DOCSLIB.ORG

In the Fiction of Georges Perec

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
In the Fiction of Georges Perec Designing Theory: Social Space(s) in the Fiction of Georges Perec Christopher Campbell, 18 July 2013 B.A. English Literature (Earned) M.S. Architecture (Conferred) School of Architecture & Interior Design College of Design, Architecture, Art, & Planning A thesis submitted to the Graduate School at the University of Cincinnati Committee Chair: John Hancock The presence of spatial theory in the domain of academic disciplines can be easily overlooked, perhaps discrediting the relevance of interdisciplinary studies. A case in point can be made about fiction writing, an art form which clearly demonstrates the process of generating imaginative spaces and buildings in order to evoke the social conditions experienced by human beings. This thesis looks at writer Georges Perec and theorist Henri Lefebvre, and highlights an obvious similarity in their ideas of space, albeit one in theoretical writing and the other fictional. A cross-interpretation of Perec’s fiction with reference to Lefebvre’s theory can help us identify how social spaces in fiction, specifically, are created as a story is written. This can be demonstrated by juxtaposing the settings, characterizations, and narrative voices of Perec’s novels Things: A Story of the Sixties and Life A User’s Manual. If this link between the theory of social space and the craft of fiction can be exemplified, the potential for using fiction as a means to critique humans in their built environment may become more effective. Theoretical underpinnings, by example of this study, can be creatively rendered. More generally, this project intends to demonstrate that spatial theory can and does appear across disciplinary boundaries. i ii For my dad iii Table of Contents Preface 1 The Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle (OuLiPo) & Georges Perec 4 Henri Lefebvre & Social Space(s) 13 Methodology 20 Setting 27 Characterization 35 Narrative Voice 40 Concluding Remarks 46 iv Preface “Yes, it could begin like this.” - from Life A User’s Manual, Georges Perec A high school math instructor first convinced me that space and literature are not mutually exclusive. He demonstrated this by having me read Flatland (1884), a fictional novella by Edwin A. Abbott, featuring the narrator and protagonist A Square. Along with his wife and children, A Square lives in the Two Dimensional world of the same name as the book’s title. Upon a chance encounter with a ‘Stranger from Spaceland,’ he comes to see that there exists a Three Dimensional world. Following this discovery, A Square sets out to document his findings in an effort to reveal to his fellow Flatlanders the extent to which reality can take form. He writes: With the view of evading the Law, if possible, I spoke not of a physical Dimension, but of a Thoughtland whence, in theory, a Figure could look down upon Flatland and see simultaneously the insides of all things, and where it was possible that there might be supposed to exist a Figure environed, as it were, with six Squares, and containing eight terminal Points. But in writing this book I found myself sadly hampered by the impossibility of drawing such diagrams as were necessary for my purpose; for of course, in our country of Flatland, there are no tablets but Lines, and no diagrams but Lines, all in one straight Line and only distinguishable by difference of size and brightness; so that, when I had finished my treatise (which I entitled ‘Through Flatland to Thoughtland’) I could not feel certain that many would understand my meaning.1 Unable to properly diagram an additional dimension of space, A Square does, at least, apply his ability to explain its properties. The novella ends with the government of Flatland jailing A Square for writing such polemical material, leaving him a sad martyr who claims, “These very tablets on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of Flatland itself, appear no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.”2 1 Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 114. 2 Ibid., 118. 1 Figure 1.1 A diagram of A Square's home, taken from Flatland. The drama of Flatland’s narrative aside, there is something to be said about its suggestion that the social conditions of alternate dimensions can be written about from the varying perspectives of a point, a line, a cube, and so forth; understand, for instance, that both A Square and the Stranger from Spaceland can ‘read’ the world of Three Dimensions as a composition of one-dimensional points and two-dimensional planes. And, yes, A Square can describe the world of Three Dimensions to his fellow Flatlanders in the world of Two Dimensions despite his not being from Spaceland. But what if we were to justify the ability of the utterly flat words, semantics, and grammatical structures of a work of fiction like Flatland to generate these socio-spatial dimensions, which we will call social space(s)? In what way can this 2 be done? This kind of question may appear unanswerable or to lead to illogical conclusions, and perhaps here it is permissible to dismiss the question altogether because words printed on a page, without contestation, are of a decidedly two-dimensional quality. But for the moment I ask that you suspend these doubts and consider the earnest plea of A Square: To The Inhabitants of SPACE in GENERAL […] This Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland In the Hope that Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries Of THREE Dimensions Having been previously conversant With ONLY TWO So the Citizens of that Celestial Region May aspire yet higher and higher To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions Thereby contributing To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION And the possible Development Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY Among the Superior Races OF SOLID HUMANITY.3 On a level equal with Flatland, the following document concerns itself not with the limits of the visual but with “the enlargement of the imagination,” and not with the shortcomings of the printed word but with its potentialities. To begin this project, first it is sensible to select a few works of fiction that will undergo the proposed analysis. Secondly, defining the present use of social space with the help of theoretical texts will be necessary. Finally, a discussion of how and what kind of social spaces are generated in these fictions will then lead to a set of conclusions. By example of this study, words that compose a piece of fiction can be shown to be conversant with, so as to generate, the dimensions of their own unique social space(s). More specifically, two novels by the same author written over a decade apart will demonstrate two unique approaches to the creation of social space(s) in fiction. 