Scraps

La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) #2

by Michel Leiris, Lydia Davis (Translator)

One of the most versatile and beloved French intellectuals of the twentieth century, Michel Leiris reconceives the autobiography as a literary experiment that sheds light on the mechanisms of memory and on the way the unconnected events of a life become connected through invented narrative.
 
In this volume, the second in his four-volume epic autobiographical enterprise, Leiris merges quotidian events with profound philosophical self-exploration. He also wrangles with the disillusionment that accompanies his own self-reflection. In the midst of struggling with his own motives for writing an autobiographical essay, he comes to the revelation that life, after all, has aspects worth remembering even if moments of beauty are bookended by misery. Yet what can be said of human life, of his own life, when his memory is unreliable, his eyesight is failing, and his mood is despairing?

Genres: France, Memoir, Biography, Literature

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Born in Paris in 1901, Michel Leiris was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. In the 1920s he became a member of the surrealist movement and contributed to La révolution surréaliste. In those years, he wrote a surrealist novel: Aurora.

After his exit from the surrealist group, he teamed up with Georges Bataille in the magazine Documents.

Reviews

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this in anticipation of the release of the fourth volume of Leiris' Rules of the Game. His decades long autobiographical project introduced a new way of writing about the self. His work is not a straightforward chronological account, but rather a thematic exploration of his own idiosyncratic character through themes explored via events in his life. In this work he meditates (or perseverates) on death, driven, as ever, by an overwhelming fear of his own. He writes about a childhood obsession with sports heroes and acts of daring, especially jockeys and horse racing. He and his brother followed the sport avidly. But his own athletic engagement, required attendance at the gymnasium, was hindered by his clumsiness, lack of enthusiasm and fear of pain. Much of his account echoed my own. And finally, he writes about his time in North Africa during WWII, far from any real danger but, as he discovered, not from other temptations.
Leiris's style with frequent digressions, often through long, winding sentences, is one a reader simply has to surrender to for best effect. As such, he will not be to everyone's taste. But this book offers great insight into the modest, often self-critical character of this important French writer whose life spanned most of the 20th century. Early surrealist, ethnologist, critic and essayist he witnessed so much history, knew so many of the stars of the Paris art scene, and was ever a fascinating and unique individual.

[Gabriel]

"Mors" is especially delightful. I enjoyed Scraps more than I enjoyed Scratches (I enjoyed Scratches, too.)