This week’s novel, W, or the Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec, contains two alternating texts. The author claims these two texts merge together into one to tell a story that can’t be told without the other. At first, I thought it was an interesting idea, especially since one of the texts is an autobiography, while the second one is imaginary. I was intrigued to see how these two seemingly unrelated texts could merge together to tell a story. 

The first part of the entirely imaginary text talked about how the narrator was “the only living memory” (4), whereas the autobiography immediately started with how the narrator had “no childhood memories” (6). After reading these two beginning parts with contrasting lines, it seemed like the narrator in the autobiography text had a traumatic childhood which may have caused him to repress his childhood memories to the point that he no longer had memories of it. Or perhaps he has locked up those memories somewhere deep down because it would’ve been too painful to remember it. Due to this impression, I initially thought that the imaginary text was going to be a different reality that was filled with childhood memories for the narrator. Although, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Instead, the story was focused on the Olympics that took place on an island that seemed like a complete nightmare due to the significant difference between how the government treated the winners and the “losers.” 

The narrator’s repression of his childhood memories, a way of his defense mechanism, seemed to have caused him to have a lack of identity as he doesn’t remember his memories as a child, much less his own identity in childhood. I felt bad with the way he was frustrated with himself due to his lack of childhood memories, but his frustration and struggles also contradict with a popularly known phrase, “ignorance is bliss.” The readers are aware that the phrase may not be the case for the narrator, which I found was interesting (although still tragic) to see that phrase from a different perspective where ignorance isn’t bliss. As I find that it seems more common for people and characters to wish that they didn’t find out about a particular truth because it had a significant effect on them. Thus, it was interesting to see that perhaps it’s better to be aware than be kept in the dark. 

A question I have for my classmates is: do you agree with the author that this story can only be told with the two alternating texts? Could this story exist with only one of the texts?