Hotel Irrealismo discussion

Okay, all/both, as agreed, I've read Life a User's Manual... Here's a link to my updated review: Paul's review

I recommend Paul's review as an excellent introduction to this magnificent work.

Was writing this novel a futile endeavor? I suppose in another million years or so it will be forgotten and lost, but in this little island of time and space I find myself in awe of what Perec has accomplished.

Here's a few thoughts on my first reading.

First of all I love the inclusion of menus, advertisements, etc. -- examples of the quotidian prose that surrounds us. In my varied and checkered job history I relished encountering legal briefs, company newsletters, reports, etc. My favorite examples are the narratives of surgeries (supposedly written by the surgeon) when I worked at the health insurance company. They all ended with a count of sponges and instruments proving, conclusively, that nothing--no scalpels, no forceps, not one sponge--was left in the patient--happy endings all. Not enough authors include these sorts of ephemera in my opinion.

Perec is a writer fascinated by writing and that is wonderful.

And I appreciate the unsentimental empathy Perec showed his characters. It was a moving work in that regard.

This novel was written around the time when the ideas concerning complexity started becoming prominent (chaos theory, complex systems, etc) in the scientific community. Don't know if Perec was aware or influenced by these theories. Nevertheless, the jigsaw puzzle of these interlocking lives makes me think of the complexity of 'real life'. I ponder the jigsaw puzzle. When I hold this book am I really holding a box of puzzle pieces?

And I want to rant a bit about 'digressions'. What is the problem with 'digressions'? There are certain kinds of writing and communication where it is completely stupid and sometimes positively criminal to digress (like emergency situations, say). But when we're reading fiction, what else are we reading but digressions?

Of course there's the 'plot'. We all like to read a sequence of actions that seem to form a causal chain with a beginning and an end and maybe develop a character; it's a very pleasurable if sometimes vacuous read. Maybe we like to delude ourselves that the 'main plot' is something more than a conceit. But (here's where the complexity comes in) we're all (as individuals) participants in many stories. And when we want to write something relevant to life as it is lived, which is to say something about groups of people, each with their own story interacting with each other; when we want to make a picture of a society in all its rich complexity, we need to do something like Perec in this novel. None of the individual characters in this novel is more interesting to me than the overall 'character' they compose together. The more digressions the better, the more alive the characters become, the richer the portrait of their lives.

Well, I guess there has to be a limit to the number of digressions or we'll end up with a Zeno of Elea novel. Still, a completely true to life novel would really need infinite digressions. So I suppose if Perec wanted to show us what it was actually like to live at a certain place at a certain time, he did fail. It can't be done. I'm glad he tried.

Steve wrote: "Here's a few thoughts on my first reading."

Thanks for the pointer to my review, Steve.

You make some really interesting points. I'm totally with you on the relevance of apparently irrelevant digressions. As you say, Perec was attempting to present "Life" in all its complexity. There's a noble tradition of digression too, going back at least to the days of Lawrence Sterne. And the poetry of the mundane has its part to play in all of this.

And it is a deeply moving, humane work, often concerned with the melancholy of disappointment, loneliness and loss. Man, what more could you ask from a book?

To follow up a bit on Sterne (assuming you have also read 'Shandy'): Walter Shandy is mentioned in the 'Tale of the Judge and his wife who took up thieving'. And Calvino in his 'Six Memos' also mentions Sterne's 'great invention' of a novel 'completely composed of digressions' which is, among other things according to Calvino, a perpetual flight from death. I suppose that's true; maybe that's why it's so damn funny.

Anyway, I'm guessing that Sterne must have been important to the Oulipians. Of course, Perec incorporates snippets and alludes to other authors into this work as well. I wonder about the name 'Bartlebooth': if that is a play on 'Bartleby' (as in Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener'). I'm going to re-read 'Bartleby' to see if I could make a case for that.

Sterne was a modernist two centuries too early and a huge influence on subsequent writers, I should say.

