Observing the Ordinary: Perec's Art of Noticing Everyday Spaces

Perec's Implicit Challenge to Readers

Georges Perec, author of Species of Spaces, never makes an explicit attempt at giving the book a direct purpose or goal. The book merely meanders through his thoughts on the ordinary and often overlooked with an assumed end result that readers might, after finishing the pages, better appreciate—or rather, just take notice of—the things in life that we may have considered mundane and uninteresting. He strives to guide us through his mind and perspective, asking us not just to mimic him but to push our own boundaries of understanding, exploring the simple things in life to grasp their greater beauty and importance.

There is only one time within the book that Perec clearly and openly challenges us to go out and physically do something so that we might notice and garner a better appreciation for the overlooked. It appears in the chapter titled "The Street," where Perec describes the area of Paris where his apartment was located. He asks: "Do you know how to see what's worthy of note? Is there anything that strikes you? Nothing strikes you. You don't know how to see. You must set about it more slowly, almost stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest what is most obvious, most common, most colorless." (Perec, 1974, p. 50) He then goes into greater detail, telling the reader what to look for and what things to write about. He asks us to write about the street, the shops, and the cafes. He asks us to go into great detail, to exhaust our surroundings, to detect a rhythm in life.

Having read this chapter carefully again and again, I decided to go out and follow his instruction. I set out to find whether following and practically applying his simple steps would truly have me take notice of the ordinary and mundane, and in the process give me a greater appreciation for life as a whole. In my times on the streets and in the cafes, pondering Perec himself and his words, I found compelling and beautiful evidence of all that I have been surrounded by and never seen. I saw, from my seat above my crumpled papers, a world of subtle elegance and deep fascination, pushing and guiding us all without ever revealing itself to those who never stop to look or to truly see.

Observing The Street: A Practical Application

Perec's instructions are specific: "The Street: try to describe the street, what it's made of, what it's used for. The people in the street. The cars. What sort of cars? The Buildings: note that they're on the comfortable, well-heeled side. Distinguish residential from official buildings." (Perec, 1974, p. 50)

I take a sip of my coffee, then lower my head and close my eyes, feeling the warmth of the beverage cascade through my body, following familiar yet unseen paths. I hear the cars on the street hurdle past me, left to right and right to left, large engines and small engines. It's an uncoordinated orchestra of chaos; the occupied people that scurry along the sidewalks hardly seem to notice. I feel there is purpose within it, though, as I note the intervals of the cars, which begin to feel less random but more steady, almost purposefully woven.

I look up to investigate, and a blue Ford Fusion passes in a rush. The car lurches momentarily as I see the driver, a delicate-looking brunette sporting a pair of red leather gloves, push forward on the stick and change gears. I watch the car trail off up the hill towards the old Anglican Church, a bumper sticker on her back windshield that reads "Love Your Mother," with a small blue and green drawing of the Earth to its right.

Perec, the curious man he was, asks us not simply to take note of these things but more implicitly to ask ourselves their importance. "Describe the number of operations the driver of a vehicle is subjected to when he parks merely in order to go and buy a hundred grams of fruit jelly…" (Perec, 1974, p. 51) The actions involved in simply driving across town to buy something are huge in number, but the weightier thing here that I believe Perec is pointing out is that, without ever mentioning his own views on fruit jelly or even driving a car, we immediately place value and importance on the objects, quantities, and people involved. Is it really worth all the trouble necessary to go get a hundred grams of fruit jelly? I look down to the street where the car has just driven past, wondering if that woman was going to buy fruit jelly.

The road itself is a cobblestone road, the same type and design as many of the roads in this older part of town. I don't know the exact type of stone that makes up the patchwork road, but each stone is a weathered, bleached grey, chiseled into perfect twelve-square-centimeter blocks and laid next to each other in exact lines. It is a centerpiece that cuts harshly through the buildings and divides them, a rectangular wasteland comprised of squares.

Architecture and Urban Order

The buildings huddle together on either side, each one touching the other, standing tall and leaning inward over the old street. The largest building, directly in front of me across the street, is a living, breathing antique. It's an old Victorian building, trimmed with white stone carvings of ivy and floral wreaths that stretch and creep around the frames of the doors and stoops of the windows. It's a primary school now, repurposed but kept magnificent as a reminder to the society of where it came from.

There is, however, off the eastern wing, a much newer addition that protrudes like a foreign element into the grounds. It is a steel and glass module, built into the original foundations when the district must have realized they were in need of more space for hungry young minds. The attached expansion's exterior is made up of solid glass panes, each one so dark it borders on black. The panes are set out next to each other in square patterns of four, never quite reaching the next. Instead, there is a solid yellow backsplash behind the glass, making a yellow border between every square. In the four corners of every slate of glass are four polished steel brackets, holding the delicate outer facade in place.

Was the designer, the architect, trying to make the expansion as modern as possible, perhaps to reconcile it with the classic? Maybe she or he wanted to create a bright new world for students, a world where tradition meets the future. It may be horrendously ugly to me personally because of the liberal use of yellow, though the sentiment that letters this newly fused building is one of optimism and recollection.

Perec once again asks us a question in the form of a statement, subtly prodding our notions of how things should look and behave: "The buildings stand one beside the other. They form a straight line. They are expected to form a straight line, and it's a serious defect in them when they don't." (Perec, 1974, p. 46) The school is stiff, single file along the street in front of me. The need for things in life to be orderly isn't universal in people and is in fact quite often absent from many. The need for buildings to be orderly is born from pure practicality, and that supersedes art, culture, and era.

Perec instructs: "The Shops. What do they sell in the shops? There are no food shops. Oh yes, there's a baker. Ask yourself where the locals do their shopping. The cafes. How many cafes are there? Why did you choose this one? Because you know it, because it's in the sun, because it sells cigarettes." (Perec, 1974, p. 50)