Volume 35, Number 10 · June 16, 1988
That Ephemeral Thing
By Harry Mathews
Life A User's Manual
by Georges Perec, translated by David Bellos
Godine, 581 pp., $24.95
Nearly ten years after its publication in Paris, Georges Perec's monumental La Vie mode d'emploi has at last been published in this country as Life A User's Manual in David Bellos's elegant translation. Where for the French the novel came as the culmination of a distinguished twenty-year career, for most Americans it coincides with their discovery of its author. They could hardly pick a better place to start; although I must, at the outset, declare my opinions in this matter altogether partial. Two chapters of this translation of Life are my doing; Perec and I were close friends—I am biased in favor of his work simply because it is his. I hope that the familiarity underlying this bias will make it possible for me to provide useful information for Perec's English-speaking readers.
Review, 4749 words
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