A Void (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Cover to the English translation of La Disparition | |
| Author | Georges Perec |
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| Original title (if not in English) | La Disparition |
| Translator | Gilbert Adair |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | The Harvill Press (Eng. trans.) |
| Released | 1969 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 290 pp (Eng. trans. Hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-00-271119-2 (Eng. trans. Hardcover) |
A Void or in French La Disparition (literally, "The Disappearance") is a 300 page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without the letter e, following Oulipo constraints. Its translation into English by Gilbert Adair is entitled A Void.
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[edit] Translations
It was translated into English by Gilbert Adair, with the title A Void, for which he won the Scott Moncrieff Prize in 1995. Another English translation by Ian Monk is titled A Vanishing. The book has also been translated into German (by Eugen Helmés as Anton Voyls Fortgang, 1986), Spanish (El secuestro, 1997), Turkish (by Cemal Yardımcı as Kayboluş), Swedish (by Sture Pyk as Försvinna, 2000) and Russian (by Valeriy Kislow as Исчезание [Ischezanie], 2005).
All translators have imposed upon themselves a similar lipogrammatic constraint to the original, avoiding the most commonly used letter of the alphabet. This precludes the use of words normally considered essential such as je ("I") and le (masculine "the") in French, and "me" and "the" in English. The Spanish version contains no a, which is the most commonly used letter in that language.
[edit] Plot summary
A Void's plot follows a group of individuals hunting a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks and gags, plot convolutions, and a grim conclusion. In many parts it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation: illustrations of this including a missing part 5 (of 26), and calling its main protagonist "Vowl". Individuals within A Void do work out what is missing, but find difficulty discussing or naming it as it has no word or form that conforms to its author's constraint. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in a British daily journal, said, "This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown."
Introduction: containing an intimation of how it is if a malign sort of anarchy holds sway; trust nobody, and watch your back.
1. Introducing Anton Vowl, who is having a chronic bout of insomnia. On his GP's failing to assist, an otolaryngologist's incision in his nasal cavity works on an inflammation of his sinus to diminish his pain. His insomnia is still bad, though.
2. For six days our protagonist is badly ill. Vowl's various insomniac hallucinations: his robust constitution allows him to roam an unknown island amid its monsoons, visiting its buildings. A yacht brings visitors, including Faustina. A ring is a sign indicating Faustina is his, but Vowl cannot touch things in this imaginary world, and, waking, cannot work out what this vision is for.
3. Vowl starts a diary, titling it "A Void", to aid his working out of his vision. Among his writings in his diary, a boy, Aignan, outwits a sphinx, making him practically immortal. On growing up, Aignan absconds with a woman Sibylla. On finding out that Sibylla is actually his mum, Aignan prays for vilification or damnation. A woodman binds him to a rock without food for many months. His purgatory's conclusion is his nomination for Roman Catholic Pontiff, but Cardinals who look for him find a void: Aignan has shrunk away to nothing.
4. A burglary of a manuscript containing an incriminating account of a major national scandal is baffling constabulary officials Dupin and Didot. "If Dupin should fail," Vowl jots in his diary, "how will I attain my salvation?" Vowl quits our world, but a bosom buddy of his, Amaury Conson, who finds his writings, cannot say if this was a suicidal act. Anyway, Vowl is missing without a doubt.
Subdivision 5 is missing; in its location is a list of illusory things that might bring Vowl back.
6. Conson, it turns out, had a son who is also missing, much as Vowl is; 5 of his sons in fact passing away. His only surviving son has split from his dad by mutual disliking. Rummaging through Vowl's things and finding various studious writings, Conson turns up information. Notifying officials, who do not satisfactorily start an inquiry into a possibility that Vowl is a victim of kidnap, Conson also consults a cousin who pulls strings to appoint a Corsican cop, Ottaviani. Conson hints that Vowl's diary may contain a tip-off about who knows what? Inquiry and intuition taking Conson to Paris Zoo, two contacts of Vowl's (Hassan Ibn Abbou, a Moroccan solicitor, and Olga, Vowl's inamorata of long ago) also turning up brought by a similar hunch, this trio form a group for mutual aid, and to pool information.
7. Ottaviani's boss, Aloysius Swann, confirms a kidnapping plot looks afoot. Olga and Conson visit Hassan Ibn Abbou, who promptly snuffs it, a poison dart in his back. Conson finds a manuscript in Abbou's villa (vol. 5 of 26 is missing) - it's Vowl's diary!
8. Vowl's diary is full of stuff about Ahab and Moby Dick. At Hassan Ibn Abbou's burial orations and chat portray his biography, but his body is not found in his coffin!
9. Conson visits Olga with Savorgnan, also a confidant of Vowl's who was at that fiasco of laying Abbou in his tomb, and is also now looking for Vowl. In outlining a history of Olga's manor at Azincourt, it is shown that Olga is a soprano diva; Olga's husband Douglas Haig Clifford (a bass) got a fatal injury during Don Giovanni (a production at Urbino with van Dam and Carl Böhm).
