Perec nous dit, “je ne suis pas un moraliste, je suis un écrivain. Cela dit mon projet de départ, est un projet réaliste, donc un projet moral. » Dans quelle mesure peut-on dire que Les Choses constitue une condamnation morale de la société de consommation?
For Georges Perec, this question warrants the response – ‘People who think I have denounced consumer society have understood absolutely nothing about my book’ (Bellos: 1965). It is not as easy however for the everyday reader to fully comprehend the true purpose behind Les Choses. At a glance, one might define the book as a sociological approach in criticising the impact consumerism has had on society. Much to Perec’s disappointment, this consensus became apparent when he won the Renaudot prize for Les Choses in 1965, and many considered it to be a “brilliant exposition of sociological theories…rather than a literary work” (Sheringham 2006: 251). It is the ambiguous nature of Perec’s work in accord with the heavy use of rhetoric along with other literary weapons that is central to understanding the genius behind the man. Once one analyses the subtlety of Les Choses it quickly becomes apparent that the intention is to pose more questions than give straightforward answers. In this essay I will take each aspect of these various literary techniques into account, before formulating a conclusion on the extent to which Perec morally condemns a 1960’s French society seemingly obsessed with consumption.
I start with a brief outline of the story in Les Choses. The book centres on the journey through life of the two main characters Jérôme and Sylvie, and their futile pursuit of happiness in a rapidly modernising society. Initially, they are presented by Perec as disillusioned students who comply with society’s new role of the ‘jeune cadre’ (middle manager). They apply to roles in the increasingly popular field of marketing “par nécessité, non par choix” (p. 29), and start their never ending quest for the potential promised by consuming everything society has to offer, only to realise “what is promised isn’t delivered” (Bellos: 1965). This new trend of consumerism quickly takes hold of Jérôme and Sylvie as they aspire to be like the idealised image projected by society, particularly in the omnipresent weekly magazine ‘Madame Express’. “Ils auraient su s’habiller, regarder, sourire comme des gens riches” (p. 17). An image where the idea of the ‘couple’ seems to be fundamental in how they go about their lives, never separated, working as a unit and thus preventing individuality. The characters are presented as seemingly no more than cogs in a machine, representations of people living in a society where image is paramount to happiness, and authentic existence has melted into obscurity. Eventually they are themselves consumed by their aspirations and end up “leading a life where having becomes the model of being” (Bellos: 1965). However, one should not quickly jump to the conclusion from this statement that Perec is simply condemning society here, but rather making an observation on the world that he lives in. It is this ambiguous detached approach taken by Perec that I will continue to explore in this essay, as his clever use of the rhetoric provides the reader with his oblique slant on society.
The earlier reference to Jérôme and Sylvie’s society being dominated by the notion of aspirational images is an important point stressed by Perec as well as many other commentators on the everyday, most notably Jean Baudrillard. The first two chapters of Les Choses are exclusively dictated by the prominence of objects described in a flat. Considering the title of the book itself, this great eminence of things is deliberately catalogued by Perec in various ways. For example “Il y aurait une cuisine vaste…à reflets métalliques, des placards partout, une belle table de bois blanc au centre, des tabourets, des bancs.” (p. 14.) From a traditional novel’s perspective this listing of objects could be simply used to set the scene of the characters’ home. However, there is much deeper significance to Perec’s purposeful positioning of these things at the forefront of the book, and it should be noted that this object focused description should be regarded as a typical representation of a vacuous society rather than specifically of Jérôme and Sylvie’s flat. Firstly it ties in with an important point that runs throughout the book and much of Perec’s later work, which is the autobiographical nature of it. Kristine Ross (1996: 143) quotes Perec, “I wrote ‘Things’ with a pile of Madame Express beside me, and to wash my mouth out after reading too much…I would read some Barthes”. Perec took inspiration from looking around his own flat in Paris and from the magazine of what Ross (1996: 144) described was “by far the most influential and widely read of the weeklies…the supreme vehicle for capitalist modernisation in France”. He builds a rhythmic picture with this catalogued entry of images, of which Baudrillard (1968: 279) would consider to be completely abstract. “Cet intérieur n’a plus de valeur symbolique…Rien n’a de présence ni d’histoire” Throughout Baudrillard’s Système des objets he focuses on the connotations of ‘sign’ that these objects provide rather than the material aesthetics themselves. ‘Il suffit de comparer cette description à une description d’intérieur chez Balzac pour voir que nulle relation humaine n’est ici inscrite dans les choses : tout y est signe, et signe pur.’ This reference to Balzac is important as it underlines Perec’s transcendence of the traditional novel in that his descriptions are lacking depth and significance, merely skimming the surface of the objects he focuses upon. This brings up a significant theme that Perec consistently makes use of. What Baudrillard is referring to is Perec’s idea of the ‘non-lieu’. The lack of symbolic value connected to the images presented in Les Choses connotes the intrinsic emptiness in the lives of Jérôme and Sylvie. This ‘vide du lieu’ is Perec’s subtle use of rhetoric as a means to present this imaginary world his characters live in, where nothing possesses truth or value but only superficiality and continuous unfulfillment.

