“W, or the Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec immediately struck me in its incredibly inventive form of storytelling. The idea of weaving together two narratives was fascinating to me, especially considering that it was not intertwining the narratives of two characters inhabiting the same world, but rather it was combining a pseudo autobiographical account of the author’s life with wholly fictional narratives that Perec had seemingly been thinking about and concocting over an extended period of time. While admittedly I found Perec’s prose to drag on in places (which may have simply been impatience as a reader on my part), I found that this form was interesting as it led to a great deal of interpretation on my end as I would try to find ways in which the narratives could coalesce, be they thematically, emotionally, narratively, or otherwise. Much in the way Paris Peasant’s style informs its substance, I believe that these particular stylistic decisions inform much of what makes W such a fascinating read. It also brings up debates around media and “style over substance”, which briefly states that stylistic choices that may appear vapid are always inferior to substantive prose or narrative heft. Novels like Paris Peasant and W, in my view, are testaments to the fact that style can BE substance, as the individual aspects of W often feel fragmentary and incomplete, however when presented in a manner such that one must consider the fragments as forming a narrative collage, the fragments then become a puzzle whose individual pieces are arranged in a way that create a vivid image. Having said all this the image presented in W is multiform and multifaceted, as it tackles a variety of subjects such as the ambiguity in memory and imagination, the breakdown of strict social hierarchy into barbarism and chaos, and the nature of identity. This disparity fits into the postmodern art movement that Perec operated in, in which there is no clear explanatory narrative that seamlessly blends each element together, however as previously stated the connections can still be parsed in the margins and in the comparisons. The connections between the memories and imagination are not explicitly stated, but they are distinctly felt. They are felt in the way our narrator grapples with memory and personal history just as the character known as Winckler discusses his given name. They are felt in the way our narrator tries to grasp at memories of a life seemingly lost to him from the destruction of the second world war as we are given a meticulous tour of a society where ‘might makes right’ and barbarism triumphs. This is best exemplified by the ellipsis that separates the two distinct parts of the book, which can be interpreted in many ways, but is a deliberate stylistic decision that does not distract from or exist outside of the substance of the novel, but is rather inexplicably linked to the novels substance, using the ellipsis to signal to the audience that nothing more will be said in this section. Nothing more about identity? imagination or memories? what about the rest of the text? It is a stylistic element meant to embellish, yes, but also to be substantive, to make you think.

My question to those reading is your opinion in the “style vs. substance” debate? Do you think good stylistic elements do not improve art that seemingly lacks in substance or does the style inform substance? What stylistic elements of W stood out to you?