Georges Perec (1936–1982)
Author of Life: A User's Manual
About the Author
Georges Perec was born in Paris on March 7, 1936 and was educated in Claude-Bernard and Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire. Perec was a parachutist in the French Military before he began publishing his writing in magazines like Partisans. Perec also wrote the book, Life: A Users Manual. Perec is noted for his show more constrained writing: his 300-page novel La disparition (1969) is a lipogram, written without ever using the letter "e". Perec won the Prix Renaudot in 1965, the Prix Jean Vigo in 1974, the Prix Médicis in 1978. Georges Perec died on March 3, 1982. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Georges Perec
Les choses : Une histoire des années soixante suivi de Conférence à Warwick (2005) 15 copies, 1 review
Kayboluş 5 copies
Cher, très cher, admirable et charmant ami : correspondance, Georges Perec - Jacques Lederer (1956-1961) (1997) 4 copies
Tingen: en berättelse om sextiotalet 2 copies
La machine (French Edition) 2 copies
W ou le Souvenir d'enfance de Georges Perec (fiche de lecture et analyse complète de l'oeuvre) (2021) 1 copy
Les Cahiers du Chemin 26 1 copy
TENTATIVA DE INVENTARIO 1 copy
Животът. Начин на употреба 1 copy
Perec Georges 1 copy
Čitanka 1 copy
Ulcérations 1 copy
Fiche de lecture La Vie mode d'emploi de Perec (analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (French Edition) (2015) 1 copy
Fiche de lecture La Disparition de Georges Perec (Analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (French Edition) (2017) 1 copy
Fiche de lecture Un homme qui dort de Georges Perec (analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (French Edition) (2022) 1 copy
A Gallery Portrait 1 copy
Teatro 1 copy
Associated Works
Profil d'une oeuvre : Les choses, une histoire des années soixante (1965), Georges Perec (2003) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Perec, Georges
- Legal name
- Peretz, Georges
- Birthdate
- 1936-03-07
- Date of death
- 1982-03-03
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Sorbonne
- Occupations
- novelist
essayist
archivist
filmmaker - Organizations
- Oulipo
University of Queensland (writer-in-residence)
French Army - Awards and honors
- Prix Renaudot (1965)
Prix Jean Vigo (1974)
Prix Médicis (1978) - Short biography
- Georges Perec est un écrivain français.
D'origine juive et polonaise par ses parents, Icek et Cyrla, il passe son enfance dans le quartier de Belleville. En 1940, il devient orphelin de père, Icek Peretz étant mort au combat. L'année suivante, sa mère l'envoie à Villard-de-Lans afin de le sauver des Nazis. Elle-même déportée à Auschwitz, elle meurt en 1943.
A Villard-de-Lans, les sauveteurs de l'enfant le font baptiser et francisent son patronyme qui devient alors "Perec". Mais en 1945, il retourne à Paris pour y vivre auprès d'une tante paternelle, Esther Bienenfeld.
Après l'école communale de la rue des Bauches, dans le XVIème où il se retrouve propulsé, Georges Perec intègre le lycée Claude-Bernard, puis le collège d'Étampes. En 1954, il tente hypokhâgne au Lycée Henri-IV et se tourne vers une licence d'Histoire qu'il abandonne assez vite. En parallèle, il suit une psychothérapie, d'abord avec Françoise Dolto, puis avec Michel de M'Uzan.
Après son service militaire dans une unité de parachutistes, il épouse Paulette Pétras et part un temps en Tunisie, à Sfax. En 1962, il entre comme documentaliste en neurophysiologie au CNRS. Vers cette époque, il commence à écrire. Son premier roman, "Les Choses, une histoire des années soixante", obtient le Prix Renaudot 1965.
L'ouvrage surprend par ses descriptions détaillées des objets qui couvrent aisément des pages, le tout articulé autour des enquêtes d'opinion faites par le couple de "héros", Jérôme et Sylvie. Perec fait aussi dans ce livre un usage quasi systématique du conditionnel.
Encouragé par le succès obtenu, Perec persévère et produit encore deux romans, dont "Un Homme qui dort", où il tutoie carrément le lecteur, avant d'entrer dans l'Oulipo en 1967. A partir de là, tous ses écrits s'articuleront autour d'une contrainte, littéraire et/ou mathématique.
Dès 1969, l'écrivain donne "La Disparition", roman qui conjugue la mystérieuse disparition du héros, Anton Voyl, avec celle de la lettre "e" qui n'apparaît pas une seule fois dans ce livre. Inversement, dans "Les Revenentes", en 1972, il n'utilise que la voyelle "e", créant au besoin, comme dans le titre, des fautes d'orthographe.
