On Species of Spaces and other Pieces by Georges Perec

To write a review on a book I admire is a difficult task. My first dilemma is that I must write about writing. It is absurd to use words to describe other, perhaps better, words. Should I write in the style of the book? Wouldn’t a painting about Picasso’s work resemble it? I will attempt to write in the writer’s style, employ his techniques rather than try to describe them.

First I must understand words as objects. They are to be selected with surgical precision. Chosen for the silhouettes they create on the paper and the resonances they make when spoken as much as for their meaning (where possible a word must be used twice in one sentence, to play with its different connotations). This operation must be precise exact.

My second dilemma is that it makes more sense for you to read 300 words from the book itself, rather than 300 words describing it. This critique is criticising criticisms.

This is my advice:
1. Stop reading.
2. Walk to your nearest bookshop.
3. Pick up Species of Spaces and other Pieces by Georges Perec.
4. Open it on any page (because this book lends itself for reading at random).
5. Read 300 words.
6. Savour their every nuance.
7. Close the book. Look around you.
8. See the world as Perec does - notice what goes unnoticed.

If you enjoy it, read on, perhaps buy it, if you don’t then stop.

Perec would tell you to ignore my advice. He would tell you, if you are already in the bookshop, to take pleasure in aimless browsing. Select books for the colour of their spine, for their font size, for the smell of their binding. Run your fingers over embossed titles. Read last sentences. Find a book that speaks to you (as his does to me).