Australian Journal of French Studies

Abstract

This article begins by examining Georges Perec's playful engagement with the traditional codes of realism in La Vie mode d'emploi. While Perec's novel displays all the discursive signs of traditional realism, the article argues that the novelist manipulates these signs with an ambivalence that gives them the value of ludic simulacra. Perec proposes a hyperrealist and self-referential discourse that keeps exposing the limits of representation instead of trying to conceal them. Since each room/story is then eminently opened to meaning, the writer and the reader can play to construct together the enigmatic puzzle of life.