Space (d/r)econstructed: On the life and works of Georges Perec by Lydia Karagiannaki

The street (…) Observe the street, from time to time, with some concern for system perhaps. Apply yourself. Take your time. Note down the place: The terrace of a café near the junction of the Rue de Bac and Boulevard Saint-Germain. The time: Seven o’clock in the evening The date: 15 May 1973 The weather: Set fair Note down what you can see. Anything worthy of note going on. Do you know how to see what is worthy of

SPACE (D/R)ECONSTRUCTED note? Is there anything that strikes you? Nothing strikes you. You don’t know how to see. You must set about it more slowly, almost stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colourless. The street. Try to describe the street. What it is made

ON THE LIFE AND WORKS OF GEORGES PEREC

for. What it is used for. The people in the street. The cars. What sort of cars? The buildings: note that they are on the comfortable, well-healed side. Distinguish residential from official buildings.

LYDIA KARAGIANNAKI Force yourself to see more flatly. Detect a rhythm: The passing of cars. Decipher a bit of the town, deduce the obvious facts: the obsession with ownership, for example. Describe the number of operations the driver of a vehicle is subjected to when he parks merely in order to go and buy a hundred grams of fruit jelly. The people in the streets. Where are they coming from? Where are they going to? Who are they? People in a hurry. People going slowly. Parcels.

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INTRODUCTION

course ‘Writing the interior’, Perec’s writing The present booklet concerns the lifebecomes relevant for its strict and systematic and work of the French writer Georges Perec,ways through which space is interpreted within a major literary figure of the mid-20th century.a literary work. Perec is truly obsessed with Perec’s writing is special in the sense that, in histhe notion of space, and therefor he approaches own genuine way, he managed to investigate andit through his unique and playful perspective. incorporate within it a wide variety of genres:In my research I investigate precisely this from scientific writing to catalogues and fromapproach of his, directly deriving from Perec’s poems to adventure novels. Perec’s oeuvre notbroader literary stance, but also how, through only reveals his wide spectrum of knowledge, butthe detailed description of space, its constant is also exemplary in combining historical facts withand exhausting disruption, categorization and social critique, subtle irony, perplex mathematicalarchiving, through the deconstruction and rules as synthetic organizational patterns andreconstruction of his (spatial) memory, Perec the poetry and melancholy embedded in thewas de- and reconstructing himself as well. everyday and the banal. In the context of the

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THE LIFE OF A WRITER

for writing. Intellectual circles are already part George Perec was born in Paris on theof his social life and between 1959 and 1963 7th of March 1936. He was the first and only sonPerec is one of the central figures of La Ligne of his Jewish parents. His father died in the frontGénérale (the name inspired by Eisenstein’s film), during the Second World War while his mother,a group of several young people working on whose traces got lost during the occupation ofa leftist periodical edition with political, social France, probably died in a concentration camp.and artistic critique. In 1960 Perec marries Consequently, Perec was raised by the olderPaulette Pétras and they spend the next year sister of his father, Aunt Esther, and her family.in Tunisia, where she is offered a job position. Between 1946 and 1954 he visited the boardingBack in Paris, Perec starts working as an school Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire in Étampes, wherearchivist for the library of the Neurophysiology he met friends who were to follow him for theDepartment of the CNRS, a job which will utterly rest of his life. In 1954 Perec starts his studiesaffect his literary production. In the lab of the of history at the University of Sorbonne butDepartment, Perec is called to organize the quits soon after, determined to follow his passion

