Weekend Reading: Perec

As I prepare myself for a new adventure – going back to school – this September, I took my time to slowly absorb the things that pass in life that we often take for granted. Georges Perec’s A Void is the epitome of it.

A Void – originally published in French with the title La Disparition – came with a catch: Perec did not use words that contain the letter “e”.

For me this premise goes beyond the ability to write within constraints. The absence of “e” metaphor the absence of something that is dear to us. In this novel you could not find ‘father’, ‘mother’, or even ‘dear’. The things that often times we no longer take time to acknowledge, but their absence would leave the hollowness nothing could replace.

– Rassi Narika