I really really really liked this book. W, or the Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec is part traditional novel, part autobiography, part whatever Perec felt like writing and damn convention. The novel revolves around two disparate narrative, one being autobiographical anecdotes from his childhood both with his parents and as a refugee. The second being a fictionalized island “utopia” that’s entire society is based around athletics, as the 4 villages of the island compete constantly in track and field events. I really enjoyed the interplay between the two narratives and think it was one of the best parts of this novel. The slow reversal of the rules and every increasing cruelty of the W’s Society and the way it was used allegorically in part 2 was quite striking and left the most impact on me. For the autobiographical sections I think the lack of convention is truly a strength. Memory is inherently a patchy and incomplete tapestry of our lives with often varying degrees of accuracy. Usually novel of this type would be carefully corroborated and edited with any records that the specific author would have. But Perec just allows the way he remembers things, errors and all, to flow onto the page. Furthermore the use of references/footnotes on his own work as a writing convention to me is really cool. Perec allowing himself to comment on his own writing within his own text, and not just to provide further information but amending and commentating on a previous point in his life is really cool. I was really intrigued with the fact that in part two he specifically remembers breaking a clavicle yet on connecting with an old classmate Perec realizes that it was actually their mutual friend and indeed not him that broke a bone. As an aside does anyone else have similar experiences in which we vividly remember something that turns out to have not happened? What is especially revealing throughout these memory sections to me is how he reflects on the brief time he had with his parents and the immediate aftermath of becoming a refugee. Other than the clear patchwork of anecdotes that we are given the in-between sections of Perec’s childhood feel clouded and hazy, there are no specifics. Losing parents and becoming a refugee is an incredibly traumatic experience and through this we see the brain’s coping mechanism kick in, making memory from a traumatic time in one’s life fuzzy and indistinct. Overall very good 8.4/10
Romance Things with Ross
RMST 202
Hi! It is great to hear that you loved the unconventional method of the book. I think the use of footnotes really personalized this work.
Regarding your point on memories, you are absolutely right. Memories are very deceiving. I recall hearing that each time you remember something you are actually remembering the last time you remembered that event. This means aside from the key points you recall from the memory, you are making it much more inaccurate by adding in details and altering your memories. So to answer your question, technically all of our memories are probably very inaccurate compared to reality.
Hi Ross!
I really enjoyed your blog post! I completely agree that memory is so complicated and selective. I thought that Perec’s ability to just tell his story the way he remembered it without feeling the need to find the “truth” of his story was really powerful and honored his past. To answer your question, I can’t think of an exact example but I definitely feel like I have memories that may or may not be true or potentially half true.
Hi! I definitely think that memories can be false. The most common example of this is how I find myself forgetting or mixing up people who were present in certain memories.
Hi! I can definitely see your point of view. i do believe that memories can be remembered falsely. I do have this happen a lot of times during significant events that may have happened to a family member or a friend, that i has remembered to have happened to me.
Hi Ross! I really like your post. It’s cool to read that you liked the style of having two narratives going on at once because personally, I really disliked that part of the book. I agree with you though about appreciating the appropriate representation of the fickleness of memory. This stood out to me as well, and I think we are all victims to our memories.
Hi Ross!
Great post. Yes I totally feel like his memory could have been twisted due to him being so young when it happened and also maybe being traumatized from it. The island did seem like a Utopia at first because it was described in such an abstract way
Hi Ross,
I agree with the parts where you speak of him flowing everything onto the page errors and all. I think that’s what made it both challenging but relatable to read the novel because it was like reading a journal but also had that sense of candid venting that showed in both the fantasy and memories chapters
Hi Ross,
I really enjoy the points you propose in this blog post. I really like the point you make about the facts that many memories are fragmented and is kind of similar to how Perec wrote the narrator’s retelling of the memories. I want to mention the aside thing that you bring up, because that absolutely happens to me all of the time! Its always the little bits and pieces that we forget, or somehow our brains fill in spaces for us and convince us that they’re ABSOLUTELY true!
Hi Ross,
I really enjoyed your post and the way that you depicted the use of memories that Perec writes about. I also found it really interesting the way that he remembered things differently from the way they happened or the way he didn’t remember things at all. To answer your question, I definitely do have memories that I remember differently than the way they happened, as I think feeling and our subconscious thoughts can often change our view of events.
Hi hi
I also found the way Perec did not perfect his memories and instead sorta annotated them really cool. It added an interesting layer of narrative to it all.