Björn recenserade Three by Perec (Verba Mundi) av Georges Perec
None
3 stjärnor
Which Moped With Chrome-plated Handlebars At The Back Of The Yard?
Early novella, and it shows, which isn't necessarily bad; this is Perec just finding his voice after his debut Things, taking a simple story of a soldier trying to get out of going to Alger and bombarding it with rhetorical and narrative devices until the story groans, creaks and gasps for breath. A bit too in love with its own quirkiness at times - it's not just the plot that reminds me of Alice's Restaurant - but good fun.
The Exeter Text
Yep, the novella written using no other vowels than all the E:s left over after he finished A Void. I was almost prepared to dismiss this as unreadable, on first glance I just saw eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee all over every page, but it's actually not bad. Yes, the story is far more of a dancing bear (ie you …
Which Moped With Chrome-plated Handlebars At The Back Of The Yard?
Early novella, and it shows, which isn't necessarily bad; this is Perec just finding his voice after his debut Things, taking a simple story of a soldier trying to get out of going to Alger and bombarding it with rhetorical and narrative devices until the story groans, creaks and gasps for breath. A bit too in love with its own quirkiness at times - it's not just the plot that reminds me of Alice's Restaurant - but good fun.
The Exeter Text
Yep, the novella written using no other vowels than all the E:s left over after he finished A Void. I was almost prepared to dismiss this as unreadable, on first glance I just saw eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee all over every page, but it's actually not bad. Yes, the story is far more of a dancing bear (ie you don't expect the bear to dance well, but it's impressive that he dances at all) than A Void, there are bits that are sillier than others and I obviously can't vouch for how faithful the translation or even the concept of it is, but it's intriguing to see how far Perec (& transl) can stretch the rules of grammar and pronunciation to werk, and I have to love that Perec starts out with such a perverse (hmmm...?) high concept and then actually has it turn into pure pernegrephee by the end.
A Gallery Portrait
Brilliant little slight of hand, which may or may not be a companion piece to Life: A User's Manual but stands (or rather hangs) fine on its own. A private art collector holds a show of all his collected paintings, centered around a newly commissioned painting of himself sitting among the same paintings hung on the other walls... then that painting is destroyed, the others removed from the public eye to not suffer the same fate, and over the years their reputation and possibly value climb as a result, and the story increasingly takes the form of a catalogue... but wait, was that really what happened? Perec the forger is in perfect form, playing with images and ascribed meanings before pulling the other one.