ok,since no one will talk about murakami,how about perec

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i tried to revive his ile thread but i don't think it worked
i just finished life:a users manual
i thought it was an astonishing book,and i had no idea about all the little tricks and so on going on in it,i only heard about this oulipo situation after i finished it...
so,other than the chess piece thing,what have i missed in it?

― robin (robin), Thursday, 25 December 2003 01:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Georges Perec: c/d, s/d

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 December 2003 12:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw yr post robin but I had nothing to say to it.

and then I saw amelie last night and I am not sure I quite get the connection but then again I read 'life...' a few months back so I might need to refresh the memory.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 26 December 2003 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

don't worry julio i was only joking
i saw that ile thread (just had another look,i actually posted to it)but i thought i'd try and get some discussion going here...
the amelie connection is a bit tenuous,but i think both try to focus on little incidents and particular incidents in otherwise anonymous lives and find something interesting/beautiful/sad/etc about them
both have an almost hyperactive desire to draw things together,to record all human life,and both have a similar joy and curiosity,and of course the parisian atmosphere in both is quite evocative...

― robin (robin), Saturday, 27 December 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with you, robin, about the amelie connection. "life" is quite good, as is his essay "species of spaces." have you read that?

i have the essay in the penguin edition with some other shorter works which vary between really interesting and excessively formal and trite (like where he lists everything he ate in one year). i think i'd feel the same way about "a void" (i.e. formal and trite), but i'm impressed both that he wrote it, and that someone translated it into english.

p.s. what "tricks" in "life" are you talking about?

― Matt B. (Matt B.), Saturday, 27 December 2003 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I've got the collected works of georges perec but they're in french so I haven't quite tackled them yet. I do have Gilbert Adair's translation of A Void, which I'm also looking forward to reading.

Oulipo - c/d?

― Catty (Catty), Sunday, 28 December 2003 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

OuLiPo: Scour and Discombobulate

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

matt-i don't know how much you know about perec,but the oulipo thing mentioned above is a group of writers he was involved in who would set each other tasks to incorporate into their novels (eg a novel without the letter "e")
appearently life: is the ultimate example of this,with loads of little tricks,allusions,etc,the only one i know of being the fact that the way the narrative moves around the building is based on a mathematical problem in which you are meant to try to land on all pieces on a chess board using only the moves available to a knight-i presume without going backwards....
i don't know what the other tricks are,although i do know characters from other novels and from history are in the book...
if anyone can elaborate please do..
i haven't read anything else by perec,although i look foreward to doing so...
i have my suspicions about a void as well,but people who have read it have said it easily transcends the gimmick....

― robin (robin), Sunday, 28 December 2003 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Robin you might like to look out for David Bellos's biography of Perec, "A Life In Words". Funnily enough I saw several copies of this for three pounds each in a remainder bookshop in Birmingham the other day but couldn't think of anyone who'd want a copy (or another copy...). It's a thick old volume but goes into some detail about the Oulipian 'scaffolding' GP uses for LAUM.

"A Void" is by some distance the GP thing I like least. It seems to me the piece where technique overshadows everything else.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 29 December 2003 11:12 (twenty-one years ago)

tim- could you get me a copy?

I got quite tired of reading 'a void' towards the end.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:36 (twenty-one years ago)

if you're still in birmingham.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 29 December 2003 13:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I was in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago, for a period of less than four hours. Sorry.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 29 December 2003 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't say sorry, quickly is how Birmingham is most profitably taken in.

(This contains no citation of -- voids, in fact -- a common linguistic sign.)

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Oops! ~~taken in~~ known.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Valiant try, sir. Your mishap only highlights your charming humanity.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

which symbol to avoid?
"A Void" was not singular.

― Catty (Catty), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

it truly wasn't -- try Gadsby by Wright, which stood for forty-odd autumns without rival. (thanks douglas h. for turning so many (including yours truly) onto such curios of writing)

― j. pantsman (jpantsman), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 05:54 (twenty-one years ago)

this is fucking hard.

....

― Catty (Catty), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 09:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Should I read Life: ... first or the Perec biography?

― adam michel (adam michel), Thursday, 8 January 2004 03:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd never read a biography of someone without first knowing their work,so for that reason i'd say read life first,but even aside from that,i just read life without any prior knowledge and really loved it...
i intend to read the biography and then maybe read it again when i know more about it,but for the moment i'd advise just diving in...

― robin (robin), Thursday, 8 January 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

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