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Poetry’, a method of writing which substitutes system of archiving, indexing and informationwords by their dictionary entries. During the retrieval, a challenge which he accomplishes insecond half of the 60s Perec is frequently visiting such an exemplary way that it becomes theMoulin d’ Andé, a half-timbered mill in an idyllic prototype for other scientific libraries. It isestate belonging to Suzanne Lipinska. The place also here that Perec comes in contact with thefunctions as a community of artists, writers and genre and constraints of academic writing, withother intellectuals which are carefully selected by catalogues, diagrams, bibliographies, referencesSuzanne and her former husband, Maurice Pons, etc. Perec has been writing short stories alreadythe Perec’s friend who initially introduced him to since his late teenage years and in 1965 histhe place. For Perec, Andé is the counterpart of first book is printed, Les Choses (Things), whichthe hustle and bustle of Paris, the place where wins the Renaudot price. In 1966 Perec entershe can both enjoy the company of his co-tenant the notable literary group comprised of writersfriends but also concentrate on his writing. It and mathematicians, Oulipo (Ouvroir de Literatureis exactly his identity as a writer which allows Potentielle, Workshop for Potential Literature).him to enter this community in the first place, In 1967 he issues Un Homme Qui Dort (A Manand it is where he is unconditionally recognised Asleep), in 1969 La Disparition (The Disappearance).and acknowledged for this literary identity. Perec was living with Paulette in RueThis recognition plays a crucial part in Perec’s des Quatrefages in the Latin Quarter of Parisdetermination to continue his literary practice already before their marriage and in 1966 theyand allows him to maintain a degree of selfmove to Rue du Bac, where they host Tuesdayesteem, even amid the fading fame brought by socials in the French literary and social tradition.Les Choses and the failure of a series of future An entertainment of those gatherings is theplans. Perec is now usually spending three days reading of the daily output of a project by Perecper week in Paris, working in the library, and and his friend Marcel Benabou, named ‘Semantic

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history of his family (L’ Arbre, unfinished), both four days in the refuge of Moulin d’ Andé. Hisof the Perecs as well as of the Bienenfelds romantic relationship with Paulette is gradually(David Bienenfeld was the husband of Aunt wearing out, but they remain friends and do notEsther). Between 1971 and 1975 Perec is following take divorce. Perec gets involved in a love affairpsychoanalysis for the third time in his life. During with Suzanne, which gives him enormous energythis period he conducts a literary collection of and inspiration. When the affair eventually ends,his dreams (La boutique obscure. 124 rêves), but Perec is left devastated. He turns to writing andthe major outcome of that time is the book W psychoanalysis. ou le souvenir d’ enfance (W or the memory of In order to heal his wounds from thechildhood), a book of two parallel narrations, his pain of Suzanne’s rejection, Perec invents theown real story and a fictional one. The process project of Lieux (Places), a compilation of placesof psychoanalysis is regarded crucial for the of his past (places of safety), which he would bedevelopment of W, while its finishing moment describing according to a mathematical schedulemarks the end of the analysis. “I took the time on a fortnight-rhythm either by heart or throughthat it took for my story to come together: the traces of his memory (Lieux was even calleda story that offered itself to me one day, ‘Love tomb’ by one of his friends). At the samesurprised, bewildered, forceful, like a memory time, Perec is working on numerous projects,restored to its own space, like a gesture or a such as crosswords for newspapers, articles,tenderness resurrected. That day the analyst radio plays and theatrical scripts. He has a goodheard what I had to say to him, what for four connection with the literary and artistic circlesyears he had listened to without hearing, for of Saarbrücken, where he is often invited, hasthe simple reason that I had not been telling some books of him translated and participateshim that I was not saying it to myself” (Perec, in many radio dramas and interviews. At thePenser/Classer). same time he is working on a book about the

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hosts regular meetings of Oulipo. He has a wide A Man Asleep is turned into a moviecircle of friends and is being invited to their in 1973 and Perec is actively involved in theholiday homes in the countryside or abroad. He direction and production process. A first attempthas quit his job in the library as part of the to transform one of his works into a cinematicdecision to entirely devote himself to writing, project had started already in 1966 with Lesa way of self-fashioning as purely a man of Choses but had failed due to lack of financing.words. He is being frequently interviewed and is In 1974 the excitement with the notion of spaceinvited to give lectures in Italy and the United (already manifested at Lieux) brings out the bookStates. In the summer of 1981 Perec visits Espèces d’espaces (Species of spaces), a genuineAustralia for almost two months, where he is work which seeks to classify space in a wayinvited as ‘writer in residence’ in the University both systematic, personal and ironic. In 1976of Brisbane. The outcome of this visit is the Perec starts writing his magnum opus, La Viebook 53 Jours (53 Days). Mode d’ Emploi (Life a User’s Manual), which he Perec’s health has started deteriorating has been drafting and preparing throughout thealready before Australia. He has pain at his previous years with a multitude of rules, gamesleg and finds it so hard to breath, that he and tricks. Moreover, since the summer of 1975eventually has to quit smoking. In February 1982 George Perec has a relationship with Catherinehe is being diagnosed with lung cancer. On the 3rd Binet, a young cinematographer who fills up theof March 1982, Georges Perec dies in the Hôpital gap left by Suzanne and who will accompany himCharles-Foix, among friends and family. until the end of his life. Perec is now living in a quiet flat in Rue Linné, in the same building as Paulette, with whom they remain good friends. In his flat he

