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
This novel confronts the theme of memory quite differently than the others we’ve previously read. Most of the texts I’d read before this speak from a point of memory, past-tense, and experience, whereas Perec approached memories that weren’t there. It brought an alternate perspective of how some have the privilege of accessing and reflecting on […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, France, hesitation, holocaust, loss, memory, Romance text, trauma, uncertainty, war
Much like my post on Black Shack Alley, I will format my post according to the parts of the book. I’ll also be updating this as I move through each part before I do a brief concluding reflection at the end. Reflection on Part I Unfortunately, I do not have quite as much to […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, holocaust, humanity, loss, memory, parallel narrative, postmodernism, reflection, remembering, war, writing