Bartlebooth is apparently a composite of Bartleby and Barnabooth, the first a kind of nihilist who loses the will to live - like A Man Asleep and Gregoire Simpson in LAUM - the second a wealthy traveller.

Thanks, that clears up Bartlebooth. Now I'm wondering if the name of the Simpson character in LAUM came from the character in 'The Day of the Locust'. Hmmm.

Anyway, Bartlebooth and Simpson in LAUM certainly do throw light on each other though they have no narrative connections and 'Simpson' appears to be another 'digression'. It might not seem like the Simpson story is that important but I think it turns out to be a significant piece of the puzzle.

Do you know much about Larbaud? This is the first I've heard of him.

Sterne and modernism: I'm a bit of an autodidact when it comes to literary history but I'm pretty sure that 'Shandy' was popular in its day, so it isn't like Sterne was a man out of his time. He did influence one of Diderot's novels as noted by Calvino. But . . . then . . . did people stop reading him?

The history of the 'modern novel' is supposed to start with Quixote, right? It seems to me that Shandy isn't really that far from Quixote (or Rabelais) compared to 'Great Expectations', for instance. It seems like the 'novel' put itself into a box and some modernist works (as on your list) are attempts to break out. To start experimenting again like Sterne and Diderot, for example.

Maybe this is another discussion: 'The Shandy Effect'. Or does Goodreads have one already?

I notice that Klowey is now reading LAUM, Steve. It'll be interesting to get her reaction.

I looked that up - he's called Homer Simpson! Are you thinking that both characters have destructive tendencies or something along those lines?

Nope, Larbaud - I only know of him through Perec and haven't read anything.

I wasn't suggesting that Sterne was unpopular or out of synch with his times, just that his approach feels startling modern. We could definitely discuss Shandy if we wanted to at some point. Most discussions on Goodreads seem to have been neglected for years unless they're about Rowling or Murakami...

I probably should have curbed my ranting propensity with that bit about Shandy. Sort of thinking through things as I was writing; not just Shandy but also the reception of Shandy is interesting as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, back to LAUM: I'm puzzling things out here. After re-reading Melville's Bartleby, it is obvious that Perec's Simpson is a version of Melville's Bartleby. I think Melville's story is one of the few American works that could be considered truly 'Irreal'. And having it fresh in my mind has enhanced my appreciation of LAUM.

I suggested the West novel because it has the only literary Simpson I can think of -- but it's been over 30 years since I read 'The Day of the Locust' so I can't say that West's Simpson character is the basis for any character in LAUM the way Bartleby is. I'll have to re-read TDOTL before I make any suggestions in that regard. Right now I'm not sure that TDOTL fits with LAUM (at least not as well as Bartleby does). Different sorts of pessimism, perhaps.

And, yes, I was trying to be funny.

It is something to puzzle over though: why give a French character an English name? Of course, in Europe, a citizen of a particular country having a surname from the language of another country isn't that uncommon. But in a literary work it seems a bit odd, doesn't it? Simpson's a pretty common name. Is there another literary or even historical Simpson that Perec may be referencing?

Melville's character helps me consider the monster Bartlebooth as well -- his particular form of hubris. Reading Melville's story as a fable of capitalism is a good reading -- but a good work of literature (as this most certainly is) should give us more than one reading. I'm looking at Bartleby's resistance as a form of spiritual nihilism -- perhaps the end point of asceticism, which after all is a form of hubris to push oneself above and beyond the desires and hungers that make up 'life' (and project oneself into god, or, at least, get other people to worship you).

So Bartlebooth, filled with the resentment described by Nietzsche, gets his revenge against a non-existent god and his creation by this seemingly ascetic project of creation and destruction. There is an inherent 'tragedy' in all our lives, as Borges well described: we want to be immortal but can't be and wouldn't be any better off if we were. Do we want to think of Bartlebooth as a tragic character?

