W, or the Memory of Childhood

Perec is a fun and inventive author. This is a two part book. The first part is really an attempt to write a memoir from his childhood in German Nazi occupied France. This is hard to do since its his life from an early age and during one of the most horrific times in our world and history, so the detail and thoughts are a bit of his own imagination blended with what history he could get his hands on.

The book then flips to another story about an island of athletes, and a cut throat society of olympians. There is only one life worth living in this fictional island, and that is to excel at athleticism and reap from its rewards. It starts with one person’s experience in this island, and zooms out to tell you the full story, the hierarchy, the rules, etc… that eventually reveal this “utopia” to be a dystopia.

I thought the two stories connected in a very loose way, his attempt here may be to show that the society of the island mimicked the Nazi’s in some ways, but it’s stretchy and thin.

Enjoyable, but cannot help but think I should have tried reading A Void by Georges Perec as my second experience of Perec instead - since I have had the pleasure of reading Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec.