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