Perec.
I felt that in a lot of ways this piece of writing contained similarities to Goethe’s methodology and although I haven’t updated my blog as often as I would’ve liked to recently, I will be documenting my observations using both Perec and Goethes’s ideas over the next few weeks.
Georges Perec, ‘Species of Spaces’, 1974
Extracts from Perec, Georges (1990) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, London: Penguin, pp. 2; 5-6; 50-56.
We live in space, in these spaces, these towns, this countryside, these corridors, these parks. That seems obvious to us. Perhaps indeed it should be obvious. But it isn’t obvious, not just a matter of course.
In short, spaces have multiplied, been broken up and have diversified. There are spaces today of every kind and every size, for every use and every function. To live is to pass from one space to another, while doing your very best not to bump yourself.
Practical Exercises
Observe the street, from time to time, with some concern for system perhaps.
Apply Yourself. Take your time.
Note down the place, the time, the date, the weather.
Note down what you can see. Anything worthy of note going on. Do you know how to see what’s worthy of 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’s made of, what it’s used for. The people in the street. The cars. What sort of cars? The buildings. The shops. What do they sell in the shops? The cafes.
How many cafes are there? Why did you choose this one? Don’t say, don’t write ‘etc.’. Make an effort to exhaust the subject, even if that seems grotesque, or pointless or stupid. You still haven’t looked at anything, you’ve merely picked out what you’ve long ago picked out.
Force yourself to see more flatly.
Detect a rhythm:
Read what’s written in the street:
Decipher a bit of the town, deduce the obvious facts:
Decipher a bit of the town. Its circuits:
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. Prudent people who’ve taken their macs. Dogs, birds, a cat. Nothing is happening, in fact. Try to classify the people: those who live locally and those who don’t live locally.
Time passes. Drink your beer. Wait.
Note the trees.
Carry on. Until the scene becomes improbable. Until you have the impression, for the briefest of moment, that you are in a strange town or, better still, until you can no longer understand what is happening or not happening, until the whole place becomes strange and you no longer even know that this is what is called a town, a street, buildings, pavements…
Make torrential rain fall, smash everything, make grass grow, replace the people by cows and make King Kong appear, or Tex Avery’s herculean mouse, towering a hundred metres above the roofs of the buildings.
Or again: strive to picture to yourself, with the greatest possible precision, beneath the network of streets, the tangle of sewers, the lines of the Metro, the invisible underground proliferation of conduits (electricity, gas, telephone lines, water mains, express letter tubes), without which no life would be possible on the surface.
Underneath, just underneath, resuscitate the eocene: the limestone, the marl and the soft chalk, the gypsum, the lactustrian Saint-Ouen limestone, the Beauchamp sands, the rough limestone, the Soissons sands and lignites, the plastic clay, the hard chalk.