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THE PERECIAN STYLE

but always confident about his literary vocation. Perec was a gentle, shy and sometimes In his own words, Perec’s work is clumsy person who found it hard both toorganized according to four modes of writing: 1. The approach new people and to talk about his worksociological mode, looking at the ordinary (Things, whenever he was asked to. He eventually did soSpecies of Spaces…) 2. The autobiographical mode among his oulipian friends, or sometimes through(W, I Remember…) 3. The ludic mode, exercises the articles which he could concentrate on andof constraints, lipograms, anagrams, chess write, from the safety of his home. For onemoves, crosswords (La Disparition, Alphabets…) 4. thing was absolutely true about Perec, thatThe novelistic mode, a love for stories (Life a he was entirely dedicated to writing and wasUser’s Manual). All of his works contain these determined to be recognized through that. Thisfour modes, albeit in different degrees, like is particularly visible in the correspondence withdifferentiated recipes. In Life a User’s Manual for his editors, where he first appears desperate forexample, Perec has inserted numerous traces recognition, later on determined to set himself aof his own and his friend’s life either through writing schedule for the projects he has in mind,

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underlying relations with their surroundings. This the objects owned by the protagonists, throughattitude towards the banal originates both in the books that they read, their jobs, or eventhe literary tradition of Flaubert, but also in the the events of their lives. Most noticeably, onesocial critique of Henri Lefebvre which emerged of the novel’s rules was that each chapter hadat that time and according to which life can to contain one autobiographical element, whichbe grasped already on the level of the things therefore turned the chapters into pieces ofone possesses or aspires to acquire. Perec was Perec’s own life puzzle. particularly concerned with the reinvention of His first published work, Things, leftthe everyday, of the banal, and how things that readers wondering about what would be thewe take for granted can be rendered visible future of the protagonists and, most importantly,again. He proposed that a new vision had to be what was the writer’s aim. Did Perec intend tocreated, a vision which shall look at everything make a social critique on the consumerist societyas if for the first time and which will question all or was it a portraying of a young couple’s life? Itexisting conditions. Only this vision will lead to a is precisely this ambiguity that Perec is aiming atnew, modern anthropology and create the science when he describes with Flaubertian accuracy theof ‘endotics’ (as opposed to ‘exotics’, which will protagonists’ belongings, while at the same timebecome mundane). In order to achieve this vision, he avoids to attribute any personal commentsPerec proposed the exercise of spending a or evaluation on them or on their owners. Thisconsiderable amount of time in a public space literary style certainly reminds us of Perec’sand describing everything that might happen or fascination for the ‘infraordinary’, as he willnot, so that meanings will emerge even out of later call it, which might be described as the truethe void and rhythms will become apparent. and real essence of the things which surround Exhausting description was only one of us and which is only visible at the moment whenthe possible exercises invented by Perec. Even they get stripped of the meaning we attributebefore his recruitment into Oulipo, the jokerto them, when they are left to reveal theirwriter was drafting various game-plays which

