w and/or a memory of childhood

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 I first heard of Georges Perec as a young teen scrolling through Tumblr when I stumbled across a post about another novel of his, A Void, where he avoids the letter 'e' throughout the novel. I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that we'd been assigned his work. Similarly to others whose blog posts I have read, I initially struggled with the two storylines but got used to it fairly quickly. Apparently these two storylines are supposed to depend on each other, rendering each one incomplete without the other. Truthfully, I haven't been able to discern why they are so dependent on each other, though I hope to understand the text a little further after some class discussion. 

I think an important feature of the text is that it has an unreliable narrator, who is telling this story based on unreliable memories and this fictional world of W that he created in his head. I always think an unreliable narrator can be a refreshing twist on the experience of reading a book because it makes you question what you're being told rather than just taking everything at face value. 

I found the parts where the narrator was explaining all the different sports teams and rules a little difficult to follow (not surprising because I'm a little like that when it comes to real teams, forget fictional ones) and became a little lost in the significance of explaining it all in such detail. A potential answer that comes to mind is that it's all just a coping mechanism; there might not be an inherent significance in the sports teams and all the rules and regulations, but simply the fact that it's so detailed shows the amount of time the narrator must have spent inside his own head as an escape from the world around him. Considering that Perec's parents were killed in the Second World War and the Holocaust, it is unsurprising that some of his work should be informed by trauma. 

Throughout the novel there is an interesting discussion of names, where they come from, and the importance we attach to them. My favourite part was when he was discussing the nicknames that were first given to individuals, before eventually being passed down and becoming a status symbol and evolving even further. It makes me want to imagine our own society using names in that same way; I'm not convinced it'd be entirely practical but it would be a fun thought exercise. The question I now pose is: what do you think the significant of all the sport-talk is?

Comments

  1. JennaMarch 9, 2022 at 2:52 PM

    I agreed with everything you said in your discussion post! I felt so similarly about the confusing, overly detailed sports aspect of W. I think that you are on to something about the extreme detail being a result of Perec's trauma. All the detail indicates the amount of time that Perec spent constructing this made up world. I think the sports-talk in general is probably because of Perec's interest in games and playfulness and therefore he tries to understand the things of his past (like his childhood trauma) through something he understands.

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  2. UnknownMarch 9, 2022 at 3:16 PM

    Hi Deeba! I liked your blog post! Especially your positive insight on an "unreliable narrator" is kind of new to me and changed my previous mind (I was kind of frustrated by its ambiguities while I was reading it). It certainly makes us question what we actually read. And as you said, I was also interested in how those "nicknames" attached to their title and place works in the narrative. In a pessimistic way, it might be an indication of the people in the concentration camps who did have their numbers on the arms instead of their original names.

    Tsuyoshi

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  3. Yasmin ahmadiMarch 9, 2022 at 10:56 PM

    Your post really gave me a lot of insight on this weeks reading.
    I thought of the two stories as more at conflict with each other, both trying to complete the gaps that were left from his childhood. Also super interesting about his wordplay from his other novels! Even the letter 'w' in this novel was symbolic
    -Yasmin Ahmadi

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  4. Devanshi SanghaviMarch 20, 2022 at 12:41 PM

    Hi! I really liked your interpretation of why the game rules were so detailed - I never quite thought of it that way. To answer your question, I believe that the sport-talk was significant because of how we view sports in our society. More often than not, sports are viewed as a medium for the expression of a lot of negative emotions such as anger or aggression. Also, sports may have been a safe space for a young boy during a tough time, making the sport-talk an easy form of communication for him.

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