This work from Georges Perec was a ‘break’ from the others that we have been reading. I found his style of storytelling to be refreshing from the others with its short chapters and concise descriptions. At the beginning, with the worrying over the letter in chapter 3, I thought ‘great, another over-thinker’, but was pleasantly surprised. My favourite line, which I will definitely be using, was ‘I re-read the books I love and I love the books I re-read’ from page 143.
The ways in which he draws on his childhood memories was interesting to me. Firstly, describing childhood as a ‘set of co-ordinates from which the axes of my life may draw their meaning’ (p. 12) was a precursor for the rest of the work. This is seen in the fragmented memories and the parallels to the Olympics. On page 115, Perec recalls knowledge he acquired about trees attached to specific memories. This encapsulated his very realistic recollection for me as I, too, am reminded of particular memories attached to specific facts, no matter how much time has passed or how many times I’ve been reminded. Another line that captured the human nature of memory recollection was ‘virtually as I wrote up these three memories, a fourth came back to me’ (p. 54). This demonstrated the dynamism of memory and recounting, the fluidity over factuality.
On page 32, he mentions that he believes his mother ‘learnt to be a hairdresser’ which reminded me of the Proust quote about the construction of memories. Perec later says ‘writing is the memory of their death and the assertion of my life’ (p. 42) which, again, reminded me of ‘the artist escapes the tyranny of time through art’ from Proust. In addition, Perec writes a narrative of memories and then adds footnotes correcting all of these memories starting on page 34. The amalgamation of these illustrates how with time, we can create our own realities through our memories. The reconstruction of our memories, details added or omitted, can transform what was once our living reality. Yet, why is his memory of childhood ‘more accurate’ as an adult than when he was a child, much closer to the events actually occurring?
Hi, great blog post! To answer your question, I believe the author intentionally left out the specific details of his childhood memory but focus more on how he felt at that time and what impact his experience has caused him. For instance, he mentions about how his entire family was consistently concealing their Jewish identities from the grandparent’s generation, such as changing names, enrolling to Christian schools etc, and how this impacted his later decision to use Gaspard’s identity for survival.
Hi Jada,
To answer your question, I wouldn’t say that his adult memories are more accurate, but he tries to reconstruct the fact through memories, research, photos. Still, I think pointing to the impossibility of representing it as it exactly was.