I'm quite familiar with Perec's work having read both Bellos' translation of "La Vie mode d'emploi" as well as parts of the novel in the original French, as well as W, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, A Void (The novel without an "e"), and other of his works, as well as contributing to the article "A Drop in Numbers: Deciphering Georges Perec�s Postanalytic Narratives" which appeared in the Yale French Studies Review, Number 105: Pereckonings: Reading Georges Perec. This was an analysis of Chapter 25 of La vie mode ....
If you'd like, since the Yale article may be hard to come by, I'd be happy to copy the original that I have here. You might enjoy it, although, if you are unfamiliar with some of the numerical symbolism that Perec uses some aspects of the article may be elusive. IMO, Bellos missed the boat with too loose a translation of the novel, especially chapter 25 (Altamont 2), in which Perec's fondness for playing with numbers to encode and describe his past was used quite a bit. Still, I like The Grand Palindrome ... are you familiar with it? Perhaps some day we can discuss some of Perec's work. Shel > [Original Message] > From: John Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Date: 5/30/2005 8:12:53 PM > Subject: Re: The Longest Sentence > > > I am (which should be obvious if you know the work in question :-) > > On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 05:04:17PM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > Are you talking about Perec? > > > > Shel > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > From: John Francis > > > > > > His most famous work isn't an opus that you could find > > > stuck with a palindromic tag - far from it. > > > > > > On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 02:23:41PM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > > > Personally I prefer Perec's palindrome > > > > > > > > Shel > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Original Message] > > > > > From: Bob W > > > > > > > > > molly blooms monologue in ulysses consists of several paragraphs which > > > > each > > > > > consists of one sentence and the monologue itself contains no > > punctuation > > > > > marks other than the final full stop it being an interior monologue > > and > > > > > stream of consciousness and all although quite how somebodys thoughts > > > > > arrange themselves into paragraphs punctuated or not I dont really > > know > > > > but > > > > > what I do know is this Joyce would have had a hard time writing it > > these > > > > > days because whenever Bill Gates thinks youve made a grammatical > > error he > > > > > insists on trying to correct it the literary philistine swine but > > maybe > > > > > Jimmy J would have writ Ulysses on Unixes I certainly think he would > > have > > > > > felt at home in the world of email and texts where punctuation and > > > > sentences > > > > > count for nothing and all communication is a direct stream of whatever > > > > > nonsense is in peoples heads at the time they write it maybe I should > > ask > > > > my > > > > > neighbour who is a cousin of Joyces mate Sam Becket and has an amazing > > > > early > > > > > edition of Ulysses all decorated and encrusted with stuff by Joyce > > himself > > > > > with his own fair hand but now Im sick of trying to write like this > > and > > > > ask > > > > > myself will I stop and yes I said yes I will Yes. > > > > > >