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skills which Perec had acquired during his years enriched his writing. With lipograms, anagramsin the Neurophysiology Lab, but also a subtle and algorithms, Perec wrote not only novelsirony, an irony traversing all of his works (most and short stories, but even poems. A furthernotably in the book Quel petit vélo à guidon method inserted in most of his writings is thechromé au fond de la cour?). enumeration/ composition of catalogues and A further constraint in Perec’s writings sometimes their inventive classification. Examplesis the one of time. This was not only an of that may vary in length. I remember is a book-apparent necessity applied in his audio dramas catalogue of sentences, all of them starting withfor the German radio, but can be also traced the words “I remember” and continuing to realin the methodology of some of his works. In memories of their author. Without chronologicalSpecies of Spaces, for example, we see how the order, the only underlying unifying thread is theintroduction of time into the writing process fact that those memories had to be shared withmight make unnoticed everyday rhythms visible at least one further person. The whole bookagain (Henri Lefebvre is also concerned with Species of Spaces can be seen as a catalogueinvisible rhythms in a socio-scientific branch he for the categorization of the space whichcreated called ‘Rhythmanalysis)’. Buses passing surrounds us, firstly according to scales, andby, people crossing the streets, people rushing later according to its perception. In Penser/in peak hours, at lunch time, when they finish Classer there is a chapter with a collection oftheir work at the office, all those processes recipes compiled by the author, whereas each ofcreate rhythms and rituals which a photographic them differs to each other only in one ingredient,description of a place inevitably misses. until all possible combinations of ingredients are Moreover, Perec invented projects which exhausted. In the same book we also read aboutneeded much more time to be completed than the the different ways to organize one’s librarydescription of a street junction whilst sitting in (alphabetically, according to genre, size, editor….).a bar. This was the case of Lieux, for instance, What is obvious here are not only the archivingwhich would be completed after 12 years (if

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OPENI A LARGER WHIC UNCERT I T S N AT U DIREC

JEAN-LUC

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NG UP R S PA C E , CH IS TA I N I N URE AND CTION

C NANCY

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had crossed over the years. ‘Perec’ means hole their author hadn’t abandoned them), following ain Hebrew, a meaning which he decided to accept strict mathematical formula which emerged fromas symbolic for his family’s history. A history specific axioms. The chapters written for Lieuxfull of gaps, a childhood memory unable to be were to be kept in sealed envelopes until thecompleted in view of the trauma of his parents’ 12 years would pass, a ritual which reminds usloss. It is therefore possible to assume that of Bartlebooth’s concept for his watercolourthose tricks offered Perec a way to map his paintings, which would turn into puzzles thatworld and his surroundings, cartographing the had to be solved after 20 years in a fortnight-limits of the ‘known’, archiving memory before rhythm. In fact, the whole book of Life a User’sit gets lost in the passing of time. In a way he Manual can be seen as a race against time,was assembling his traces in order not to lose where the central story is the one of thethem, just like the traces of his childhood or his painter/ puzzle player, and all other stories aregrandmother’s demolished house. In this way, by intersected in order to delay the announcementcollecting traces, images, memories and fictions, of his inescapable death. along with postcards, photographs, recipes and It is impossible to define why Perec was sochecks, he was constantly constructing and refascinated by word games, rules and constraints.constructing, inventing and re-inventing himself. It is for sure, though, that despite the formal But life which is narrated, is it a life precision, or maybe exactly because of andlived? Or is it an accumulation of moments through that precision, a poetic and tender gazeexperienced with the agony that they will soon for the world emerges, a world full of personalpass and become past, and become memory, and details, rituals and events which constitutes anbecome the narrated? Maybe Perec’s passion for homage to the people and the matter surroundcollecting and categorizing was just an expression him. Perec was playful even towards his ownof his anguish towards the diminishing of the name, searching for phonetic and orthographiclived memory. transformations through the languages that it

