Je me souviens

by Georges Perec

"At once an affectionate portrait of mid-century Paris and a daring pointillist autobiography, Georges Perec's I Remember is the last of this essential writer's major works to be translated into English. Consisting of 480 numbered statements, all beginning identically with I remember, and all limited to pieces of public knowledge--brand names and folk wisdom, actors and illnesses, places and things (I remember when parents drink, children tipple ; I remember Hermès handbags, with their tiny padlocks ; I remember myxomatosis)--the book represents a secret key to the world of Perec's...