I want to explore some other characters in LAUM; see where they go. How they fit in the puzzle (love that puzzle metaphor--I'd like to use it with other novels too -- whether the author likes it or not).

This COVID virus is really up and down. Since Saturday my partner and I have have fever and aches. Stats now indicate some people with our set of symptoms can be sick for several months like this - up and down, better, then worse all over again.

Anyway, I'm not well enough to process your wonderful looking comments for now. John and I have COVID brain fog too. But I look forward to reading them and participating. I like this book.

Thomas and I have been talking a little since we are both reading it for the first time. He asked if I knew about the Knight's moves across the building to order the chapters. Here is my reply to him. (Still very sick up-and-down each day with COVID - so my apologies for not reading through all the comments from Steve and Paul yet.)

Reply for Thomas:

Yes, I was aware of the Knight's moves (and also the one that is intentionally in error).

Perec also used Graeco-Latin squares (see Euler):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeco-...

This one talks about the Euler square and also about Perec's lists:
http://tselfoninternets.blogspot.com/...

"The way in which these apply to each chapter is governed by an array called a Graeco-Latin square. The lists are considered in pairs, and each pair is governed by one cell of the array, which guarantees that every combination of elements is encountered. For instance, the items in the couples list are seen once with their natural partner (in which case Perec gives an explicit reference), and once with every other element (where he is free to be cryptic). In the 1780s, the great mathematician Leonhard Euler had conjectured that a 10×10 Graeco-Latin square could not exist and it was not until 1959 that one was actually constructed, refuting Euler."

It also talks about the lists:
"There are 42 lists of 10 objects each, gathered into 10 groups of 4 with the last two lists a special "Couples" list. Some examples:
- number of people involved
- length of the chapter in pages
- an activity
- a position of the body
- emotions
- an animal
- reading material
- countries
- 2 lists of novelists, from whom a literary quotation is required
"Couples", e.g. Pride and Prejudice, Laurel and Hardy."

This article discusses the use of the Euler square merged with the 10x10 chessboard of the apt. and it talks about the lists.

http://wordaligned.org/knights-tour

More on the lists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life:_A...

At this point, I I've been too sick to dig through it, so I don't understand the references to the other authors, which I see in this table:
http://escarbille.free.fr/vme/?lmn

Paul pointed me to the biography on Perec to understand his use of lists.

That is one of the best references I've seen. Here's another table from the site:
http://escarbille.free.fr/vme/?map

another informative review
http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.c...

Sorry Klowey, I forgot you mentioned you were unwell with COVID. Really hope you start feeling better soon! Those details you elaborated on sound really interesting, and I’ll certainly look into them further.

These two videos have also served as useful companions to my reading of the novel. The first one is a basic introduction to the Knight’s Tour puzzle, and the second is by a great Youtube channel called Better Than Food: Book Reviews, in which a young American guy, in which I have had the pleasure of chatting to one to one occasionally on social media, gives his thoughts on books that have had a strong impact on him. They tend to be European, transgressive, unorthodox or underrated ones, though he often does pick much more well known classics from time to time. He’s also on Goodreads

Basic introduction to the Knight’s Tour by Numberphile, who’s other videos or also great: https://youtu.be/ab_dY3dZFHM

Better Than Food: Book Reviews’ (Clifford Lee Sargent) thoughts on Life: A User’s Manual: https://youtu.be/GLbxtAr8E2U

Both channels are worth subscribing to, but in particular Cliff’s, since he really deserves many more considering the quality of his videos and what he contributes to discussion of top quality literature on the platform of Youtube.

Thomas wrote: "Basic introduction to the Knight’s Tour by Numberphile, who’s other videos or also great: https://youtu.be/ab_dY3dZFHM

Better Than Food: Book Reviews’ (Clifford Lee Sargent) thoughts on Life: A Us..."

Thank you!! This looks awesome.