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THE PERECIAN SPACE

the typewriter etc. Every now and then, all this Perec’s writing territory was usually hisstaff would disappear and make room for the home. It was there where he could work withbouffe of a party. For the rest of the time, concentration on his drafts, archived materialthey remained in place ready to be taken out, and on the synthesis of his riddles. It was therebe used, be put aside again or forgotten on where he could open up his scripts, his notepadsthe writing table. Over his concentrated head, and dictionaries in order to write, from novelsin the last apartment where Perec lived, hung a to crosswords and from poems to radio dramas.reproduction of Antonello da Messina’s St. Jerome It was there where he could also find inspirationin his Study, a portrait of the patron saint of among his mind games and puzzles, memorabiliathe translators, librarians and encyclopaedists. and posters on display. Perec’s workingIt stood over this pile of everyday, mundane environment is well organised, with drawers forobjects, as a confirmation of Perec’s devotion to his writing tools, bookbinding tools, householdthe ideal of his Art (and Craft). tools, with a table for dictionaries, a table for

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inspiration among his intellectual companions. For During his adult life Perec lived inthat time, Paris symbolised a chaotic and noisy various addresses in Paris: Rue de Quatrefages,city which prohibited him from writing. But even Rue du Bac, Rue de Seine, Avenue de Ségur andAndé, where he used to stay in ‘the room of Rue Linné. All of them were properties boughtJeanne d’ Arc’ and spend the daytime playing Go and resold with financial help from Uncle David,with Jacques Roubaud, was not that far from except for Avenue de Ségur, where he moved inParis, so that each Tuesday with the first train order to sublet the apartment of Rue de Seine. Inhe could be at his work on time. A Man Asleep a broader sense, Perec’s home was whole Paris,was written in Andé, often during bursts of as he was fascinated by its bustling urbanitycreativity and very late at night. and so deeply connected with the intellectual We have seen how a bar could be and social circles which emerged and flourishedtransformed into a writing room, in case Perec during his time. Perec was completely thrilledwas concerned with “an attempt at exhausting by Paris: Not only did he inhabit a Parisian flat,a space in Paris” (he even did it live for a radio but also he became a connoisseur of the city’sprogram in 1973). He would sit there for hours history and secrets: He knew the important (andand would write anything that happened or didn’t not so important) buildings and their details,happen, people passing by, stray cats passing he remembered iconic monuments, lesser knownby, rain falling, people disappearing. With time, statues, names of squares, gardens and museums.his eye became much more sensitive, his vision He had his regular bars and restaurants and formuch deeper, until he could eventually create his newspaper job he even created a compilation‘something’ and of ‘nothing’, until the repetitions of crosswords with places in Paris. and rituals and rhythms and explosions and In the second half of the 60s Perec’svoids would make him look at the world with writing refuge had moved to the estate ofunprecedented imagination and tenderness. Moulin d’ Andé, where he found tranquillity and

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unexpectedly drop by is not more private than The world appears fragmented in Perec’sthe window seat of a Parisian café. works, described with precision but deprived What is important in any space, though, of any reference to emotions. The world isis the process of framing, through which any objectified: listed, enumerated and categorized indescription becomes possible. The locus might be order to be described. As Perec’s writings areprecisely this room, with these specific furniture, highly autobiographical, we find him describingthe tapestry with its unnoticed stains, with the the places where he has been or where he istraces of previous inhabitants. Or it might be currently being. He might move between scales,the street junction with the bus 86 passing by going from the sphere of his closest proximityapproximately every 22 minutes unless during to scales much larger, as he is doing in Speciespeak hours. No matter what the context might of Spaces. There is no hierarchy between privatebe, Perec combines the cartography of the banal and public. His Paris apartment where friends

