This week, I read Georges Perec, W, or the Memory of Childhood a story about two characters, alternating between chapters. I found this style of narrative interesting because we can better compare the two. I expected the book to be confusing with two narratives, but Perec did a great job of making it clear and easy to read. While reading the second narrative of Gaspard Winkler, I sensed that some of the conditions being told had an underlying meaning that related to the first narrative of Perec. It was clear both the characters are going through their separate journeys but share a lot in common by witnessing similar conditions.
It was sad to read about the narrator trying so hard to remember his childhood memories. I felt a strong sense of displacement that the narrator was feeling from the impacts of the war. With the narrator being born in 1936, he spent many of his developmental years in the fear that being impacted by the second World War brings. Living in those circumstances and growing up in that environment has left him shattered as he tries to pick up the pieces and form memories from vague moments and photographs. This story could be one of many children at that time losing their parents, living in fear, and being too young to even understand why.
In the book, the narrator takes us to the island W where a similar competition like the Olympics takes place. This island W reflects the Nazi’s organized death camps. In the narrator’s interpretation of this island W, the competitors who win get awarded with food, the competitors who lose get nothing and starve, making them weaker. This creates a continuous cycle of the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. It is a game of luck and misconduct that reflects the treatment of those suffering at the hands of the Nazi takeover.
I was unaware and found it shocking that the summer Olympics were hosted in Berlin in 1936, known as the Nazi Olympics. I was shocked when I searched it up and found out that such a huge event like the Olympics was held during these horrific times, especially in Germany. For this to occur, it showed such a lack of humanity and no recognition of the injustices.
My question for the class is: How do the two narratives compare regarding the two men witnessing and being a part of injustice in their environment?
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with life, memory, postmodernism
I have to start by saying this book is nothing like any book I have read before in the fact that there aren’t just two stories going on, but one being an autobiography and the other being fiction. In saying this, I did not enjoy the stories as much as I was hoping to, as …
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The very first emotion when I finished this reading was enjoyment and a little excitement. Because the book takes readers through fluctuational stories along with emotional up and down. The book consists of two storylines; a fictional story about an island called “W” and a story based on the narrator’s own childhood memory. The contrast […]
This week I read W, or the Memory of Childhood. The structure of this novel was very unique, two books in one. As readers, we were challenged to see how the two fit together and decide if they did at … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with memory, personal history, trauma
Georges Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood reveals the irreparable experience of trauma in rather mysterious ways. When reading it, I feel that the entire novel is associated with a special technique frequently used in filmmaking, named montage. Perec used different locations, perspectives, and narrative methods to enhance the willingness of the readers’ deep […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, memory, politics, power
If I were to pick a word that reflects this story, I would choose “remember”. The narrator uses the word remember consistently throughout this book to introduce his certainty about a specific memory, for example: “I have a vague memory” “I don’t have a precise memory” “I do not remember” “I can hardly remember”, all […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with identity, memory, remember, war
This book was beautiful and vivid! It was truly a pleasant read for me. The run-on sentences had me stumble a few times, but made for truly lively imagery. My favourite line of imagery is ‘a drop of oil would run straight down her back’ (p. 169). At the end, I was wondering how Natalia’s […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with memory, thetimeofthedoves
I decided to look up the author, as I do with most of what I read, and was surprised to find that Françoise Sagan was only 18 years old when she published Bonjour Tristesse. Also that it was her first novel and is her most popular novel ever published. This was inspiring to find. That […]
Posted in Blogs, Laforet, Sagan | Tagged with confidence, empowerment, France, memory, modernism, modernity, Romance text, sexuality, teenage thoughts, teenager
Hi Everyone! I am going to be reflecting on Bombal’s The Shrouded Woman in this week’s post. I have to…
Posted in Blogs, Bombal, Proust | Tagged with memory, reflective, thoughts
