Scope and Contents

The book consists of two novels. Things deals with a young French lower middle class couple in the post-WWII era who are marketing researchers. They want to be acquire possessions but do not have the necessary job skills or work ethnic to become wealthy. A Man Asleep is an existensionlist story about a nameless person that is written entirely in the second voice. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Three short stories were published in one volume as suggested by Georg Perec to his publisher shortly before his death in in 1982 at the age of 46. The stories are titled, "The Exeter Text: Jewels, Secrets, Sex," "Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard ?" and "A Gallery Portrait." The Exeter Text is the opposite of the lipogram, "A Void" in that it is written using only the vowel 'e.' -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Three short stories were published in one volume as suggested by Georg Perec to his publisher shortly before his death in in 1982 at the age of 46. The stories are titled, "The Exeter Text: Jewels, Secrets, Sex," "Which Moped with Chrome-Plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard ?" and "A Gallery Portrait." The Exeter Text is the opposite of the lipogram, "A Void" in that it is written using only the vowel 'e.' -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents In the prelude to his first novel, Johnson states that he wanted to write a novel that would expose its mechanism. He realized that it would be desirable to have interludes between chapters in which "I could stand back, so to speak, from my novel, and talk about it with the reader, or with those parts of myself which might hold different opinions, if necessary; and in which technical questions could be considered, and quotations from other writers included, where relevant, without any question of destroying the reader's suspension of disbelief, since such suspension was not to be attempted." He adds, "I should be determined not to lead my reader into believing that he was doing anything but reading a novel..."Such interludes are placed between chapters in this book and are marked by poetically designed layouts (the book was designed by Johnson) and liberal use of Italic typeface. The eight interludes comprise the descriptions mentioned in the prelude including among others...

Scope and Contents

The dust jacket is chipped and torn in several places. However the black cloth cover and the text and images are in fine condition. The prose and poems are printed in back to back reversed sections for each of the two novels. The novel "For Jesus Lunatick" is printed without punctuations in a highly experimental layout including several numbered blank pages. The latter are for numbered illustrations placed in the center section that the reader is requested to cut and paste to the respective page. "Andy "is punctuated and layed out experimentally with some pages concrete poetic in appearance. It, too, has several pages that are numbered and blank with exception of a single number placed at different locations to receive the illustrations from the cutttings in the center section. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

The author signed and dedicated the book in mirror writing. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This novel contains two distinct alternating biographies: the first is an allegorical story of W, a bizarre, mythical island civilization, symbolizing the Holocaust. It is printed in italics. The second text is Perec's memories of his childhood in Paris. Perec writes in his introduction that the two stories "are in fact inextricably bound up with each other, as though neither could exist on its own, as though it was only their coming together, the distant light they cast on each other, that could make apparent what is never quite said in one,never quite said in the other, but said only in their fragile overlapping." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.