In a letter to Louise Colet, Flaubert expressed his wish to
write a book about nothing, a book that would be held together by the mutual
tension of its component parts rather than by its correspondence to any real
world.
This is what aptly describes Georges Perec’s small
novel entitled ‘The art and craft of
approaching your head of department to submit a request for a raise’.
Georges Perec(1936-82) is a writer of
acrostics,anagrams,autobiography poetry, plays and so on. He famously wrote a
whole novel without using the letter ‘e’(The Void).
Along with Italo Calvino andRamaond Queneau, he belonged to
a movement called ‘oulipo.’ Founded in 1960 this literary movement has a number
of mathematicians too as its members that seek to create ‘new structures and
patterns which may be used by writers’ in any way they like.
Perec was thrown a challenge of using a computer’s basic
mode of operation as a writing device , procedure was sketched out that an
employee would need to follow to obtain an increase in pay in some large
organization. Then it was broken down into individual steps and laid the
procedure out as algorithm , or flow chart. Perec accepted the challenge wrote
the book ’The art and craft of approaching your head of department to submit a
request for a raise’.
There is no clear cut storyline in the book as it seems a low level
functionary of a large organization summons up courage to meet his head of
department to request for a raise. But in the process he seems to have followed
the flow chart and ultimately he never reaches his HOD.
The book is a long sentence as there is no comma or full
stop. Sentences are refrains and are often convoluted as in page number 40. I quote:’…you know that he knows that you know
and he knows you know that he knew that you saw that he would know that you
were about to know…’
As in the Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock the song was never
sung , likewise this low level functionary of a large corporate house could
never meet his HOD to submit a request for a raise. Like a bull in a press, he
simply follows the flow chart and reaches nowhere.
The book is a delightful and intellectually enriching
reading experience