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
Although I thought that this ended up being a great book, I didn’t particularly like the writing style that this book was done in. The double narration sometimes made story details and characters feel blurred together between the two stories that were being told. This made it very hard for me to become interested and […]
Posted in Blogs, Perec | Tagged with childhood, memory, nostalgia, trauma, war
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
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