These first two chapters also lend themselves to another important theme running through Les Choses which is the heavy influence of earlier critical work on the everyday, specifically in this case that of Roland Barthes. Perec took much influence from reading Barthes’ Mythologies in that it provided him with a stimulus for his interesting oblique approach of expression. Sheringham (1993: 252) points out that rather than engaging in the “sterility of the 1950’s nouveau roman”, Perec was enticed by the “vehicle of distance, irony, and critique” that his powerful rhetoric contributed to Les Choses. This approach was furthered when Perec attended several of Barthes’ seminars during the early 1960’s, of which highlighted the powerful language of advertising. Leak (1993) reinforces the significance of this influence “…the fact remains that it was Barthes's analyses of advertising language that Perec most readily acknowledged as an influence on Things.” Ross (1996: 143) quotes Perec to back up Barthes’ influence “…you could say that, in places, my book is a piece of advertising copy”. With reference to the question at hand, this use of oblique rhetoric provides Perec with a certain level of critique of consumer society, but in such a way that he is distanced from a total condemnation, as Sheringham (1993: 254) explains “…rhetorical variations on basic themes maintains distance and militates against a psychological reading, drawing the reader to evaluate the narrator’s relation to the world”. We can use the autobiographical references such as the influence of the pile of Madame Express to infer that Perec understands and empathises with his characters and the society in which the live in. A society of which Baudrillard’s (1968: 279) concept of signs has become the dominant force ‘tout y est signe’, thereby leaving people oppressed by their desire to accumulate objects in desperate attempt to create their own aspirational image. This social compliance is explained by Perec (p. 50) ‘Dans le monde que était le leur, il était presque de règle de désirer toujours plus qu’on ne pouvait acquérir.’

Having touched upon the point of Perec’s use of an oblique approach to writing Les Choses, I would like to develop this idea further by taking in other examples and influences. It is known that Perec took some inspiration for this ludic approach from Brechtian distanciation. In doing so Perec limits the potentiality of his writing to such an effect that one struggles to empathise with Jérôme and Sylvie as characters with genuine feelings, but understands them as a representation of what society has become. Perec employs this tactic of distanciation through the consistent repetition throughout the book of ‘On’ / ‘Ils’. ‘…yoked together in an invariable “they”, the two characters form a single unit whose definition is provided by the fact they both want to buy the same things’ (Ross 1996: 133). For example (p. 96) ‘Ils ne méprisaient pas l’argent. Peut-être au contraire, l’aimaient-ils trop: ils auraient aimé la solidité, la certitude, la voie limpide vers le futur. Ils étaient attentifs à tous les signes de la permanence : ils voulaient être riches.’ This emphasises my previous point of the ‘couple’ being regarded as a de-personalised unit of consumption (one that is taken directly from Madame Express), primarily concerned with climbing the rungs of the social ladder However, it should be recognised that although Perec might seem cold and unsympathetic in taking this approach, he is not wholly condemning the characters (and therefore society), but rather he is remaining ambiguously passive as to his opinion on the matter through this depersonalised technique.

Additionally, in order to emphasise Perec’s ludic approach to writing Les Choses, one must turn to the influence of his later involvement with L’OULIPO (ouvroir de littérature potentielle). In brief, this refers to Perec’s involvement with a group of writers and mathematicians who sought to impose constraints on their writing and therefore limit the potentiality of literature. When considering Perec’s life work as a whole, Les Choses was written with only an understated influence of this idea, especially when compared to the lack of the letter ‘e’ in his later book La Disparition. This is in part due to Les Choses being written before Perec’s explicit involvement with L’OULIPO in 1967 after meeting Raymond Queneau. However, the presence of this literary effect is evident throughout the book with Perec’s refrained use of the present but instead; verbs are consistently conjugated in the conditional tense. For example ‘Ils auraient oublié leur richesse, auraient su ne pas l’étaler. Ils ne s’en seraient pas glorifiés. Ils l’auraient respirée. Leurs plaisirs auraient été intenses…Ils auraient aimé vivre. Leur vie aurait été un art de vivre.’ (p. 17). This extract is particularly effective in illustrating the limited potential of Jérôme and Sylvie’s lives. The explicit use of the conditional lends emphasis to the almost inevitable reality of what life in Perec’s mind has become; a futile attempt at happiness only to be consumed by the very process of consuming. Perec explains ‘As soon as they start wanting happiness, they’re caught, almost in spite of themselves, in a kind of logical sequence’ (Bellos: 1965).

