustice that they would have felt.
Perec’s parallel adventure story provided us with a story of a young boy whose name was taken by a soldier for safety. I feel like this particular choice of events is especially relevant because of how it depicts a man taking on the identity of a child, while in the other half, he tries to recall his childhood.
Lastly, to end, my question for the class would be: how did you find the worldbuilding of the island W?
Perec’s W is a fascinating read for a multitude of reasons. The book starts with a disclaimer warning readers about the dual nature of the upcoming story – an unusual thing to begin a story with!
I found the idea of calling the book ‘W’ because of the double ‘V’ incredibly smart. I came across another interpretation of how the choice of the double ‘V’ was creative because of how ‘vie’ in French translates to life in English. This is pertinent to the book because of the two parallel stories and how they influence each other.
Perec’s description of pictures in the somewhat autobiographical portion of the book is what stood out to me the most. I would like to think that he went the extra mile with his descriptions of the images because of how desperately he wanted to remember his childhood and his parents. The idea of placing importance in memory is a very interesting concept for many reasons. The desperation to cling to one’s childhood is unfortunately very common, especially as we age and desire to cling on to the “good old days.” Moreover, given that the author lost his parents at a young age, he is more inclined to preserve any memory.
One of the moments in the book that highlighted this idea of broken memory is when the author describes the three memories that he recalls from his school days. They progress from blurry to gradually more coherent and eventually lead to a fourth memory. The following quote stood out to me the most when he was describing his memories:
“…remains so deeply imprinted on my body that I wonder this memory does not, in fact, conceal its precise opposite: not the memory of a medal torn off, but the memory of a star pinned on.”
This particular quote reminds me of flashbulb memories and how the emotions associated with these memories are often triggered because of the intensity of the event. This moment would have definitely stood out to a child because of the intensity of the injustice that they would have felt.
Perec’s parallel adventure story provided us with a story of a young boy whose name was taken by a soldier for safety. I feel like this particular choice of events is especially relevant because of how it depicts a man taking on the identity of a child, while in the other half, he tries to recall his childhood.
Lastly, to end, my question for the class would be: how did you find the worldbuilding of the island W?
This week I read W, or the memory of a childhood. This novel was different from others we had read in previous weeks, and unlike anything I had really read before. When I was starting this novel, the double story writing style was confusing at times. The fact that it was differentiated by font did help for sure.I was struggling to find the correlation between the two stories and felt like I was jumping from one book to another each time it switched over. Also, it often felt like we were given a lot of additional background details that perhaps helped visualize something like a picture, but the descriptions seemed to drag on longer than necessary. It was definitely easier for me to engage in the story based on the child growing up during the time of war and the complexity of his life. He lost his parents at a young age, and bounced around different living arrangements a lot of the time. From what he recalls, and the memories that he does have, it seemed like a very rough time to grow up.
His memories are oddly specific, and it seems as though from what he does remember, he remembers those instances in great detail. It stood out to me that he described a memory from when he was only three about his family gathered in a circle “the family circle surrounds me wholly, but the sensation of encirclement does not cause me any fear of feeling of being smothered; on the contrary it is warm, protective, loving”. At first I thought there was no way a memory could be recalled at the age of only three, however after some research, apparently you can begin to recall memories as early as the age of two. Still, I question the validity of some of his memory recall simply due to the circumstances in which he was living as well as his use of imagination.
Starting part two, I was a bit confused with the Olympic islands. I was not sure how that related at all to anything that had been discussed leading up to that, but eventually began to realize its true significance. I think this is one of the most important ways in which the stories somehow merge together. My question to the class is what is the significance of the … on page 61? What do you think Perec intended to convey?
Also Perrier is the best drink ever. Enjoyed one while writing this.
This week I read W, or the memory of a childhood. This novel was different from others we had read in previous weeks, and unlike anything I had really read before. When I was starting this novel, the double story writing style was confusing at times. The fact that it was differentiated by font did help for sure.I was struggling to find the correlation between the two stories and felt like I was jumping from one book to another each time it switched over. Also, it often felt like we were given a lot of additional background details that perhaps helped visualize something like a picture, but the descriptions seemed to drag on longer than necessary. It was definitely easier for me to engage in the story based on the child growing up during the time of war and the complexity of his life. He lost his parents at a young age, and bounced around different living arrangements a lot of the time. From what he recalls, and the memories that he does have, it seemed like a very rough time to grow up.
