W or The Memory of Childhood - Softcover

Perec, Georges

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860461662 ISBN 13: 9781860461668

Publisher: The Harvill Press, 1989

Synopsis

W consists of two parallel tales Perec s disturbing account of his wartime childhood is interspersed with the surreal tale of W., an island state based on the rules of sport. In the fictional narrative a man adopts the identity of one Gaspard Winckler. When he undertakes a journey in search of the real Winckler and his fate, he leads the reader into the descriptions of the island-state where citizens are forced to compete in athletic competitions for the basics of life. Intertwined with the fictional narrative are Perec s stories of his past his father s death in the French army, his mother s transportation to Auschwitz, his own upbringing with relatives and his attempts to pin down his true memories rather than memories created for him by language, by images, by others. Fiction and autobiography interweave throughout Perec s text until, in a final chapter, the two literary categories seem to merge together.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Written in alternating chapters W or The Memory of Childhood tells two parallel tales whose meaning lies in their fragile intersection, or in the silence beyond their ending. Gaspard Winckler, an eight-year-old deaf-mute, is lost in a shipwreck somewhere off Cape Horn. Another person, also called Gaspard Winckler, is apparently trapped into searching for him. The story of W, an island state based on the rules of sport, seem to be the only trace of what he found. There are no survivors.

What this disturbing book has to say is not quite said in the story of W and is not quite said in the rediscovered fragments of wartime childhood. Perec's unpretentious language, persistent self-criticism and attention to detail lead the reader inexorably towards the horror that lies at the origin of the post-war world and at the crux of the author's identity. Combining fiction and autobiography in a quite unprecedented way, Perec allows no easy escape from this story, or from history. W or The Memory of Childhood is as much a milestone in autobiography as Stendhal's Life of Henry Brulard and Sartre's Words.

"A quite remarkable book about his own early life whose formality is quite hauntingly at odds with its terrible subject." John Sturrock, Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: The Harvill Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 1860461662
• ISBN 13: 9781860461668
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176