To further Perec’s referenced quote in the question for this essay, he maintains “Si j’avais été un moraliste je pense que j’aurais ou bien trouve une solution pour ces personnages, ou bien condamné leur attitude.” In certain respects for Perec to condemn Jérôme and Sylvie would in fact be self-condemnation. The use of the autobiographical is again of importance here as we know that Perec was himself involved in his characters world of market research. During the early 1960’s he participated, as per Henri Lefebvre’s request, in a marketing survey for ‘Le Groupe d’études sur la vie quotidienne’ which ‘would have a significant impact on Les Choses’ (Sheringham 1993: 251). Further to this, Perec’s numerous references to the Algerian War throughout Les Choses also have connotations of his own life experience as not only did he have experience within the army, but was involved in protests against the Algerian War in the early 1960’s. This autobiographical referencing provides us with the notion that Perec uses his characters lack of engagement in the Algerian war as a vehicle to criticise society as a whole. In knowing of Perec’s strong political convictions it would therefore be fair to say that he had a certain disregard for a society which flirts with the idea of taking part in a demonstration, as if it were a sensationalised experience rather than a genuine concern for a real life event. Although Jérôme and Sylvie do take part in several protests, it was only ‘skin-deep’ as Ross puts it, as they never truly engage with what is going on around them. Instead ‘ils cherchaient leurs amis, essayaient de parler d’autre chose’ (p. 86), desperately in search of a familiarity – something instilled within them by the ‘fait-divers’. Baudrillard (1968: 282) would maintain that because ‘…il n’y pas de limites à la consommation’, society is able to consume the idea of political activism as much as the catalogued objects in l’Express. This is largely due to the ‘fait-divers’ and the sensationalised portrayal of society (especially through the media) to such an extent that its inhabitants have become far removed from what is actually real, and have succumbed to tolerating a fabricated screen over their lives. In effect this produces a sense of collective passivity and what Perec defines as the difference between ‘l’Histoire et l’histoire’. According to Perec, the days of society’s traditional history and anthropology are no longer of any concern in the times of modernisation. But instead the study is replaced by a personalised history where individuals have become self-concerned beings with interest in only the superficiality of everyday life. It is this return to the prosaic that Perec took inspiration from L’école des Annales.

A technique which Perec utilises particularly in Les Choses is that of a literary pastiche. As referenced earlier in this essay, Barthes’ Mythologies was a major inspiration for Perec’s literary approach of the everyday. However, perhaps of equal importance was Gustave Flaubert. Perec’s approach to the novel became an unprecedented experiment when parts of Flaubert’s Education Sentimentale were lifted and plagiarised into Les Choses. He claimed it to be that of a progressional art of citation to the works of his predecessors. ‘For me, collage is like a grid, and a condition of discovery’ (Bellos: 1965). In essence it is a true demonstration of Perec’s desire to push the stagnant boundaries of novels that preceded him, those which followed traditional methods of expression. Almost immediately in Les Choses there is a reference to the Flaubert’s ship in Education Sentimentale – the Ville-de-Montereau. The subtle irony of this reference quickly becomes clear upon finishing the book, as Perec initially suggests that his characters might jump aboard the ship and take a similar moral journey of self-discovery that Flaubert’s Frederic Moreau did. It is in this respect of Perec’s pastiche of literary works that one truly discovers the intentional irony of the anticipated moral conclusion. The irony being that there is no moral conclusion.

I feel that this following extract completely sums up the paradoxical problem of society posed by Perec. ‘They tried to escape. They were marking time in Paris. They were no longer getting ahead. And they sometimes imagined themselves…as petits bourgeois forty years old….Or else they would see themselves as just the opposite, and this was still worse: overage bohemians…eking out an existence through rare strokes of luck, shabby to the very ends of their black fingernails.’ (Lane: 1967). Perec says himself ‘For a young intellectual, there are only two solutions, each as desperate as the other – to become a bourgeois, or not to…” Perec leaves the gate open for debate on this subject. He admits that the ending is purposefully distinctly ambiguous ‘neither positive nor negative…neither happy nor sad’. He therefore raises the question of the subjectivity of happiness, how can one define it? Perec maintains that ‘modern happiness is not an inner value…it’s more like an almost technical relationship to your environment, to the world.’ So does society’s lust for acquiring material possessions deem it immoral? If so then modern society would define immorality. When writing Les Choses, Perec was witnessing the beginning of what has now become what many consider to be an unstoppable capitalist machine. During these beginnings however he was not casting a direct judgement on society and completely condemning consumerism, but rather commentating on the changes in society as he saw them. I therefore refer back to my initial quote in this essay - ‘People who think I have denounced consumer society have understood absolutely nothing about my book’. After my analysis of this text I must concur with Perec on this matter. Whilst there are certain points in Les Choses in which he appears to criticise society, Perec uses a stylistically ironic, oblique approach that far removes him from a direct attack.

What makes characters not despicable is that they’ve got a gift for happiness and take these little bits wherever they can find them.

The striking lack of dialogue in Les Choses. This produces ‘a hypnotic prose that highlights sequences and rhythms rather than specific moments’ (Sheringham 1993: 254)

References.

Ross
Baudrillard
Bellos
Highmore
Sheringham
Leak