For those of you astonished that I could be sick this long, here's an interesting video from a guy who also has COVID-19 (he's had it about 2 weeks longer than I have) and how this "long tail" version is finally getting a lot more press. The comments at the end of the video will also give you an idea. People having it more than 100 days is not uncommon amongst the "long tailers" group. I'm only on day 71. It's very frustrating because I can only focus for so long each day, and only do so many tasks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9y9o...

Though the last writer I read was Camus, I was pretty tempted to pick The Plague as my next read simply because it felt the most appropriate considering the current situation. I feel for everyone, such as yourself, who’s battling with it, instead of being able to properly enjoy the break from the usual pace of life the lockdown has granted us.

Thomas wrote: "Though the last writer I read was Camus, I was pretty tempted to pick The Plague as my next read simply because it felt the most appropriate considering the current situation. I feel for everyone, ..."

Oh thank you. I try to focus on how lucky I am it's not worse for me and John. At least we are at home, not in the hospital.

Klowey wrote: "Paul pointed me to the biography on Perec to understand his use of lists."

Yes, it's all there on pp514-17 of Bellos's brilliant book, shown diagrammatically with 10 x 10 grids, first for the removed facade of 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier, second for the oversized chessboard. The movement of the chess piece is known as a "knight's tour" in which every square is visited by the knight in 100 moves but no square is visited more than once. The grid was then combined with 21 different versions of a Graeco-Latin square, generating the items which feature in each of the 100 chapters (with one missing!)

To prevent the results being formulaic, he added the inestimable Raymond Queneau's* "quenina" system to jumble the elements, all of which means this content generator becomes invisible to the human eye.

*He of Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes fame.

Do you know any French Paul? The reason I ask is I’m wondering, as someone who still only speaks English (but hope to change that soon), if you’ve read any of the novel in the original French and was wondering how it compares with or what is lost in the translation

Yes, I've read substantial sections in the original. As I've pointed out, Bellos is a superb translator - Perec couldn't have asked for better. Obviously, as with any book in translation, things like wordplay, and puns especially, tend to be rather forced.

I'm not sure why, but something that does strike me as interesting, apart from everything else, is the fact there are no character dialogues, except one so far, though it was in the context of reported speech. This fits well with the digressions and allusions to details of art, history and culture etc. as it makes it feel like you're reading a work of non-fiction and somehow makes the characters even more believable

I wasn't aware of the knight moves thing. It explains the knight chess piece motif on the inside cover of my copy

It does explain the frontispiece in the Harvill edition! I don't think any reader would be aware of the knight's tour device unless they'd been told about it. All the working parts are hidden beneath the shiny surface of the machine.

I 1st read the book over 20 years ago and was slightly put off by the copious detailed descriptions of furnishings and associated objects. I also went into the book expecting a "main" character.
However this time around I was much more relaxed about it and thoroughly enjoyed soaking up the multiple lives in that apartment block in Paris.
I must not only reread A Void (a seriously ingenious concept) but also Bellos' biography of Perec which looks really good

Main character - that's 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier, surely?

Yes, I must get around to reading A Void again. I admired it rather than loved it, first time around.

Bellos's book is probably the best biography I've ever read. I read it ages ago but only recently reviewed it.

How does A Void compare with Life: A User’s Manual? (How much do they have in common)

Other than sharing the same author (and his penchant for games) there's not much in common. However I'm rather partial to A Void. You are aware of its central premise - n'est pas?

My review

Paul wrote: "Other than sharing the same author (and his penchant for games) there's not much in common."

Agreed. Themes and experimentation recur in Perec's work but he was one of those writers who had no interest in writing the same book twice.

Do you link you’re review because you cover what I’m talking about in it and it’s ultimately and answer to my question?

I think between Paul's and my comments plus my review, that answers the question. The best way to find out is to read the books, of course. Second best is to read some reviews.

Wait...there’s a second Paul? 😂

Yup -me!

