The fantastical imagery used throughout the book when transitioning, or barely so, between the memories made me feel as though I was seeing things in through a haze. Almost dream-like state, but a little clearer than Proust’s Combray.
When I first began reading, I was immediately hooked on to the writing style that Perec used by combining short descriptive words and phrases in succession to set the scene in an almost rushed state. I almost got a little bit of adrenaline. The change in fonts really helped to keep the two stories distinct, especially since I often found myself getting confused between the two and having to go flip through some previous pages to make sense of where I had reached in the chronology. It’s clear that the author is trying to put his memories into words but there are gaps in how the entire memory runs through. It’s like the alphabet but with missing letters. Even though it was a little confusing for the me to stick through when the stories would switch, I realized the duality of these narratives and how both are almost mirroring themselves but in parallel universes. The reason behind the disconnect is even stated in one part of the book when addressing earliest memories where it says that “the many variations and imaginary details I have added in the telling of them – in speech or in writing – have altered them greatly, if not completely distorted them,” (pg. 13). The author is well aware of what happened to the earliest memories and since he is recalling a time from the good old youthful days, there are bound to be some alterations there too. In fact, in psychology, there is a phenomenon where it states that the more you recall and remember a memory, the more it becomes inauthentic and altered. The author focuses one story mostly around this phenomenon and his childhood memories which after a while started to feel. more repetitive to me. The other story that focused on W, the island, gave me a very eerie feeling because it started off fairly calm, but as the story progressed, it got more and more disturbing. Left me with a very negative, icky feeling. In fact, it reminded me of a story I read early on during high school which had a similar island theme. Lord of the flies also starts off childish but gradually gets really gruesome, dark, and very disturbing, much like how a part of this book did.
Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this book because it made me feel confused, but also made me keep a lookout for the common themes that may be in the books we’ve read up until now and with other books that I’ve read on my own.
Something to think about: How much of an impact do you think the war has had on Perec’s writing style? Do you think that’s what makes his writing stand out so well?
