{"id":4149,"date":"2019-01-02T13:31:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T17:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2019-01-02T14:13:40","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T18:13:40","slug":"perecs-valenes-dreams-life-a-users-manuals-story-concept-hoard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2019\/01\/02\/perecs-valenes-dreams-life-a-users-manuals-story-concept-hoard\/","title":{"rendered":"Perec’s Val\u00e8ne’s dreams : Life: A User’s Manual’s story concept hoard"},"content":{"rendered":"

And a second catalog of tales, with fewer interconnections : Val\u00e8ne’s incomplete catalog of 179 stories from\u00a0the Fifty-First chapter<\/em> of Life, A User’s Manual<\/a>, a life-work of Perec<\/a>, poetic puzzlemaker and one of the great writers of the 20th century, lovingly translated into English by the meticulous David Bellos<\/a> :<\/p>\n

1\u00a0\u00a0 The Coronation at Covadonga of Alkhamah's victor, Don Pelage<\/code><\/p>\n

2\u00a0\u00a0 The Russian singer and Sch\u00f6nberg living in Holland as exiles<\/code><\/p>\n

3\u00a0\u00a0 The deaf cat on the top floor with one blue & one yellow eye<\/code><\/p>\n

4\u00a0\u00a0 Barrels of sand being filled by order of the fumbling cretin<\/code><\/p>\n

5\u00a0\u00a0 The miserly old woman marking all her expenses in a notebook<\/code><\/p>\n

6\u00a0\u00a0 The puzzlemaker's backgammon game giving him his bad tempers
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

7\u00a0\u00a0 The concierge watering potted plants for residents when away<\/code><\/p>\n

8\u00a0\u00a0 The parents naming their son Gilbert after B\u00e9caud their idol<\/code><\/p>\n

9\u00a0\u00a0 A bigamous count's wife accepting his Turkish female rescuer<\/code><\/p>\n

10\u00a0 The businesswoman, regretting that she had to leave the land<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11\u00a0 The boy taking down the bins dreaming how to write his novel<\/code><\/p>\n

12\u00a0 The Australian round-the-worlder and her well-dressed nephew<\/code><\/p>\n

13\u00a0 The anthropologist, failing to locate the ever-evasive tribe<\/code><\/p>\n

14\u00a0 The cook's refusal of an oven with the self-cleansing device<\/code><\/p>\n

15\u00a0 1% sacrificed to art by the MD of a world-wide hotel company<\/code><\/p>\n

16\u00a0 The nurse casually lea\ufb01ng through a shiny new photo magazine<\/code><\/p>\n

17\u00a0 The poet who went on a pilgrimage shipwrecked at Arkhangelsk<\/code><\/p>\n

18\u00a0 The impatient Italian violinplayer who riled his miniaturist<\/code><\/p>\n

19\u00a0 The fat, sausage-eating couple keeping their wireless set on<\/code><\/p>\n

20\u00a0 The one-armed officer after the bombardment of General H.-Q.<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

21\u00a0 The daughter's sad reveries, at the side of her father's bed<\/code><\/p>\n

22\u00a0 Austrian customers getting just the steamiest \u201cTurkish Bath\u201d<\/code><\/p>\n

23\u00a0 The Paraguayan odd-job man, getting ready to ignite a letter<\/code><\/p>\n

24\u00a0 The billionaire sporting knickerbockers to practice painting<\/code><\/p>\n

25\u00a0 The Woods & Water Dept. official opens a sanctuary for birds<\/code><\/p>\n

26\u00a0 The widow with her souvenirs wrapped in old weekly magazines<\/code><\/p>\n

27\u00a0 An international thief taken to be a high-ranking magistrate<\/code><\/p>\n

28\u00a0 Robinson Crusoe leading a very decent life style on his isle<\/code><\/p>\n

29\u00a0 The domino-playing rodent who feasted on dried-out Edam rind<\/code><\/p>\n

30\u00a0 The suffering \u201cword-snuffer\u201d messing around in old bookshops<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

31\u00a0 The black-clad investigator selling the latest key to dreams<\/code><\/p>\n

32\u00a0 The man in vegetable oils opening a fish restaurant in Paris<\/code><\/p>\n

33\u00a0 The famous old soldier killed by a loose Venetian chandelier<\/code><\/p>\n

34\u00a0 The injured cyclist who then married his pace-maker\u2019s sister<\/code><\/p>\n

35\u00a0 The cook whose master ingested only eggs and poached haddock<\/code><\/p>\n

36\u00a0 The newly-weds taking credit over 2 yrs to have a luxury bed<\/code><\/p>\n

