Georges Perec
Georges Perec's W, or the Memory of Childhood is a very interesting way of illustrating trauma. It had an unexpected and unnerving storyline. It was a semi-autobiographical work of post-modernist literature. One half of the story is fictional and follows a utopian olympic whilst the other is constructed of real childhood memories. The main character adapts the identity of Winkler to evade military service. The second part follows a mythical Olympics hosted on an island where the winners are idolized and the losers are tortured. At first it was hard to understand how the stories were connected. I found that this novel had me trying to piece together the story until the third story instalment. The land of W was an escape from the harsh realities of the world during the Holocaust. The island of W was a mirrored reality of what the author was enduring. It was a different type of retelling of the Holocaust. The fact that the island was called W is symbolic of double lives and how the n