3 Ibid., 5. 3 The Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (OuLiPo) & Georges Perec “But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open.” - from Moby Dick, Herman Melville The Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Ou + li + po = OuLiPo) is a literary workshop comprised of poets, mathematicians, philosophers, and other creative and analytical individuals, all who implement puzzles and patterns into the design of their fictional and non-fictional texts. A fitting way to think of a work written by an Oulipian is to imagine an onion: as you peel off its skin, ovoid layers reveal themselves down to its core. These writers compose texts of a similar, multi-layered quality, at the center of which is a secret, a treasure, that the reader is prompted to actively search for along with the act of reading. Part and parcel of creating an Oulipian text is the implementation of the constraint, which is perhaps the signature characteristic of this breed of literary work. “As a group they exemplify the two principal directions of Oulipian research: analysis, that is, the identification and recuperation of older (even ancient) experiments in form; and synthesis, the elaboration of new forms,”4 writes translator and anthologist of Oulipian works William Motte Jr. Both borrowed from the past and created in the present, these ‘forms’ that Motte writes about function as the constraints, or constraining features, that determine the parameters of an Oulipian text. For example, the haiku, or the form of Japanese poetry that limits a poem strictly to three lines respectively made up of five, seven, and five on (a Japanese term that approximately resembles the English syllable), is an ancient form that can serve as an Oulipian constraint. Other examples of formative constraints used by members of Oulipo are the palindrome (a text spelled exactly the same both forwards and backwards), the lipogram (a text 4 William Motte Jr., Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008), 1. 4 with one or more letters excluded from the entirety of its body), and the omission of a temporal structure (a narrative that has the effect of being frozen-in-time, a constraint discussed more in depth in this document). Of these constraints Oulipian Jacques Roubaud in La mathématique dans la méthode de Raymond Queneau writes: Another entirely false idea in fashion nowadays is the equivalence which is established between inspiration, exploration of the subconscious, and liberation; between chance, automatism, and freedom. Now the inspiration that consists in blind obedience to every impulse is in reality a sort of slavery. The classical playwright who writes his tragedy observing a certain number of familiar rules is freer than the poet who writes that which comes into his head and who is the slave of other rules of which he is ignorant.5 Roubaud is implying that the writer who acknowledges the constraining forms both inherent in the act of writing and also those that they themselves implement into their own writing are more likely to create texts of an originality that cannot be achieved by the writer who whimsically follows inspiration, lacking rules and structure.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Network Map of Knowledge And
    Humphry Davy George Grosz Patrick Galvin August Wilhelm von Hofmann Mervyn Gotsman Peter Blake Willa Cather Norman Vincent Peale Hans Holbein the Elder David Bomberg Hans Lewy Mark Ryden Juan Gris Ian Stevenson Charles Coleman (English painter) Mauritz de Haas David Drake Donald E. Westlake John Morton Blum Yehuda Amichai Stephen Smale Bernd and Hilla Becher Vitsentzos Kornaros Maxfield Parrish L. Sprague de Camp Derek Jarman Baron Carl von Rokitansky John LaFarge Richard Francis Burton Jamie Hewlett George Sterling Sergei Winogradsky Federico Halbherr Jean-Léon Gérôme William M. Bass Roy Lichtenstein Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael Tony Cliff Julia Margaret Cameron Arnold Sommerfeld Adrian Willaert Olga Arsenievna Oleinik LeMoine Fitzgerald Christian Krohg Wilfred Thesiger Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant Eva Hesse `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas Him Mark Lai Clark Ashton Smith Clint Eastwood Therkel Mathiassen Bettie Page Frank DuMond Peter Whittle Salvador Espriu Gaetano Fichera William Cubley Jean Tinguely Amado Nervo Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Ferdinand Hodler Françoise Sagan Dave Meltzer Anton Julius Carlson Bela Cikoš Sesija John Cleese Kan Nyunt Charlotte Lamb Benjamin Silliman Howard Hendricks Jim Russell (cartoonist) Kate Chopin Gary Becker Harvey Kurtzman Michel Tapié John C. Maxwell Stan Pitt Henry Lawson Gustave Boulanger Wayne Shorter Irshad Kamil Joseph Greenberg Dungeons & Dragons Serbian epic poetry Adrian Ludwig Richter Eliseu Visconti Albert Maignan Syed Nazeer Husain Hakushu Kitahara Lim Cheng Hoe David Brin Bernard Ogilvie Dodge Star Wars Karel Capek Hudson River School Alfred Hitchcock Vladimir Colin Robert Kroetsch Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai Stephen Sondheim Robert Ludlum Frank Frazetta Walter Tevis Sax Rohmer Rafael Sabatini Ralph Nader Manon Gropius Aristide Maillol Ed Roth Jonathan Dordick Abdur Razzaq (Professor) John W.