37\u00a0 The art dealer's deserted wife, left for an Italian Angelina<\/code><\/p>\n

38\u00a0 The childhood friend reading the biographies of her 5 nieces<\/code><\/p>\n

39\u00a0 The gentleman who inserted into bottles figures made of cork<\/code><\/p>\n

40\u00a0 An archaeologist researching the Arab king's Spanish capital<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

41\u00a0 The Pole living quietly in the Oise now his clowning is over<\/code><\/p>\n

42\u00a0 The hag who cut the hot water to stop her son-in-law shaving<\/code><\/p>\n

43\u00a0 A Dutchman who knew any No. could be but the sum of K primes<\/code><\/p>\n

44\u00a0 Robert Scipion devising his supremely clever cross-word clue<\/code><\/p>\n

45\u00a0 The scientist learning to lip-read the deaf-mute's equations<\/code><\/p>\n

46\u00a0 The Albanian terrorist serenading his love, an American star<\/code><\/p>\n

47\u00a0 The Stuttgarter businessman wanting to roast his leg of boar<\/code><\/p>\n

48\u00a0 Dod\u00e9ca's owner's son preferring the porn trade to priesthood<\/code><\/p>\n

49\u00a0 A barman speaking pidgin in order to swap his mother-goddess<\/code><\/p>\n

50\u00a0 The boy seeing in his dreams the cake he hadn't been allowed<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

51\u00a0 7 actors each refusing the role after they'd seen the script<\/code><\/p>\n

52\u00a0 A deserter from US forces in Korea allowing his squad to die<\/code><\/p>\n

53\u00a0 The superstar who started out as a sex-changed guitar-player<\/code><\/p>\n

54\u00a0 A redheaded white man enjoying a rich maharajah's tiger hunt<\/code><\/p>\n

55\u00a0 A liberal grandfather moved to creation by a detective story<\/code><\/p>\n

56\u00a0 The expert penman copying suras from the Koran in the casbah<\/code><\/p>\n

57\u00a0 Angelica's aria from Arconati's Orlando<\/em> requested by Orfanik<\/code><\/p>\n

58\u00a0 The actor plotting suicide with the help of a foster brother<\/code><\/p>\n

59\u00a0 Her arm held high a Japanese athlete bears the Olympic torch<\/code><\/p>\n

60\u00a0 Embattled Aetius stopping the Huns on the Catalaunian Fields<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

61\u00a0 Selim\u2019s arrow hitting the end wall of a room 888 metres long<\/code><\/p>\n

62\u00a0 The staff sergeant deceasing because of his rubber-gum binge<\/code><\/p>\n

63\u00a0 The mate of the Fox<\/em> alighting on Fitz-James's final messages<\/code><\/p>\n

64\u00a0 The student staying in a room for six months without budging<\/code><\/p>\n

65\u00a0 The producer's wife off yet again on a trip around the globe<\/code><\/p>\n

66\u00a0 The central-heating engineer making sure the fueljet ignites<\/code><\/p>\n

67\u00a0 The executive who entertained all his workmates very grandly<\/code><\/p>\n

68\u00a0 The boy sorting medical blotters he'd been collecting avidly<\/code><\/p>\n

69\u00a0 The actor-cook hired by an American lady who was hugely rich<\/code><\/p>\n

70\u00a0 The former croupier who turned into a shy, retiring old lady<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

71\u00a0 The technician trying a new experiment, and losing 3 fingers<\/code><\/p>\n

72\u00a0 The young lady living in the Ardennes with a Belgian builder<\/code><\/p>\n

73\u00a0 The Dr's ancestor nearly solving the synthetic gem conundrum<\/code><\/p>\n

74\u00a0 The ravishing American magician and Mephisto agreeing a deal<\/code><\/p>\n

75\u00a0 The curio dealer's son in red leather on his Guzzi motorbike<\/code><\/p>\n

76\u00a0 The principal destroying the secrets of the German scientist<\/code><\/p>\n

77\u00a0 The historian, turned down 46 times, burning his 1200-pp. MS<\/code><\/p>\n

78\u00a0 A Jap who turned a quartz watch Co into a gigantic syndicate<\/code><\/p>\n

79\u00a0 The Swedish diplomat trying madly to avenge his son and wife<\/code><\/p>\n

80\u00a0 The delayed voyager begging to have her green beans returned<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

81\u00a0 The star seeking admission by meditating a recipe for afters<\/code><\/p>\n

82\u00a0 The lady who was interested in hoarding clockwork mechanisms<\/code><\/p>\n

83\u00a0 The magician guessing answers with digits selected at random<\/code><\/p>\n