10. Conson, Savorgnan, Olga and Augustus Clifford (Douglas Haig's old man) pool information, hoping to gain communal intuition. Conson shows his hand about Vowl's diary. Augustus shows a small-ad for soap which Vowl cut out and stuck in his album, and put in a pillar box for it to wing its way to Azincourt. Savorgnan too had mail from Vowl: a tanka (similar in form to a haiku). Olga's mail from Vowl was a sort of anthology, a copy in his own hand of his transcription of various famous writings including Living or not living (a soliloquy from that Danish play by Britain's Bard of Avon), and prosody by John Milton, Thomas Hood and Arthur Rimbaud.
11. Our group, stuck on this puzzling conundrum and coming to a full stop, is hungry. Making a night of it, Augustus puts a gastronomic orgy in front of his companions. At noon Augustus's drowsy thoughts run across a solution, but as this solution occurs to him in its full clarity a fatal swoon stops his imparting it to his companions: a cry of "A Zahir!" is as much as his vocal chords allow - his shouting of this attracts Conson, Olga and Savorgnan. Ottaviani is rung - "Don't touch anything, I'm on my way!" and Swann will accompany him.
12. What is this Zahir? Many a possibility! Long ago a vagrant, turning up at Azincourt and giving his alias as Tryphiodorus, told Augustus of his son, born of an affair (his mama dying in childbirth). Augustus brings his bastard son back to Azincourt and adopts him. Is Augustus's "Zahir" a ruby found in this baby's tummy-button, which Augustus put in a gold ring worn constantly on his right hand?
13. A flashback narration by Squaw (Augustus's faithful maid). Augustus in his youth had an infatuation for a cultist guru charlatan, Othon Lippmann. This guru's hurtful antagonism towards Augustus brought focus to Augustus's family obligations, and following Lippmann's passing away Clifford Sr. took into his own hands Clifford Jr.'s instruction and forwarding of his musical vocation. On a sunny April morning, as his papa plays (improvising at his piano on a work by Dvořák), Haig spots mould making a distinct sign on Augustus's billiards board, at which (on spying it) his dad has a fright!
14. (Continuing Squaw's flashback.) This sign is obviously known to Augustus. Disclosing information about this sign to Haig is difficult, but a duty: it is a missing sign; that it is missing, Haig says, is forcing all to adopt a vocabulary and patois containing "unidiomatic circumlocutions". Haig finds this unconvincing, and storms off in a huff. 5 months following this, a missal from Vowl to Augustus containing a summary of Haig's conduct in Paris lifts a load from Augustus's mind: his conduct is not wholly good, but Haig is now studying assiduously at Scola Cantorum. Vowl turns up at Azincourt to say that Haig is now cognisant of his birth status, and has a wrathful plot involving his Zahir to bring Augustus to his doom.
15. (Continuing Squaw's flashback.) A link with anti-British, pro-Ottoman Albanians from long ago is found: a group of about thirty Albanian outlaws was part of an outfit running many scams including a drugs ring, and all had a tattoo symbol on an arm - a circular symbol with a horizontal bar across it. Olga's dad, Albin, was top man in this organisation, and was also a crony of Lippmann, Augustus's old antagonist. Vowl turns up at Azincourt to impart all this to Augustus, and Augustus shows him what is known of Olga's family history.
16. (Continuing Squaw's flashback.) Showing Olga's papa ravishing a film star, Anastasia (not wholly against that lady's will), during a raid that his gang was mounting on an outdoor film studio.
17. (Continuing Squaw's flashback.) Thus Olga was born - only survivor of Albin's gang's pillaging (Anastasia dying in childbirth). Augustus, imagining hands of doom closing on his family, has a plan for him and Vowl to confront Haig and draw him back from an abyss (marrying Olga).
18. (Continuing Squaw's flashback.) Vowl is shown Augustus's billiards board - Vowl, now knowing that symbol at which Augustus took fright for a Katoun, a Mayan sign, still cannot say its signification, although it is a signal, a sort of communication. But Vowl works all night and cracks it at dawn, although Augustus still can't fathom it for many hours. Augustus and Vowl now go to Urbino. At this point, Olga cuts in: "No!" Vowl's and Augustus's tardy arrival at Urbino was not wholly causation of Haig's downfall - his dad's distracting him at a crucial point was fatal!