    [Show full text]
  • Inspiration and the Oulipo
    Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Volume 29 Issue 1 Article 2 1-1-2005 Inspiration and the Oulipo Chris Andrews University of Melbourne Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Andrews, Chris (2005) "Inspiration and the Oulipo ," Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 29: Iss. 1, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1590 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Inspiration and the Oulipo Abstract In the Ion and the Phaedrus Plato establishes an opposition between technique and inspiration in literary composition. He has Socrates argue that true poets are inspired and thereby completely deprived of reason. It is often said that the writers of the French collective known as the Oulipo have inverted the Platonic opposition, substituting a scientific conception of technique—formalization—for inspiration. Some of the group's members aim to do this, but not the best-known writers. Jacques Roubaud and Georges Perec practice traditional imitation alongside formalization. Imitation is a bodily activity with an important non-technical aspect. Raymond Queneau consistently points to an indispensable factor in literary composition that exceeds both formalization and imitation but is inimical to neither. Sometimes he calls this factor "inspiration"; sometimes he speaks of "the unknown" and the "the unpredictable," which must confirm the writer's efforts and intentions.
    [Show full text]
  • WARREN F. MOTTE JR. Department of French and Italian 3374 16Th
    WARREN F. MOTTE JR. Department of French and Italian 3374 16th Street University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80309-0238 Colorado 80304 Tel: 303-492-6993 Tel: 303-440-4323 [email protected] [email protected] EDUCATION Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania French Literature 1981 A.M. University of Pennsylvania French Literature 1979 Maîtrise Université de Bordeaux Anglo-American Literature 1976 A.B. University of Pennsylvania English Literature 1974 INTERESTS Contemporary French Literature Comparative Literature Theory of Literature Literary Experimentalism POSITIONS HELD DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, University of Colorado, 2018- COLLEGE PROFESSOR OF DISTINCTION, University of Colorado, 2016- PROFESSOR, University of Colorado, 1991- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, University of Colorado, 1987-91 ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, University of Nebraska, 1986-87 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, University of Nebraska, 1982-86 LECTEUR, Université de Bordeaux, 1975-77 TEACHING FELLOW, University of Pennsylvania, 1974-75; 1977-82 Motte 2 PUBLICATIONS BOOKS The Poetics of Experiment: A Study of the Work of Georges Perec (Lexington: French Forum Monographs, 1984). Questioning Edmond Jabès (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). Small Worlds: Minimalism in Contemporary French Literature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Fables of the Novel: French Fiction Since 1990 (Normal: Dalkey Archive Press, 2003). Fiction Now: The French Novel in the Twenty-First Century (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008). Mirror Gazing (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2014). French Fiction Today (Victoria: Dalkey Archive Press, 2017). EDITED VOLUMES Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986). Translated and edited. Rev. ed. Normal: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998; rpt. 2007.
