Reviews
Three by Perec: Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard? by Georges Perec
breadandmushrooms's review against another edition
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
drewsstuff's review against another edition
Had it. Read it. Several times. Laughed. A lot. Stared in awe at the pages. A lot. Lost it. The book, that is, not my mind. Now I have it again, huzzah!!
psr's review against another edition
4.0
This volume collects together three of Perec's brief novellas, in accordance with a wish expressed shortly before death robbed us of his genius. Satisfyingly, the texts date from the early, middle and late phases of Perec's published writing career. He's a contender for my favourite writer ('Life a User's Manual' is my favourite novels) but that doesn't mean I have to be uncritical...
I read 'The Exeter Text' some fifteen or so years ago. It's Perec's univocaliic in E, counterpart to his epsilon-minus lipogram, 'La Disparation'. The rest de le reevew rendered threw ewes des lettres 'E' sewlement? No, that would be too tiresome, and to be honest, that's what I found with 'The Exeter Text'. It's fiendishly cunning but not that rewarding to read. En experement tew menny, me beleeves...
The spectacularly and misleadingly titled 'Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard' is much more readable, a jolly jaunt through a plot about helping a conscript to avoid being sent to war in Algeria, with metafictional and Rabelaisian elements. The underlying seriousness of the topic is underlined with brilliant constraint through passing mention of another conscript who "already had a red hole in his right side". It ends with a typically Perecquian "Index... of the ornamentations and flowers of rhetoric ... in the text which you have just read."
'A Gallery Portrait', Perec's last completed piece (frustratingly, '53 Days' remained unfinished) is the strongest of the three, the tale of an artistic hoax, linking it to Perec's first and last full-length fictions. The portrait itself and others at the 1913 Pittsburgh Exhibition are described with faux-academic rigour, in the manner of an art forger seeking to fob off a fake to its would-be buyer. The pharaoh-style entombment of the portrait's patron is just one fantastical set-piece to enjoy in this pleasing novella, a fitting coda to Perec's masterwork, 'La Vie Mode d'emploi'.
I read 'The Exeter Text' some fifteen or so years ago. It's Perec's univocaliic in E, counterpart to his epsilon-minus lipogram, 'La Disparation'. The rest de le reevew rendered threw ewes des lettres 'E' sewlement? No, that would be too tiresome, and to be honest, that's what I found with 'The Exeter Text'. It's fiendishly cunning but not that rewarding to read. En experement tew menny, me beleeves...
The spectacularly and misleadingly titled 'Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard' is much more readable, a jolly jaunt through a plot about helping a conscript to avoid being sent to war in Algeria, with metafictional and Rabelaisian elements. The underlying seriousness of the topic is underlined with brilliant constraint through passing mention of another conscript who "already had a red hole in his right side". It ends with a typically Perecquian "Index... of the ornamentations and flowers of rhetoric ... in the text which you have just read."
'A Gallery Portrait', Perec's last completed piece (frustratingly, '53 Days' remained unfinished) is the strongest of the three, the tale of an artistic hoax, linking it to Perec's first and last full-length fictions. The portrait itself and others at the 1913 Pittsburgh Exhibition are described with faux-academic rigour, in the manner of an art forger seeking to fob off a fake to its would-be buyer. The pharaoh-style entombment of the portrait's patron is just one fantastical set-piece to enjoy in this pleasing novella, a fitting coda to Perec's masterwork, 'La Vie Mode d'emploi'.
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