W or The Memory of Childhood

Georges Perec’s W or the Memory of Childhood examines themes of memory, childhood, and war through two unique separate stories. Perec introduces a lot of intriguing connections to his real-life experiences through a very creative way of storytelling, and I found that making these connections made the experience of reading this book a lot more captivating. Though the themes of war are clearly present in this book, I was particularly moved by the way Perec wrote his story about the childhood trauma and how that eventually lead to his loss, or perhaps repression, of early memories. One quote from part one of the book that I highlighted depicts this particular theme: 

“I took comfort in such an absence of history: its objective crispness, its apparent obviousness, its innocence protected me; but what did they protect me from, if not precisely from my history, the story of my living, my real story, my own story, which presumably was neither crisp nor objective, nor apparently obvious, nor obviously innocent?” (P.6) 

It is clear that the author was unable to gain a real assured identity because of his difficult upbringing and thus was forced to create these memories from the little fragments he has left and fill in those gaps by himself. Furthermore, the island of W also contained a lot of connections to Nazi concentration camps as it reassured the idea of “survival of the fittest”. The Olympic sport mentioned in the book had winners get food and other basic necessities while those who lost are left with nothing. This oppressive nature really ties into the traumatic lifelong memories this kind of upbringing can have. 

My overall thoughts on this book are that it felt more personal and immersive because of the deep connections it had with the author. With the other books I’ve read from this class thus far, though some had connections with the author’s life as well, I found this one to be more unique in its incorporation of a very personal story. Georges Perec was able to deliver a story with heavy themes creatively. Though some parts of the book felt long and sometimes difficult to grasp, this did not take away from the substantial matters Perec was trying to convey. 

My only question is: Do you personally experience some memory gaps in your childhood and do you think it’s important to be able to discern what these missing pieces are?