    [Show full text]
  • EURESIS 1-200 C1 12/2/10 8:36 AM Page 1
    EURESIS 1-200 c1 12/2/10 8:36 AM Page 1 Le postmodernisme roumain, alors et maintenant Romanian Postmodernism, then and now EURESIS 1-200 c1 12/2/10 4:45 PM Page 2 Sur la couverture: Dessin de Vasile Kazar Illustrated by: Vasile Kazar EURESIS 1-200 c1 12/2/10 8:36 AM Page 3 EURESIS no. 1–4/2009 cahiers roumanins d’études littéraires et culturelles Romanian Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies Le postmodernisme roumain, alors et maintenant Romanian Postmodernism, then and now TABLE DE MATIÈRES Le postmodernisme alors/ postmodernism then… MIRCEA MARTIN – D’un postmodernisme sans rivages et d’un postmodernisme sans postmodernité . 11 VIRGIL NEMOIANU – Notes sur l’état de postmodernité. 23 IOANA. EM. PETRESCU – Modernism/Postmodernism: A Hypothetical Model . 26 DAN GRIGORESCU – Modernisme/postmodernisme: un processus de continuité?. 33 ANGÈLE KREMER°MARIETTI – La postmodernité: achèvement ou commencement? . 40 LINDA HUTCHEON – Postmodernism Goes to the Opera . 54 AMELIA PAVEL – Le postmodernisme et l’historiographie de l’art . 67 VALENTINA SANDU°DEDIU – Points de vue sur le postmodernisme musical . 72 *** ALEXANDRU MUØINA – Le postmodernisme aux portes de l’Orient. 85 ION BOGDAN LEFTER – La reconstruction du moi de l’auteur . 99 GHEORGHE CRÆCIUN – Entre le modernisme et le postmodernisme. 103 LIVIU PAPADIMA – Postmodernisme littéraire et modèles culturels. 117 ION MANOLESCU – La prose postmoderniste et le textualisme médiatique . 125 ANA°MARIA TUPAN– The Rhetoric of Displacement . 131 RODICA ZAFIU – Postmodernisme et langage. 136 AUGUSTIN IOAN – Le postmodernisme dans l’architecture: ni sublime, ni complètement absent . 145 MAGDA CÂRNECI – The Debate Around Postmodernism in Romania in the 1980s .
    [Show full text]
  • The Ethics of Citation in Patrick Modiano's Dora Bruder And
    Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Volume 42 Issue 2 Article 7 February 2018 The Ethics of Citation in Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder and Georges Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance Roderick Cooke Florida Atlantic University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Cooke, Roderick (2018) "The Ethics of Citation in Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder and Georges Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance," Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 42: Iss. 2, Article 7. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1895 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Ethics of Citation in Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder and Georges Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance Abstract This article compares the representations of the Holocaust in Georges Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance (W or the Memory of Childhood) and Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder. I concentrate on the two authors’ use of citation, in both cases of texts written by victims of the deportations, and identify a respective ethics of citation in each work by drawing on Antoine Compagnon’s theory. Modiano’s is best characterized through the term ‘responsibility,’ a responsibility he urges the reader to share with him in memorializing the wartime past.
    [Show full text]
  • Toutes Les Familles Heureuses » De Hervé Le Tellier
    Corso di Laurea magistrale in Scienze del Linguaggio (indirizzo Glottodidattica) Tesi di Laurea - Ca’ Foscari Un arbre familial : une traduction de Dorsoduro 3246 « Toutes les familles heureuses » de 30123 Venezia Hervé Le Tellier. Relatore Chiar.mo Prof. Giuseppe Sofo Correlatore Chiar.mo Prof. Yannick Hamon Laureando Marco Boschetti Matricola 846976 Anno Accademico 2019 / 2020 A mon grand arbre familial, à ses racines, à ses branches, à ses feuilles. Table des matières Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapitre I. Le contexte de départ : l’Oulipo ........................................................................................ 2 1.1. Histoire de l’Oulipo .............................................................................................................. 3 1.2. « Pourquoi l’Oulipo ? » ......................................................................................................... 9 Chapitre II. Le Tellier et Toutes les familles heureuses ..................................................................... 14 2.1. Survol de l’œuvre ................................................................................................................... 14 2.2. Le « roman familial » de Le Tellier : Toutes les familles heureuses ...................................... 21 Chapitre III. Traduction de Toutes les familles heureuses ................................................................ 33 2.1.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Through Post-War French Fiction by Sonja Klara Stojanovic