84\u00a0 The Russian prince presenting a mahogany sofa shaped in an S<\/code><\/p>\n

85\u00a0 The superfluous driver playing cardgames to use up his hours<\/code><\/p>\n

86\u00a0 A medic, hoping to make a mark on gastronomy with crab salad<\/code><\/p>\n

87\u00a0 An optimistic engineer liquidating his exotic hides business<\/code><\/p>\n

88\u00a0 The Japanese sage initiating in great anguish Three Free Men<\/code><\/p>\n

89\u00a0 A selftaught old man again going over his sanatorium stories<\/code><\/p>\n

90\u00a0 A relative twice removed, obliged to auction his inheritance<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

91\u00a0 Customs & Excise men unpacking the raging princess's samovar<\/code><\/p>\n

92\u00a0 The trader in Indian cotton goods doing up a flat on the 8th<\/code><\/p>\n

93\u00a0 French-style overtures brought to the Hamburg Opera by a Hun<\/code><\/p>\n

94\u00a0 Marguerite, restoring things seen through a magnifying glass<\/code><\/p>\n

95\u00a0 The puzzlemaker with his ginger cat taking the name of Ch\u00e9ri<\/code><\/p>\n

96\u00a0 The nightclub waiter, legging up on stage to start a cabaret<\/code><\/p>\n

97\u00a0 The rich amateur leaving his musical collection to a library<\/code><\/p>\n

98\u00a0 A housing and estate agency woman looking at that empty flat<\/code><\/p>\n

99\u00a0 The lady doing the Englishman's black cardboard puzzle boxes<\/code><\/p>\n

