M.C. Escher ou la cage d’escalier

Espèces d'espaces is a text that blends elements of essay and prose poetry, presenting itself as 'the journal of a user of space. ' It interrogates how we inhabit our spaces by questioning the ordinary and the mundane. The book progresses through a series of nested descriptions, starting from the page on which Perec writes, then moving to the bed, the room, the apartment, the building, the street, the neighborhood, the city, the countryside, the country, Europe, the world, and finally back to the page. This work is a reflection on the nature of space, its traces, rhythms, and circuits, and how the most common places can become improbable and strange through observation.

La vie mode d'emploi is Georges Perec's most famous novel, published in 1978. The book is a tapestry of interwoven stories and ideas, including literary and historical allusions, based on the lives of the inhabitants of a fictitious Parisian apartment block. The narrative is structured according to a complex plan of writing constraints, moving through the apartments like a knight in a chess game. The central story revolves around Bartlebooth, an Englishman who devises a plan to paint watercolors of different ports around the world, which are then turned into jigsaw puzzles. The novel also explores the final project of the painter Serge Valène, who aims to paint the entire apartment block. Failure is a recurring theme in many of the stories, and the book is known for its rich narrative and complex construction.