    Spectral Preoccupations: Reading through Post-War French Fiction By Sonja Klara Stojanovic B.S. / B.A. Andrews University M.S. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign M.A. University of Notre Dame M.A. Brown University A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of French Studies at Brown University Providence, RI May 2017 © Copyright 2017 by Sonja Klara Stojanovic This dissertation by Sonja Klara Stojanovic is accepted in its present form by the Department of French Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Thangam Ravindranathan, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date David Wills, Reader Date Elissa Marder, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date Andrew G. Campbell, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Sonja Klara Stojanovic was born in 1984 in Strasbourg, France. After moving to Austria, she received her Matura (High School diploma) in 2003. She completed her higher education in the United States, receiving a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in French from Andrews University. She also received her M.A. in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007, and her M.A. in French and Francophone Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 2010. She has taught English as a foreign language in Rennes and Angers, France. At Brown since 2010, she has been teaching French language in the Department of French Studies, where she received her M.A. in 2013. She continued with her doctoral studies and successfully defended her dissertation in August 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Georges Perec – Introduction Rachel Carroll Teesside University ______
    Carroll: Introduction 6 Species of Spaces: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Georges Perec – Introduction Rachel Carroll Teesside University _____________________________________ ‘. the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.’ Georges Perec, Species of Spaces (1974 / 1999) Georges Perec’s Species of Spaces (published in an English translation by John Sturrock in 1999) is a key reference point for this Themed Issue, exemplifying as it does the centrality of spatial practice to his writing. Indeed, practice is a key concept when considering the unique perspectives offered by this collection of essays, which bring together contributions from the fields of visual arts, dance and music to examine the impact of Perec’s writing (including but not limited to Species of Spaces) on approaches to space and place in contemporary arts practice and theory. An author renowned for his playful and experimental approach to writing, Georges Perec (1936-1984) is perhaps most commonly identified as the author of La Disparition (1969), a lipogram written entirely without the letter ‘e’ which was published as A Void in an ingenious English language translation by Gilbert Adair in 1995. The novel exemplifies the kind of creative ‘constraints’ adopted by the Oulipo, the post war avant-garde movement to which the author belonged. Conscious of a consequent reputation as ‘a sort of computer, a machine for generating texts’, Perec drew attention to the diversity of his output in an essay entitled ‘Notes on What I Am Looking For’, in which he suggested that four ‘modes of interrogation’ can be discerned in his work: the sociological; the autobiographical, the ludic and the novelistic (Perec 1999: 137).
    [Show full text]
  • Leiris, Perec, and Benabou
    IDENTITY IN PLAY: LEIRIS, PEREC, AND BÉNABOU A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2018 FABIENNE CHEUNG SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ……p. 3 Abstract ……p. 4 Declaration and Copyright Statement ……p. 5 Acknowledgements ……p. 6 Introduction ……p.7 Chapter 1 – Michel Leiris: ‘Faire un livre qui soit un acte’……p. 32 Chapter 2 – Georges Perec: ‘J'écris pour vivre et je vis pour écrire’……p. 80 Chapter 3 – Marcel Bénabou: ‘tu cours, comme moi, le risque de t’y perdre’…...p. 127 Conclusion ……p. 174 Bibliography……. p. 187 Appendix ……p. 200 Word count: 76,222 words 2 List of Abbreviations LCC – Barthes, R., La Chambre claire: note sur la photographie (Paris: Seuil, 1980) Pourquoi / PQ – Bénabou, M., Pourquoi je n’ai écrit aucun de mes livres (Paris: Seuil, 2010, first published 1986) Jette - Bénabou, M., Jette ce livre avant qu’il soit trop tard (Paris: Editions Seghers, 1992) Epopée / EF - Bénabou, M., Jacob, Ménahem et Mimoun: Une Epopée familiale (Paris: Seuil, 1995) ADH – Leiris, M., L’Âge d’homme (Paris: Gallimard, 2006, first published 1939; 1945) Miroir – Leiris, M., Miroir de la tauromachie (Paris: Editions Fata Morgana, 1981) W – Perec, G., W ou le souvenir d’enfance (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1975) LC – Perec, G., Le Condottière (Paris: Seuil, 2012) P/C – Perec, G., Penser / Classer (Paris: Hachette, 1985) JSN - Perec, G., Je suis né (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1990) VME – Perec, G., La Vie mode d’emploi (Paris: Hachette, 1978) CA – Perec, G., Un Cabinet d’amateur (Paris: Editions Ballard, 1979) L’Œil – Perec, G.
