Perec and Food

I have just found an article by Priya Wadhera entitled, “Food Fears: From Proust to Perec, Madeleine to Anti-madeleine”. Priya Wadhera, P., Romanic Review (2021) 112 (2): 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9091157

She self-cited another book article, which I haven’t found yet, “Wadhera, Priya. “Manger chez Perec: Le Geste Anti-madeleine dans La Vie mode d’emploi de Georges Perec.” In ‘Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es’: Fictions identitaires, fictions alimentaires, edited by Bertrand Marquer, 227–40. Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2020.”

I had been searching for articles on Perec and Proust as I knew Perec had lifted passages from Proust, and also that ‘Perec and Proust’ was a frequent search category (Bellos, D., The Old and the New: An Intoduction to Georges Perec, p.13 of The Review of Contemporary Fiction; Georges Perec Issue
J. O’Brien ed., Dalkey Archive Press 2009 Vol. 19 (1)). Then, when I read the subtitle, I was really curious to know what an ” anti-madeleine” could be!

I have to say I wasn’t really convinced by the premise of this article, as I read it i.e. that Proust mentioned the madeleines because they evoked a positive memory of his childhood to him and since Perec claimed he had no memories of his childhood, then mentions of food in his writing were sparse and therefore negative.

I read another ‘food and Perec’ article to get another point of view (Jullien, D., 2003. La Cuisine de Georges Perec. Littérature 129, 3–14.. https://doi.org/10.3406/litt.2003.1784).

By Dave

A retired research scientist, a photographer and a Fine Art student

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