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and be observed. It is the life with its demanding with the historiography of the objects whichchallenges and events, which leave no room for surround us and of the places where they arecontemplation. But it is also the life which, with located. The process of framing allows Perec toall its stimuli, offers the seeds for contemplation. set those reflective walls around the pictureIt is where experience is being gathered. and look not only at the objects contained, but Accordingly, the life of reflection also at his very self. While Perec is becomingand solitude can only take place within a room both the subject and the object of the narration,stripped from the foreign gaze, in the spatial his surroundings comprise a transcript of hisdomain where one does not need to be a (future) memories. Only by framing auto-performer, is not confronted with the demands reflection becomes possible and only thereof a socialised life. Only within this solitude, can Perec locate his fleeting and traumatised,freed from the constraints and compromises devoted of childhood-memories self. of everyday life, can the true self arise, a In Adi Ophir’s A Place of Knowledge Re-self which is as ‘discovered’ as it is ‘invented’. Created: The Library of Michel de Montaigne weOphir noticeably talks about the ‘construction get introduced to the concept of authorshipof subjectivity through solitude’, a subjectivity through solitude. In the essay, Montaigne iswhich becomes a prerequisite for authorship. In portrayed to isolate himself in the library of histhe life of reflection, all stimuli and observations house as the very precondition for becoming aare being evaluated, both knowledge from other writer. He experiences life as separated in twoauthors, as well as knowledge gained in the life parts: the life as experienced and the life ofas experienced. There is no hierarchy in this reflection and solitude. The life as experiencedarchive, memory becomes meaningful not because takes place always outside of the solitary roomit is significant, but because it has been recorded. of the library, in a space where one can observe

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processes of observation and objectification and In this sense, nothing is more important than thethrough the authorial presence, which separates rest. and at the same time interrelates observation Ophir defines observation andand writing, the writing room can emerge as a objectification as the two important parametersplace of knowledge. for authorship. Observation can happen The concepts of observation and everywhere, in the public, through books etc.objectification as described by Ophir become very and it defines the dividing line between the placerelevant in the context of Perec’s oeuvre. Perec to observe and the place to write. Objectificationindeed sought to separate himself in order to describes the process where the subject of theunderstand it, although his separation didn’t observation (Montaigne) decides to set himselfnecessarily mean a physical isolation within a as the very object of this observation andspace where nobody else has access to. For description process. This leads to an inevitablePerec, the separation is manifested rather in doubling of the self, the overlapping of thethe process of (spatial/literary) framing which I researcher and the ‘thing’ to be researched,describe above. Within his frames, no matter if within the laboratory. Moreover, this conditionthey refer to places private or public, present transforms the writing room into a Heterotopia,or past, Perec creates a microcosmos of which as it becomes the only place where this doublinghe is able to have an overview. In the realisation may happen. Authorship, for Ophir, refers to thethat knowledge is infinite, one would rather set will to grasp and describe the self, in order toa limit, a frame within which one can exhaust understand and distinguish it, not only amongall information and possibilities. Perec’s frames numerous ‘others’, but also within its self, asconstitute places of knowledge inasmuch as the passage of time leads to its inevitablethey offer territories for observation and transformation and ‘diffusion’. Through these

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In each of his works, we find traces of objectification. Perec himself is objectifiedPerec’s real life. He uses the practice of writing, through describing all the objects on his table,exactly as the practice of psychoanalysis, in all the memories of his grandmother’s house, allorder to reflect on his very self. He is becoming a the bedrooms he has slept in, all the dreams hegiant eye, an eye looking inwards, while stripping has had during the period of one year. Tracesitself from all external attributes in order to of himself are proofs of his existence. Perec,find its real essence. This process becomes like Montaigne, isolates himself in order to knowapparent in the case of the Man Asleep, a short himself. In contrast to Montaigne’s recurrentautobiographical story concerning an actual period theme of the library, though, what is differentof depression which Perec had experienced ten for Perec is that he doesn’t systematically useyears earlier than the time of its writing. Here the same demarcated retreat for his solitudethe narration is conducted in the second person and contemplation. Perec can write even in a bar,singular, playing with the ambiguity between the an extraordinary case where the Heterotopia ofprotagonist and the narrator. In the final scene, the writing room becomes a wandering concept.we see the protagonist wandering as a dropout Perec minimises the time/space Montaignethrough the streets of Paris. In his quest for needed between observation and writing, throughhis real self, he has freed himself from any the fact that he eliminates any comments,expectations, taken distance from all friends and any evaluation which he could attribute to hisrelatives. In this work, as in so many others, observations. His memory is deconstructed onPerec turns memory into narration. If this is a the level of names, places, dates or beds. It ismechanism to accept and grieve about his past, then reconstructed through the most inventivea way to (re)construct himself, or a way to pay games, lists, riddles and hidden signs within histribute to the details and protagonists of his novels, most noticeably in Life a User’s Manual. everyday life, all explanations could be justified.