Mais c'est en 1978, avec "La Vie Mode d'Emploi" (prix Médicis 1978), qu'il accède véritablement à la connaissance du grand public. En 2017, il entre dans « La Pléiade ».
Décédé d'un cancer des bronches, il est incinéré au cimetière du Père-Lachaise à Paris. - Cause of death
- lung cancer
- Nationality
- France
- Birthplace
- Paris, Île-de-France, France
- Places of residence
- Paris, Île-de-France, France
Ivry-sur-Seine, France - Place of death
- Ivry-sur-Seine, France
- Burial location
- Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris, France
- Map Location
- France
- Associated Place (for map)
- France
Members
Discussions
Life A User's Manual: An Introduction in 75 Books Challenge for 2011 (August 2011)
Reviews
A bunch of young Parisian intellectuals decide to help out a working-class soldier who doesn’t want to be sent to the war in Algeria, and of course they have no trouble at all coming up with ingenious schemes, but when it comes to it they turn out to be somewhat lacking in the practical skills needed to make any of them work.
Perec takes the opportunity to make fun of civilians and military alike, whilst having his usual fun with word-play and inappropriate literary devices. The rambling show more text is meant to recall an oral anecdote — the narrator can’t even remember the name of the soldier, Kara-thingy — but it is also packed full of rhetorical complications. All are carefully indexed at the end of the book, and there are buried jokes to make sure you actually read the rhetorical index, along the lines of “perissology: see pleonasm; … pleonasm (see above)”.
Either charming and very funny, or an over-extended schoolboy joke — definitely not for everyone, but if you like Perec then you need to read this. show less
Perec takes the opportunity to make fun of civilians and military alike, whilst having his usual fun with word-play and inappropriate literary devices. The rambling show more text is meant to recall an oral anecdote — the narrator can’t even remember the name of the soldier, Kara-thingy — but it is also packed full of rhetorical complications. All are carefully indexed at the end of the book, and there are buried jokes to make sure you actually read the rhetorical index, along the lines of “perissology: see pleonasm; … pleonasm (see above)”.
Either charming and very funny, or an over-extended schoolboy joke — definitely not for everyone, but if you like Perec then you need to read this. show less
Es increíble cómo un libro de tan poca extensión, pueda contener una historia como esta. Un libro que habla sobre libros siempre va a ser atractivo, aunque no en todas las ocasiones resulte una historia interesante. Este no es, afortunadamente, el caso: una premisa harto interesante, una buena historia y un final que te hace sentir tristeza por los personajes, el investigador y el investigado.
No puedes hacer más que pensar cuántos Hugos Vernier, han existido en toda la literatura, show more desconocidos y olvidados; por eso mismo es una historia muy triste. show less
No puedes hacer más que pensar cuántos Hugos Vernier, han existido en toda la literatura, show more desconocidos y olvidados; por eso mismo es una historia muy triste. show less
[Review on Things only - for now:]
Things puts a new spin on the whole "The things you own end up owning you" principle. The couple at the outskirts of this story (I was going to say 'center of this story' but really they are both central and peripheral) at times knowingly buy in to the belief that they are deliberately purchasing things or conducting market research on things knowing they themselves do so with an end to fill a void to provide pleasure and/or status. But at other times, they show more seem to find themselves lost, unable to find this joy from the objects around them, or to find the right kind of objects to fill their emptiness.
Perec doesn't present his story with any kind of dialogue (unless you count the epilogue). Instead he presents his story as a kind of catalog of description, accounts and inventories of things, people, and activities. It is sometimes tiresome but more often than not a bit absorbing in a social commentary/voyeurism sort of way, and often beautiful and very visual. Probably the only problem I had with his 'message' is that the trip to Sfax is almost a cop-out: Why are we required to leave our country in order to find change or to seek out an answer? He salvages this by suggesting that leaving is just another form of loss that the characters experience.
The book has a taste of optimism but is mostly dreary and heartbreaking. There is beauty to be found, but Jerome and Sylvie seem to discover it only as it is leaving them (or they are leaving it).
There is a lot to discover in this book that make it a worthwhile read, a lot of moments that, even though this was written about the sixties, resonate in our consumerist culture and in our desire to find ourselves through the things we buy and with which we surround ourselves.
Note: I read Things for a class in conjunction with Lipovetsky's Hypermodern Times. Even though neither were written for the other, there is great value to reading them together. show less
Things puts a new spin on the whole "The things you own end up owning you" principle. The couple at the outskirts of this story (I was going to say 'center of this story' but really they are both central and peripheral) at times knowingly buy in to the belief that they are deliberately purchasing things or conducting market research on things knowing they themselves do so with an end to fill a void to provide pleasure and/or status. But at other times, they show more seem to find themselves lost, unable to find this joy from the objects around them, or to find the right kind of objects to fill their emptiness.