    [Show full text]
  • Les Postures De Nathalie Sarraute Et De Georges Perec Par Rapport À L'objet Romanesque
    Du ready-made au design : les postures de Nathalie Sarraute et de Georges Perec par rapport à l'objet romanesque. Par Laëtitia Desanti Département de langue et littérature françaises Université McGill, Montréal Thèse soumise à lřUniversité McGill en vue de lřobtention du diplôme de Doctorat ès Lettres Juin 2009 © Laëtitia Desanti, 2009 1 RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse vise à définir le statut ainsi que le rôle de lřobjet dans les œuvres romanesques de Nathalie Sarraute et Georges Perec entre les années 1950 et 1980 afin dřen comprendre les ambiguïtés : à force dřêtre décrits, les objets sarrautiens et perecquiens gagnent en abstraction et perdent leurs fonctions habituelles. En effectuant des va et vient entre les deux auteurs, mais aussi des comparaisons avec les objets dans les romans de Balzac, Flaubert, Sartre et dans le nouveau roman, jřexaminerai les prises de position de Sarraute et de Perec par rapport à ces différentes visions de lřobjet pour vérifier si les deux écrivains ont réellement leur propre singularité ou sřils ne peuvent, en définitive, échapper aux questions et aux problématiques soulevées par la phénoménologie et la société de consommation. Contrairement aux travaux se prévalant dřune telle approche, jřai choisi de faire dialoguer le statut de lřobjet romanesque chez Sarraute et chez Perec avec certaines œuvres de lřart moderne et contemporain qui, à partir des ready-made de Duchamp jusquřaux objets design, participe dřune redéfinition du concept dřobjet pouvant relever de la plus grande banalité et du domaine artistique. Cette possibilité quřà lřobjet dřosciller entre deux domaines et de jouer sur cet écart sera inscrite au centre de lřétude.
    [Show full text]
  • The Poetics of Listing, Enumeration, and Copiousness in Joyce, Schuyler, Mccourt, Pynchon, and Perec
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2012 Twentieth-Century Catalogs: The Poetics of Listing, Enumeration, and Copiousness in Joyce, Schuyler, McCourt, Pynchon, and Perec Timothy Krause The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1429 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Twentieth-Century Catalogs: The Poetics of Listing, Enumeration, and Copiousness in Joyce, Schuyler, McCourt, Pynchon, and Perec by Timothy Krause A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2012 ii ©2012 TIMOTHY KRAUSE All rights reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Wayne Koestenbaum ___________________________ _______________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Carrie Hintz ___________________________ ________________________________ Date Executive Officer Rachel Brownstein Gerhard Joseph Wayne Koestenbaum Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Twentieth-Century Catalogs: The Poetics of Listing, Enumeration, and Copiousness in Joyce, Schuyler, McCourt, Pynchon, and Perec by Timothy Krause Adviser: Professor Wayne Koestenbaum This dissertation examines the occurrence of catalogs and lists in the literary works of several twentieth-century authors, including James Joyce, poet James Schuyler, novelist and cultural historian James McCourt, the postmodern fabulist Thomas Pynchon, and the French experimental prose author Georges Perec.
    [Show full text]
  • Features Lifestyle
    12 Established 1961 Lifestyle Features Wednesday, December 2, 2020 futuristic thriller about the double ident. “That’s one possible way of read- set up in 1903, include Marcel Proust, Alives of passengers aboard a flight ing it,” he said by video link. Jury chair- Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras from Paris to New York won man Didier Decoin said that the novel and Michel Houellebecq. While Tellier France’s top literary award, the Prix had a “real cinematic dimension” and gets a paltry 10 euros ($12) in prize mon- Goncourt, which was awarded by video that he hoped it would be adapted for ey, the award invariably catapults the win- link on Monday. The winner was the big screen. Because of the Covid-19 ner to the top of the best-seller lists. announced two days after the French restrictions, the 10-person Goncourt jury The ceremony comes as the closed government eased a monthlong coron- was forced to forgo its traditional slap-up world of French literature comes under avirus lockdown, allowing bookshops, awards lunch at the Drouant restaurant in rare scrutiny following allegations of which had complained bitterly about the central Paris. Instead, they huddled over abuse against paedophile writer Gabriel restrictions, to reopen. Herve Le Tellier, a video link from their homes. They had Matzneff. Matzneff won the Renaudot 63-year-old former journalist and mathe- been due to name the winner on prize-widely seen as the runner-up to the matician, won the country’s oldest literary November 10, but to show solidarity with Goncourt-in 2013, despite never making he winner of France’s top liter- prize for “L’Anomalie,” his eighth novel.
    [Show full text]