The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 4 March 1998
This is a long and daunting book, which intricately describes the homes and lives of the inhabitants of a large apartment block in Paris. The people lead both sleepily mundane and excitingly unlikely lives. They inhabit both pedestrian and bizarrely decorated flats. It is a fascinating book, with many tales of the inhabitants that at first seem entirely unrelated. Yet, many of the stories interlock, and many don't. Obsessive personalities, like the Englishman who spends his life painting watercolors, constructing puzzles of them, only to have them destroyed again. Artists, waiters, aging actresses, servants. Perec's work is a little confusing, as it describes characters and tells stories in an inventively interleaved manner. It is, itself, much like assembling a large, colorful and complex jigsaw puzzle. Indeed, the puzzle is a constant theme throughout the book, as is the game Go. It is fascinating, and beautifully complex of the order of Joyce's Ulysses. Its long descriptions and twisted references are much like Claude Simon's writing and may not be to everyone's liking. Perec's novel is, however, one of the more powerfully visual books I have ever read.
Also by Perec: [Things] [A Man Asleep]