This week’s reading of W or The Memory of Childhood was reflective and insightful about the author’s experience. At the start of the book, I was confused for a while about the significance of the second story about Gaspard Winkler, but as the story of W progressed I was able to start comparing it to Perec’s experience. I loved the style the author wrote this novel in. The autobiography paired with the fictional island of W gave the text different elements that provide the reader more to think about.
The narration from Perec’s perspective showed fragments of his childhood memories. He lost both of his parents to World War II at a very young age. I think the trauma caused him to repress his memories as he was often not sure about all the specifics in his own memories. A lot of the language in this narrative was hesitant, words like vague, hazy, and many I don’t remember or I don’t recall. The author says it himself on page 68, “What marks this period especially is the absence of landmarks: these memories are scraps of life snatched from the void. No mooring. Nothing to anchor them or hold them down. Almost no way of ratifying them. No sequence in time, except as I have reconstructed it arbitrarily over the years.”
In the second narrative the army deserter, Gaspard Winckler journeys to the island W, where a brutal version of the Olympic games takes place. This story combined with Perec’s life story highlights the fight for survival so many people, Perec included had to face. The brutality and cruelty in these games, I think, are somewhat of a metaphor for the concentration camps and the treatment of the Jewish people along with the other prisoners held by the Nazis. While reading about the W it seems impossible or only fiction for a society to function as this one does. I was slow to understand why it was even in this book, but from the middle, towards the end, it became clear that W was referencing power relations and the extent of oppression groups of people can be shown by other groups. On the last page, the excerpt from David Rousset’s Univers concentrationnaire we see that the harsh reality Perec illustrates in the fictional W is taken directly from real events.
My question for the class is: How does comparing the conditions faced in WW2 to W help Perec or the reader process these events?
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with life, memory, power, war
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 …
Continue reading “Georges Perec “W, or the Memory of Childhood””
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
The Time of the Doves by Mercé Rodoreda is definitely a heart-wrenching book, and challenging to read at times (well, I mean basically all of the time). There is little to be happy about in this book, and the times that are happy, you can probably count on two hands. Nevertheless, I think that the […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with Catalan, class, development, doves, Femininity, gender, growth, merce Rodoreda, narrator, Natalia, Quimet, reflection, regret, sadness, self-discovery, Spain, The Time of The Doves, war, Weekly Book Blog
The time of the Doves by M. Rodoreda follows the story of Natalia, and the tumultuous tale of romance, war and the harsh realities that grip her life. In the first half of the book, I was often left feeling confused … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with commodification, despair, inorganic structures, isolation, war
This week I read “the Time of The Doves” by Merce Rodoreda. I found this book to be a great read. Throughout the novel I felt a sense of deep empathy for Natalia the main character. Without her mother around and with an unsupportive father, Natalia was lead/forced into many decisions throughout her life time […]
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with relationships, war
I found this text to be enlightening and thought-provoking. For me, Rodoreda’s writing style was sometimes over-descriptive, but often it made the story more sensual and poetic. Overall, this text was a fairly simple read; I didn’t have to try hard to understand the meaning behind the scenes as I did in some of the […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with Mercè Rodoreda The Time of the Doves, survival, war
My initial reactions throughout the first two thirds of Mercé Rodoreda’s “The Time of the Doves” was one of a character whose agency is constantly in question. The novel is structured almost as though our protagonist Natalia is simply recounting the events of her life. As the narrator, she often describes events in her life […]
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with Acid, agency, Apathy, doves, war
I chose The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda for this week’s text. I found this book really interesting to read from Natalia’s perspective. I felt very sympathetic towards her because she was trapped in these circumstances with no way of escapi…
Posted in Blogs, Rodoreda | Tagged with class, family, relationships, war
