Georges Perec's "Life: A User's Manual" discussion

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My review that's posted on Goodreads

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message 1: by Brian (last edited Aug 25, 2016 12:21PM) (new)

Brian (brianlehman) | 2 comments Mod
A lot of people misinterpret all nihilism as a negative or cycnical approach to life and to the cosmos. Those people are usually god-fearing and think that anything that denies or questions the existence of higher powers is inherently cynical. But with "Life: A User's Manual" (LAUM) I sense that Georges perec is approaching nihilism as a very positive, creative force of being. LAUM accepts our essential nothingness, but revels in the process that takes place between the birth nothing and the death nothing - we are able to exercise an exuberant free will bouncing around within the framework of those two events to create the puzzles and layers and collections - the basement of LUAM as subconscious, populating our self, which is essentially nothing, with survival gear - food, not for, but of thought. Go places, paint a picture, adhere the picture to wood, cut it apart into a puzzle, assemble the puzzle, reconstitute the puzzle into a whole and make it as perfect as to be unkown as ever having been a puzzle, dissolve the painting until there is no evidence of the painting. Nothing to nothing is very much something.


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