19. Olga, taking up Squaw's story, brings to mind how, with Haig not living, Vowl's consoling attractions did much to throw off any mourning for widowhood. But on an occasion, Vowl found out that Augustus was not Douglas Haig's dad at all, that Douglas's dad was in fact that tramp Tryphiodorus, and that Tryphiodorus was also his (Vowl's) papa: in fact, Vowl was Haig's sibling! That doom surrounding Douglas was closing in on Vowl, who took flight, abandoning Olga, but not without Olga noticing an unusual talisman worn by Vowl, of that symbol binding all our protagonists and which nobody can fathom. On finishing Olga's narration, our group go to Haig's old fish to throw it food, but find its carcass. Cutting it up for cooking, Augustus's Zahir is found in its gut. Olga has a fatal fit, trying with a last gasp to say a word that nobody can work out.
20. Olga was trying, says Savorgnan, to blurt out a word for this curious symbol which, if anybody could say its sound would straight away "abolish a curious anomaly distinguishing [this narration] from all outwardly similar narrations," and bring it to its abrupt conclusion. Still awaiting Swann's arrival, Conson roams Azincourt thinking about this conundrum. But an alarming pain grips him - is it poison? Conson climbs to Augustus's box room, a studio that Savorgnan is using, which contains a flask of anti-toxin.
21. Swann and Ottaviani finally turn up, Swann having got a communication with information about Conson's sixth (and only surviving) son's passing away, and knowing from it that Conson's doom is to follow!
22. Our two cops ask Savorgnan about Conson's vanishing. His story shows how Conson, finding a man's photograph in Savorgnan's studio room and insisting that Savorgnan talk about his history, found out how Conson's dad was also Savorgnan's; how a family tradition of passing all its capital to its first-born son at last brought forth an individual who would kill his prior-born siblings to gain this birthright. This in turn brought forth voluntary family laws that saw (a) girls slain at birth, (b) castration as soon as a man's first son was born or (c) a man abandoning any child born following his first.
23. (Continuing Savorgnan's story.) Unluckily Savorgnan's mama had a trio of baby boys; family tradition said do away with two: Savorgnan and Conson! In hiding, and thus split up, all contact was lost. Savorgnan's tracking of his twin sibling took him to Ankara, and a finding that his arm had that tattoo mark which family of Albin, Olga's papa, all sport.
24. (Continuing Savorgnan's story.) Savorgnan had six sons, again family tradition dictating that 5 must go! Adopting a tramp's clothing and a suitably anonymous alias, "Tryphiodorus", Savorgnan had Augustus adopt his son Haig, and also had Lord Horatio Vowl adopt Anton, substituting a third for a stillborn Moroccan child and naming it "Ibn Abbou", and also substituting his only girl child for Anastasia's sick offspring in a sanatorium. An upshot of this, if you follow, is that Haig was both Olga's husband and sibling. Two infants Savorgnan's brought up on his own: both non-foundlings got lost, possibly in a kidnapping by Savorgnan's dad, who had a policy of doing away with all offspring apart from his firstborn, and thus possibly sharing with almost all infants born to his clan that similar fashion of passing away: unlawful killing. Conson, angry, fought Savorgnan, and unluckily had a fatal fall.
25. Savorgnan is afraid that this holocaust afflicting his family will claim him soon, too. It turns out that Ottaviani is a son of Savorgnan, a twin brought up by Savorgnan's own hand, and a victim of abduction in his youth by bandits (and not by Savorgnan's dad at all). Swann kills Ottaviani, as by doing so Savorgnan's fatality must follow.
26. Swann kills Savorgnan. Swann admits his position as right-hand man to that patriarch, papa of Savorgnan and Conson, granddad to Savorgnan's and Conson's many offspring, all now kaput.
In his postscript, our author lays out his ambition in imposing such a constricting lipogrammatic constraint on his production of this book, and an inkling of how this brought about much difficulty in finishing it!
[edit] Major themes
Both Perec's parents perished in World War II, and he was brought up by his aunt and uncle. Warren Motte, writing an article on Georges Perec in the literary magazine Context, picks up on this and interprets the themes of the book as follows.
- "The absence of a sign is always the sign of an absence, and the absence of the E in A Void announces a broader, cannily coded discourse on loss, catastrophe, and mourning. Perec cannot say the words père ["father"], mère ["mother"], parents ["parents"], famille ["family"] in his novel, nor can he write the name Georges Perec. In short, each "void" in the novel is abundantly furnished with meaning, and each points toward the existential void that Perec grappled with throughout his youth and early adulthood. A strange and compelling parable of survival becomes apparent in the novel, too, if one is willing to reflect on the struggles of a Holocaust orphan trying to make sense out of absence, and those of a young writer who has chosen to do without the letter that is the beginning and end of écriture ["writing"]."
[edit] Versions
- Georges Perec (1969). La disparition. Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-071523-X.
- Georges Perec, Gilbert Adair (translator) (1994). A Void. The Harvill Press. ISBN 1-86046-098-4 (hardback ISBN 0-00-271119-2).
- Georges Perec, Eugen Helmés (translator). Anton Voyls Fortgang. ISBN 3-499-12857-8.
