There is never a dull moment in Paris, which makes one a bit nostalgic for Chicago. On the docket this week, France’s political sphere has taken a breather from chaos and is spending its fall break gazing into the black hole recently made into the facade of the Louvre (for other news from the galactic empire of France, the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, France’s classics collection par excellence, anticipating an escapist rush, has decided the country needs a couple of good puffs on the opium pipe and reissued Alice in Wonderland).
The past couple of weeks have looked bleak for Macron and his allies, with a former prime minister saying the current administration practices a “negation of politics,” high praise for a cabinet elsewhere described as “intellectually running on fumes.” Compared to Macron, even former president Nicolas Sarkozy has it relatively well, with state protection and a guaranteed residence for the next five years (in the Santé prison). For everyone in the new-ish government, the theft of €88 million worth of Napoleonic jewels must be a relieving distraction from their shambolic attempts to compromise on a (much pricier) budget—everyone except Rachida Dati, political foghorn and minister of culture. Dati, oddly enough, has been rather quiet and diplomatic about the break-in. One paper accused her of “hiding behind a smokescreen” which, frankly, anyone could do if they walked a block down a Paris sidewalk.
In light of such disappearances, it’s a good time to revisit Georges Perec, a writer from the Oulipo school who mastered the art of omission. His detective novel La Disparition (The Disappearance) contains no e’s and deals with the loss of his family in the Second War World through the blatant symbolism of its protagonist, “Anton Voyl, ” investigating a missing companion. Its companion piece, Les Revenentes (The Returners or The Undead), contains only the e vowel and coincidentally revolves around a jewel heist. Both explore morality and criminality through critical lexical constraints—La Disparition, by Perec’s rules, cannot contain the word “I” (je) while Les Revenentes can barely contain anything else. Through these dizzying yet melancholic exercises in absence, Perec evidences the mania that follows disappearance and the absurdity of contemporary society, both well reflected in our own.
Cryptically,
Brady Santoro
Image: Anonymous, Transfiguration, from Life of Christ Between The Two Saints Johns, oil and gold leaf on wood panel, 1420 (Musée Unterlinden, Colmar, France).