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EPILOGUE

them into the literary work. Space is treated Georges Perecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literary work containslike an object. It is equally systematically/ a multitude of personal experiences and facts.epistemologically described and categorized, as This information, though, does not appear to thethis rigorous description is what allows for the reader as a plain autobiographical information,meaning of everyday life to be grasped. But it gets rather concealed through a mechanismspace, unlike objects, has also the capacity to of transformations/falsifications which Pereccontain, to contain its writer and narrator, the masterfully recruites in order to both hide andwriter who sees himself being deconstructed and reveal himself. Perec indulges into exercises ofreconstructed with each riddle and algorithm memory and enumeration, exercises which seekhe creates. Space is not infinite as it is not to defeat oblivion, the passing of time, the lossimaginary, and so Perec can be contained and of the fleeting self. It is the same method whichfixated within his closed system, in order to see Perec uses in order to describe space. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tand know himself, in order to invent himself anew. need to invent any imaginary place in order toPerec can now finally locate himself somewhere, stage the actions of his works. His experiencecreating a tradition and family, a past, a history, provides him with a multitude of places whicha narration. he masks and transforms in order to insert

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REFERENCES

Books by George Perec: Perec, Georges. Skepsi/ Taksinomisi [Σκέψη/ Ταξινόμηση]. Athens: Agra [Άγρα], 2005. Perec, Georges. Hories Horon [Χορείες Χώρων]. Athens: Ypsilon [Ύψιλον], 2000.

Websites: Videos: Association Georges Perec. Youtube. “Un Homme Qui Dort (1974) Accessed November 15, 2015. http:// Full movie with subs”. Accessed associationgeorgesperec.fr. October 31, 2015. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=3TNurvWW4_0. Remue. “Georges Perec / interroger l’habituel. Petit guide pratique du Ina. “Georges Perec présente La Vie Perec virtuel.” Accessed October 31, mode d’emploi”. Accessed October 2015. http://remue.net/cont/perec. 31, 2015. http://www.ina.fr/video/ html. I09365760.

Books about George Perec: Bellos, David. Georges Perec, A Life in Words. London: The Harvill Press, L’École Nationale Supérieure 1999. d’Architecture de Grenoble “L’ordinaire du regard”. Accessed Other books: October 31, 2015. http://www. Ophir, A. (1991) ‘A Place of Knowledge grenoble.archi.fr/cours-en-ligne/ Re-Created: The Library of Michel de tixier/perec/perec.html. Montaigne’. Science in Context, 4 (1): 163-189. Wayback Machine. “Georges Perec’s `Negative’ Autobiography”. Accessed October 31, 2015. https://web.archive. org/web/20071223065247/http:// pages.towson.edu/baker/negative.htm.

Ina. “Entretien entre Georges Perec et Jacques Roubau”. Accessed October 31, 2015. http://www.ina.fr/ video /I05057040. Cover Texts: Perec, Georges. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin, 1998.

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OPEN SPACE ENCLOSED SPACE OUTER SPACE SPACE SPACE LIVING SPACE PROJECTIVE SPACE SPACE LACK OF SPACE SPACE SPACE DEEP SPACE SPACE SPACE EUCLIDEAN SPACE SPACE SPACE BLANK SPACE SPACE PARKING SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE LOST IN SPACE STARING INTO SPACE WATCH THIS SPACE SPACE SPACE SPACE CATCHER SPACE SPACE BUNCHER SPACE THREE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE HAIR SPACE SPACE NULL SPACE LEAVE A SPACE SPACE AVAILABLE SPACE SPACE POSITION IN SPACE EDGES OF SPACE SPACE WIDE OPEN SPACE LACK OF SPACE SPACE ENCLOSED SPACE SPACE

SUIT AGE CAPSULE BAND HEATER ODYSSEY SALESMAN CADET STATION OUT INVADERS WALK TIME CONTINUUM BAR

CURVE LATTICE OPERA SICKNESS

RACE OF A MOMENT NEEDLE WRITER SAVING FILLER