100 The critic committing 4 crimes for 1 of Percival's seascapes<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

101 The Praetor ordering 30000 Lusitanians to be killed in a day<\/code><\/p>\n

102 A student in a long coat staring at a map of the Paris metro<\/code><\/p>\n

103 The building manager, trying to solve his cash-flow problems<\/code><\/p>\n

104 The girl studying the craftsman's rings to sell in her store<\/code><\/p>\n

105 Nationalists fighting the Damascene publisher who was French<\/code><\/p>\n

106 A little girl gnawing at the edges of her shortbread cookies<\/code><\/p>\n

107 The maid, imagining she'd seen the evil eye in an undertaker<\/code><\/p>\n

108 A painstaking scientist examining rats' reactions to poisons<\/code><\/p>\n

109 The pranking student who put beef stock in vegetarians' soup<\/code><\/p>\n

110 A workman gazing at his letter, as he leaves with two others<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

111 The aged gentleman's gentleman recomputing his n<\/em>th factorial<\/code><\/p>\n

112 The staggered priest offering help to a Frenchman lost in NY<\/code><\/p>\n

113 The druggist spending his fortune on the Holy Vase of Joseph<\/code><\/p>\n

114 The jigsaw glue being perfected by a head of a chemistry lab<\/code><\/p>\n

115 That gent in a black cloak donning new, tight-fitting gloves<\/code><\/p>\n

116 Old Guyomard cutting Bellmer's sheet in 2 through the middle<\/code><\/p>\n

117 Original fine champagne proffered to Colbert by Don P\u00e9rignon<\/code><\/p>\n

118 A gay waltz being written by an old friend of Liszt & Chopin<\/code><\/p>\n

119 Agreeably drowsy after lunch, M. Riri sitting at his counter<\/code><\/p>\n

120 Gallant Amerigo learning a continent was to be named America<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

121 Mark Twain reading his obituary long before he'd intended to<\/code><\/p>\n

122 The woman polishing a dagger that was Kl\u00e9ber's murder weapon<\/code><\/p>\n

123 The college endowed by its ex-rector, an expert in philology<\/code><\/p>\n

124 The single mother reading Pirandello's story of Daddi, Romeo<\/code><\/p>\n

125 The historian who used pseudonyms to publish rubbishy novels<\/code><\/p>\n

126 The librarian collecting proof that Hitler continues to live<\/code><\/p>\n

127 A blind man tuning a Russian prima donna's grand piano-forte<\/code><\/p>\n

128 A decorator making the most of the young pig\u2019s crimson bones<\/code><\/p>\n

129 The agent trading cowries believing he'd make millions at it<\/code><\/p>\n

130 The disappointed customer who in dyeing her hair lost it all<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

131 The assistant librarian using red pencil to ring opera crits<\/code><\/p>\n

132 The lovelorn coachman who thought he'd heard a rodent mewing<\/code><\/p>\n

133 The kitchen-lads bringing up hot tasty snacks for a grand do<\/code><\/p>\n

134 The nurse's milk jug spilt on the carpet by two naughty cats<\/code><\/p>\n

135 A Tommy and his bride-to-be stuck between floors in the lift<\/code><\/p>\n

138 The bookdealer who found three of Victor Hugo's original MSS<\/code><\/p>\n

137 The English \u201cau pair\u201d reading an epistle from her boy-friend<\/code><\/p>\n

138 The ordnance general who was shot in the lounge of his hotel<\/code><\/p>\n

139 The doctor whom loaded fire-arms forced to carry out surgery<\/code><\/p>\n

140 Safari-buffs with their native guide - posing for the camera<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

141 The French prof, getting pupils' vacation assignments marked<\/code><\/p>\n

142 A beautiful Polish woman and her wee son dreaming of Tunisia<\/code><\/p>\n

143 The judge's spouse whose pearls had cooked black in the fire<\/code><\/p>\n

144 The cyclist struggling for recognition for his 1-hour record<\/code><\/p>\n

145 A conscript startled on seeing his old physics schoolteacher<\/code><\/p>\n

146 The ex-landlord dreaming of a \u201chero\u201d of the traditional kind<\/code><\/p>\n

147 A conductor rehearsing his band for 9 weeks, again and again<\/code><\/p>\n

148 A gifted numerate, aspiring to construct a massive radiomast<\/code><\/p>\n

149 Antipodean fans giving their idol a present of 71 white mice<\/code><\/p>\n

150 The Spanish ex-concierge not too keen to unjam the lift door<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

151 Listening to an enormous phonogram, a smoker of an 89c cigar<\/code><\/p>\n

152 A choreographer, returning to torment the loveless ballerina<\/code><\/p>\n

153 The man who delivered wine on a trike doing the hall mirrors<\/code><\/p>\n

154 An obviously pornographic old man waiting at the school gate<\/code><\/p>\n

155 The botanist hoping an ivory Epiphyllum would carry his name<\/code><\/p>\n

156 The so-called Russian who solved every brainteaser published<\/code><\/p>\n

157 The infant Mozart, performing for Louis and Marie-Antoinette<\/code><\/p>\n

158 A sword-swallower who on medication threw up a load of nails<\/code><\/p>\n

159 A man who made religious articles dying of cold in the woods<\/code><\/p>\n

160 Blind horses, deep down in the mine, hauling railway waggons<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

161 A urologist musing on the arguments of Galen and Asclepiades<\/code><\/p>\n

162 A handsome pilot looking for the castle at Corbenic on a map<\/code><\/p>\n

163 The carpenter's workman warming his hands at a woodchip fire<\/code><\/p>\n

164 Visitors to the Orient trying to solve the magic ring puzzle<\/code><\/p>\n

165 A ballet maestro beaten to death in the U.S.A. by 3 hoodlums<\/code><\/p>\n

166 A princess, who said prayers at her regal granddad's bedside<\/code><\/p>\n

167 The tenant (for 6 wks) insisting on full checks on all pipes<\/code><\/p>\n

168 A manager who managed to be away for four months in the year<\/code><\/p>\n

169 A lady who owned a curio shop fishing for a malosol cucumber<\/code><\/p>\n

170 The man who saw his own death warrant in a newspaper cutting<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

171 The emperor thinking of the \u201cEagle\u201d to attack the Royal Navy<\/code><\/p>\n

172 Famous works improved by a celebrated artist's layer of haze<\/code><\/p>\n

173 Eugene of Savoy having a list made of the relics of Golgotha<\/code><\/p>\n

174 in a polka-dot dress, a woman who knitted beside the seaside<\/code><\/p>\n

175 The Tommies enjoying girls' gym practices on a Pacific beach<\/code><\/p>\n

176 Gedeon Spilett locating the last match in his trouser pocket<\/code><\/p>\n

177 A young trapeze artist refusing to climb down from his perch<\/code><\/p>\n

178 Woodworms' hollow honeycombs solidified by an Italian artist<\/code><\/p>\n

179 Lonely Val\u00e8ne putting every bit of the block onto his canvas<\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And a second catalog of tales, with fewer interconnections : Val\u00e8ne’s incomplete catalog of 179 stories from\u00a0the Fifty-First chapter of Life, A User’s Manual, a life-work of Perec, poetic puzzlemaker and one of the great writers of the 20th century, lovingly translated into English by the meticulous David Bellos : 1\u00a0\u00a0 The Coronation at Covadonga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[206,205,78829,78788,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-la-mod","category-glory-glory-glory","category-ideonomy","category-seraphic","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-14V","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4166,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}