Perec doesn't present his story with any kind of dialogue (unless you count the epilogue). Instead he presents his story as a kind of catalog of description, accounts and inventories of things, people, and activities. It is sometimes tiresome but more often than not a bit absorbing in a social commentary/voyeurism sort of way, and often beautiful and very visual. Probably the only problem I had with his 'message' is that the trip to Sfax is almost a cop-out: Why are we required to leave our country in order to find change or to seek out an answer? He salvages this by suggesting that leaving is just another form of loss that the characters experience.
The book has a taste of optimism but is mostly dreary and heartbreaking. There is beauty to be found, but Jerome and Sylvie seem to discover it only as it is leaving them (or they are leaving it).
There is a lot to discover in this book that make it a worthwhile read, a lot of moments that, even though this was written about the sixties, resonate in our consumerist culture and in our desire to find ourselves through the things we buy and with which we surround ourselves.
Note: I read Things for a class in conjunction with Lipovetsky's Hypermodern Times. Even though neither were written for the other, there is great value to reading them together. show less
When my daughter was born last year we were living in Paris's sixth arrondissement, and every weekend, while my wife was at work presenting the news, I would walk up the rue du Cherche-Midi with the pushchair, cut right down rue du Vieux Colombier, and then circle round and round the Place Saint-Sulpice for hours on end waiting for Clementine to go to sleep.
The church there is my favourite in Paris, as beautiful as Notre-Dame but much quieter, and with an amazing organ whose organist used to show more practise sometimes on quiet Sunday afternoons. This was where Talleyrand was christened, and the Marquis de Sade, to name but two. Outside in the square is a well-known fountain and a few trees that provide some slowly-revolving blocks of shade during the day.
I must have seen that square in every weather and from every angle – I've sat on every stone bench and I've had a coffee at every table in the one remaining café. I've watched a priest trip on the church steps and go flying into a cyclist, and I've been laughed at by unsympathetic tourists when my daughter projectile vomited all over herself, all over me, and all over the paperback I was reading at the time (Nightwood, which not incidentally is largely set in an apartment above the café on this very square).
I feel, therefore, uniquely qualified to review this little extrait de carnet from Georges Perec, who set himself the task of simply observing everything that he could see in the Place Saint-Sulpice as he sat there with a notebook over a weekend in October 1974.
It's the sort of exercise you might do quite regularly as a writer, but it's not the sort of thing you'd normally publish raw. And I did go back and forth with this short book: at first I found it just as banal as it sounds; then I started to find it all rather invigorating; and then unfortunately by the end I started to find it all a bit pointless again.
This is a book whose value resides almost entirely in your own head, and not in the words on the page – which of course is true for all books, but sometimes it takes a minimalist text like this to remind you of the fact.
Perec's descriptions are extremely bare, almost catalogic. He is weirdly obsessed with the buses:
A 96 goes past. An 87 goes past. An 86 goes past. A 70 goes past. A ‘Grenelle Interlinge’ truck goes past.
Calm. No one at the bus stop.
A 63 goes past. A 96 goes past.
If you are waiting for him to start reflecting on what he sees, to speculate in some way or to draw inferences about the scene – basically, to make things up – you will be waiting a long time. There is not much of that; which I found strange, because after twenty minutes sitting there rocking a pushchair with my foot, I had already given all the pigeons names and invented a lubricious back-story for the brunette waiting outside the town hall. If I had written this book it would doubtless be filled with a lot of that kind of thing, but Perec either has a less wandering mind than I do or (more likely) he is keeping himself deliberately restrained, factual, camera-like. By the end of the book we are still being fed such apparent banalities as:
The traffic lights turn red (this happens to them often)
I was interested to see how much of the scene I recognised, and certainly a lot has not changed: the descriptions of women coming out of mass holding pyramidal packets from the local patisserie, or of men outside the tabac tearing the cellophane off cigarette packs, could have been written yesterday.
He kept talking about deux-chevaux going past, and I was idly wondering was this meant until suddenly as I read it for the fifth time I realised he was talking about those old Citroën 2CVs. Man, those things used to be everywhere, didn't they!? That suddenly made it all feel a lot more seventies. And then this got me wondering about dog-shit, which Perec does not mention; but I'm sure dog-shit used to be everywhere in Paris – right? I mean I wasn't around in 1974, but I'm sure I remember from holidays in the 80s that there was A LOT of it. Perec apparently doesn't see any. J'accuse, Georges!
Anyway, you can see some of the value this might have for future generations. God knows it would be great to read a document like this written in, let's say, 1874, or 1574 for that matter.
