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 follow along at the start of the book. I found myself constantly what details where about his real childhood and what details came from the imaginary island and story about W. That being said… this was still great and deeply nostalgic book.

A common theme throughout the novel was a deep feeling and sense of nostalgia and memory. Many times throughout the book it was admitted that the author isn’t sure about and often times completely forgets gaps and details about his childhood. I find it interesting to see how a persons childhood can be vastly forgotten even though all of those experiences are what helped turn you into the person you are today. Because of Perec’s large gaps in memory it makes me wonder what things we as the reader are missing out on hearing from the story. It also makes me wonder how accurate this story is considering how often Perec questions the details he is trying to recount. I find this to be an interesting concept because if a person doesn’t remember elements of their past or doesn’t remember certain things correctly does that then have the power to change a persons development. Can misremembering your history have an impact on your personality the same way that going through those life experiences gave you your personality in the first place? Perec expresses a sort of comfort and clean slate type of feeling that comes with not having many memories past a certain point. I find it interesting that he would describe not having memories as making him feel this way because for me personally I feel like I would be incomplete and always searching for the missing pieces. However in Perec’s case this makes a bit more sense considering that the trauma and extreme stress that the war and Nazi invasions had caused him as child. Going through something traumatic like that would no doubt make your body want to block out any memory from that time period as a way to heal and move on. My question for the class is: Do you Perec forgetting most of his childhood would reflect on his current development of who he is as a person or not?