His memories are oddly specific, and it seems as though from what he does remember, he remembers those instances in great detail. It stood out to me that he described a memory from when he was only three about his family gathered in a circle “the family circle surrounds me wholly, but the sensation of encirclement does not cause me any fear of feeling of being smothered; on the contrary it is warm, protective, loving”. At first I thought there was no way a memory could be recalled at the age of only three, however after some research, apparently you can begin to recall memories as early as the age of two. Still, I question the validity of some of his memory recall simply due to the circumstances in which he was living as well as his use of imagination.
Starting part two, I was a bit confused with the Olympic islands. I was not sure how that related at all to anything that had been discussed leading up to that, but eventually began to realize its true significance. I think this is one of the most important ways in which the stories somehow merge together. My question to the class is what is the significance of the … on page 61? What do you think Perec intended to convey?
Also Perrier is the best drink ever. Enjoyed one while writing this.
The W or Memory of Childhood is a book with two stories, the first being W, and the second being The Memory of Childhood. W was a fantastic story of a man who was on the search for a boy but came across a mysterious island (W) and quickly emerged into their society. W is not the pretty island we think, however. Their morals and sins are based on a game like the “Olympics,” and people must survive, but only the fittest do. This shocked me, and the details in the story made the island come to life. The second story is a memoir of Perec’s past childhood. He is confused because he has many gaps in his memory and cannot remember his childhood clearly. This fogginess is something that I believe definitely is from PTSD from the war and violence when he was a child. I learned in my psychology class that the brain would adapt and forget specific memories if they are too painful and cause a blockage in your memory. This is apparent in Perec’s story as he continuously mentions how he forgets and doesn’t remember his childhood exactly. He believes he has a vague idea of his childhood but cannot put the pieces together. It’s like looking through foggy glasses, and most things are blurry, but no matter what you do, they never clear up. I tried to figure out how the two stories were connected while reading, and it was so confusing. Until I came across this quote, “when I was thirteen I made up a story … [It] was called W and it was, in a way, if not the story of my childhood, then at least a story of my childhood.” After that, I realized that the story of W is not complete but like a symbolic story of his childhood. These ideals were what he had to do as a child to survive and be the fittest. This W voyage is a story of his childhood, and his brain is using what he can to remember his childhood by creating the memories into “fictional” stories that aren’t really fiction at all. The way it jumped back from story to story made it harder to follow along, but it made them feel more connected. If we simply just read the W story and then his memoir, I feel that the effect of the two stories forming and creating each other would not be as apparent. My question for this text is, do you think the author decided to include alternating chapters to connect the stories more in the text? And How do you think this helped shape the story’s themes/similarities to be more connected?
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with childhood, confusion, fiction, memory loss, ptsd, war
The W or Memory of Childhood is a book with two stories, the first being W, and the second being The Memory of Childhood. W was a fantastic story of a man who was on the search for a boy but came across a mysterious island (W) and quickly emerged into their society. W is not the pretty island we think, however. Their morals and sins are based on a game like the “Olympics,” and people must survive, but only the fittest do. This shocked me, and the details in the story made the island come to life. The second story is a memoir of Perec’s past childhood. He is confused because he has many gaps in his memory and cannot remember his childhood clearly. This fogginess is something that I believe definitely is from PTSD from the war and violence when he was a child. I learned in my psychology class that the brain would adapt and forget specific memories if they are too painful and cause a blockage in your memory. This is apparent in Perec’s story as he continuously mentions how he forgets and doesn’t remember his childhood exactly. He believes he has a vague idea of his childhood but cannot put the pieces together. It’s like looking through foggy glasses, and most things are blurry, but no matter what you do, they never clear up. I tried to figure out how the two stories were connected while reading, and it was so confusing. Until I came across this quote, “when I was thirteen I made up a story … [It] was called W and it was, in a way, if not the story of my childhood, then at least a story of my childhood.” After that, I realized that the story of W is not complete but like a symbolic story of his childhood. These ideals were what he had to do as a child to survive and be the fittest. This W voyage is a story of his childhood, and his brain is using what he can to remember his childhood by creating the memories into “fictional” stories that aren’t really fiction at all. The way it jumped back from story to story made it harder to follow along, but it made them feel more connected. If we simply just read the W story and then his memoir, I feel that the effect of the two stories forming and creating each other would not be as apparent. My question for this text is, do you think the author decided to include alternating chapters to connect the stories more in the text? And How do you think this helped shape the story’s themes/similarities to be more connected?