Beyond that, your reaction to Tentative d'épuisement will depend on many factors. I no longer get excited about experimentation for its own sake, nor do I think this is a very innovative project in the first place. Nevertheless parts of it, with their dedication to developing awareness and observation, won me round, and the final few lines started to read like free verse; I was unexpectedly moved.
Oh. And on the last page, I suddenly read this:
Passe un jeune papa portant son bébé endormi sur son dos (et un parapluie à la main)
and oh god I know it's stupid, but I suddenly couldn't help imagining that Georges, sitting there at his café in 1974, squinting out through the rain, was watching me trudge into his field of vision from 2012, hugging my baby with one hand, and with one of his books, or something very like it, jammed in the back pocket of my jeans. show less
The church there is my favourite in Paris, as beautiful as Notre-Dame but much quieter, and with an amazing organ whose organist used to show more practise sometimes on quiet Sunday afternoons. This was where Talleyrand was christened, and the Marquis de Sade, to name but two. Outside in the square is a well-known fountain and a few trees that provide some slowly-revolving blocks of shade during the day.
I must have seen that square in every weather and from every angle – I've sat on every stone bench and I've had a coffee at every table in the one remaining café. I've watched a priest trip on the church steps and go flying into a cyclist, and I've been laughed at by unsympathetic tourists when my daughter projectile vomited all over herself, all over me, and all over the paperback I was reading at the time (Nightwood, which not incidentally is largely set in an apartment above the café on this very square).
I feel, therefore, uniquely qualified to review this little extrait de carnet from Georges Perec, who set himself the task of simply observing everything that he could see in the Place Saint-Sulpice as he sat there with a notebook over a weekend in October 1974.
It's the sort of exercise you might do quite regularly as a writer, but it's not the sort of thing you'd normally publish raw. And I did go back and forth with this short book: at first I found it just as banal as it sounds; then I started to find it all rather invigorating; and then unfortunately by the end I started to find it all a bit pointless again.
This is a book whose value resides almost entirely in your own head, and not in the words on the page – which of course is true for all books, but sometimes it takes a minimalist text like this to remind you of the fact.
Perec's descriptions are extremely bare, almost catalogic. He is weirdly obsessed with the buses:
A 96 goes past. An 87 goes past. An 86 goes past. A 70 goes past. A ‘Grenelle Interlinge’ truck goes past.
Calm. No one at the bus stop.
A 63 goes past. A 96 goes past.
If you are waiting for him to start reflecting on what he sees, to speculate in some way or to draw inferences about the scene – basically, to make things up – you will be waiting a long time. There is not much of that; which I found strange, because after twenty minutes sitting there rocking a pushchair with my foot, I had already given all the pigeons names and invented a lubricious back-story for the brunette waiting outside the town hall. If I had written this book it would doubtless be filled with a lot of that kind of thing, but Perec either has a less wandering mind than I do or (more likely) he is keeping himself deliberately restrained, factual, camera-like. By the end of the book we are still being fed such apparent banalities as:
The traffic lights turn red (this happens to them often)
I was interested to see how much of the scene I recognised, and certainly a lot has not changed: the descriptions of women coming out of mass holding pyramidal packets from the local patisserie, or of men outside the tabac tearing the cellophane off cigarette packs, could have been written yesterday.
He kept talking about deux-chevaux going past, and I was idly wondering was this meant until suddenly as I read it for the fifth time I realised he was talking about those old Citroën 2CVs. Man, those things used to be everywhere, didn't they!? That suddenly made it all feel a lot more seventies. And then this got me wondering about dog-shit, which Perec does not mention; but I'm sure dog-shit used to be everywhere in Paris – right? I mean I wasn't around in 1974, but I'm sure I remember from holidays in the 80s that there was A LOT of it. Perec apparently doesn't see any. J'accuse, Georges!
Anyway, you can see some of the value this might have for future generations. God knows it would be great to read a document like this written in, let's say, 1874, or 1574 for that matter.
Beyond that, your reaction to Tentative d'épuisement will depend on many factors. I no longer get excited about experimentation for its own sake, nor do I think this is a very innovative project in the first place. Nevertheless parts of it, with their dedication to developing awareness and observation, won me round, and the final few lines started to read like free verse; I was unexpectedly moved.
Oh. And on the last page, I suddenly read this:
Passe un jeune papa portant son bébé endormi sur son dos (et un parapluie à la main)
and oh god I know it's stupid, but I suddenly couldn't help imagining that Georges, sitting there at his café in 1974, squinting out through the rain, was watching me trudge into his field of vision from 2012, hugging my baby with one hand, and with one of his books, or something very like it, jammed in the back pocket of my jeans. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 149
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 13,516
- Popularity
- #1,715
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 258
- ISBNs
- 603
- Languages
- 24
- Favorited
- 102