How confusing is that?

Haha I think there’s a third too. But two will do for now!

Paul, since you're read this book many times, have you ever read it in the order of the apts, e.g. all the "On the Stairs" chapters in a row, then all the chapters from an apt. all in order, etc.?

What do you mean by “apt”?

I've only read it twice - separated by a period of over 20 years! So only read in page order both times.

apt = apartment (I would think)

Ah okay

Yes apt. means apartment. Sorry.

Paul S.R. what about you, since it's your favorite book and I think you've read it more times.

Will the story still make sense if you don’t read the chapters in a linear order? From what I’ve read so far it seems that that could be the case, since what is described in each one seems to mainly focus on the apartment inhabitant in question and objects and events related to their lives, with some interaction and details of the other inhabitants of the block.

Klowey wrote: "Paul, since you're read this book many times, have you ever read it in the order of the apts, e.g. all the "On the Stairs" chapters in a row, then all the chapters from an apt. all in order, etc.?"

Well, now, Klowey, that's an interesting idea. I've only ever read it in linear fashion. I generally read books in the order the writer intended. Had the intention been like Hopscotch or The Unfortunates, I'd have gone along with the experiment.

It might work for some of the characters, perhaps. For others, it would generate a random sequence of tales since many of the chapters named for the room's current occupant concern stories relating to previous occupants.

The principal and, I would say, overriding objection to reading the novel in this manner is that you would jumble the narrative concerning the main characters, Bartlebooth and his coterie, Winckler, Smautf, and of course, Valène. 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier aside, this is the glue that holds the puzzle together.

Ah that makes perfect sense. I did mean though that one would never read it that way the first time. But once read, it might be fun to read through one apt. at a time and see how the experience is. Of course, you'd already have read it and know the "plot."

I have so many other questions to come when I'm done. So many. :-)

Thank you for choosing this as our book. I've been too intimidated to read it "alone" with no one to discuss it with.

Are people also reading any other books on our list at the moment, or just working on their own book lists?

Thomas wrote: "Will the story still make sense if you don’t read the chapters in a linear order? From what I’ve read so far it seems that that could be the case, since what is described in each one seems to mainl..."

You're right, it wouldn't make sense. This would only work as an experiment after having read it the first time. I wonder what it would be like. Maybe I'll give it a try. ;-)

Klowey wrote: "Are people also reading any other books on our list at the moment, or just working on their own book lists?"

I'm glad you're enjoying it, Klowey!

I've just finished reading a run of experimental novels (Alain Robbe-Grillet, Ann Quin, Patrick Modiano, Flann O'Brien and Perec's A Man Asleep), so I'm ready to start on something new. I note that Steve has recently finished reading Austerlitz from the list, having previously mentioned an interest in exploring Sebald. That could be the way to go. I'm overdue a re-read. It's also a book that takes some time to read, though.

I am in love with the first paragraph of Chapter 51: Valene. I can't find a way to copy it out of my Amazon Kindle Reader (I need to upgrade stuff) or naturally, my paper copy. Alas.

" . . . not a significant or privileged place . . a signature to be read by initiates . . . an anecdote . . . a legend people would no longer believe in until, on day, proof of its truth . . . something that might resemble understanding, a certain gentleness, joy tingled perhaps with nostalgia."

Chapter 51, Valene (Servants' Quarters, 9) there are references to stories in a list of 179. The list is not in the order in which the stories appear in the book. Given there was a bishop's move sequence to the order of the chapters relative to the apts., is there a meaning behind the order in which these 179 stories are "listed"?

Are they in alphabetical order?

I wish I could pick out specific events and details that made a strong impact on me, of which there are many, but I forget most of it by the time I move on to the next chapter unfortunately. I suppose I just enjoy what is being described in a chapter in the moment.

Stalker by Tarkovsky is my favorite film, and he's a very multi-dimensional film maker who features time. I was thinking about LAUM in this regard.