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with childhood, confusion, fiction, memory loss, ptsd, war
I unfortunately found this weeks reading to be a bit more difficult to follow than other books we read so far. Not so much in regards to difficult language or translation discrepancies, but rather the multiple storylines that took place throughout the book. In all honesty, I found it quite confusing and found myself having to reread certain passages and pages. From what I gathered, Georges attempts to recall memories from his childhood, while intertwining stories and scenarios from the present.
An initial thought I had after reading the first few chapters, was that it reminded me of our first reading, Swann’s way. In this book, Marcel reflects on his past, specifically childhood and what his relationship was like with his mother and father at the time. I found similarities with this reading, as Georges tries to scrap together memories of his parents before they both perished due to different circumstances during the war. Though most of Georges memories didn’t specifically connect with one another, I found some quite interesting while i felt others were a bit boring. I think part of the reason why I may have found some of these boring is because they seemed to lack emotional depth. In Swann’s Way, for example, Marcel talks about how upset the neglect of his mother made him. With a lot of emotional detail, I truly felt for the character. However, with this reading, I felt as though i was reading descriptions of people or events without receiving much detail on the authors feelings. Which seemed odd to me considering memories are something very personal.
I question if this lack of detail as well as his lack of memory might have something to do with the circumstances under which his parents died. As just a young boy he had to the mourn the loss of both his parents. His father died in the war, and his mother died in the holocaust. Im thinking it’s possible that because of all the chaos and emotional stress he had endured, he lacks memory.
The main thing that has me greatly confused throughout the novel is the multiple storylines and how different they were from one another. Im not too sure how Georges encounter with Otto tied in with his childhood memories, as well as the story of W.
My question for the class: do you think Georges vague memories could be trauma related?
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, holocaust, memories, war
I unfortunately found this weeks reading to be a bit more difficult to follow than other books we read so far. Not so much in regards to difficult language or translation discrepancies, but rather the multiple storylines that took place throughout the book. In all honesty, I found it quite confusing and found myself having to reread certain passages and pages. From what I gathered, Georges attempts to recall memories from his childhood, while intertwining stories and scenarios from the present.
An initial thought I had after reading the first few chapters, was that it reminded me of our first reading, Swann’s way. In this book, Marcel reflects on his past, specifically childhood and what his relationship was like with his mother and father at the time. I found similarities with this reading, as Georges tries to scrap together memories of his parents before they both perished due to different circumstances during the war. Though most of Georges memories didn’t specifically connect with one another, I found some quite interesting while i felt others were a bit boring. I think part of the reason why I may have found some of these boring is because they seemed to lack emotional depth. In Swann’s Way, for example, Marcel talks about how upset the neglect of his mother made him. With a lot of emotional detail, I truly felt for the character. However, with this reading, I felt as though i was reading descriptions of people or events without receiving much detail on the authors feelings. Which seemed odd to me considering memories are something very personal.
I question if this lack of detail as well as his lack of memory might have something to do with the circumstances under which his parents died. As just a young boy he had to the mourn the loss of both his parents. His father died in the war, and his mother died in the holocaust. Im thinking it’s possible that because of all the chaos and emotional stress he had endured, he lacks memory.
The main thing that has me greatly confused throughout the novel is the multiple storylines and how different they were from one another. Im not too sure how Georges encounter with Otto tied in with his childhood memories, as well as the story of W.
My question for the class: do you think Georges vague memories could be trauma related?
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, holocaust, memories, war
