Press
“[A] kind of secret treasure for those interested in Oulipo- and Situationist-inspired tracts of Paris. Marvelously simple and deceptively well-designed, Perec's slim volume presents itself as an artifact of the street…” —Erik Morse, Bookforum
“Deliciously quotidian!” —James Hannaham, The Village Voice
“[I]t’s this odd, miniature book of hyperreality, of over-existence, that fascinates me as I travel through this summer. It starts out factual, rational, but it can’t help turning into a poem, turning into an addiction, turning into some trippy literature, turning into inevitable metaphor, turning into too much exposure.” —Elizabeth Bachner, Bookslut
“Georges Perec is charming, the most charming man I will never meet, and An Attempt is yet another charming example of his charm…” —Lily Hoang, HTML Giant
“[A] glimpse into the wonderfully elaborate and obsessive world of Georges Perec.” —Karl Whitney, 3:AM Magazine
“[T]his beautiful little tome of urban motion and "Ghostliness" from the past is truly haunting.” —Kevin Carollo, Rain Taxi
“[V]ery human and very moving; as in all excellent poetry, every mundane detail seems, upon consideration, vastly significant.” —A. D. Jameson, The Review of Contemporary Fiction
“[Perec] settles himself, watches and notes. He is a contra-flâneur; he sits still and the world moves by. […] His flat listing—bus, another bus and its number—has me thinking his recording isn’t passive notation; he’s scoring an urban cantata...” —Meeka Walsh, Bordercrossings
“[A] stunning and bittersweet act of intimacy and remembrance.” —Eugene Lim, Jacket2
“Obviously an unusual sort of narrative, but certainly of interest. (And it comes in a beautiful little pocket-sized edition from Wakefield Press.)’ —M. A. Orthofer, The Complete Review
“The little book is a masterpiece of city writing. In Ulysses, James Joyce look more than 700 dense pages to explore 24 hours in Dublin; Perec uses less than 60 sparsely populated pages to document the better part of three days in mid-1970s Paris.” —Ian Klaus and Daniel Levin Becker, CityLab
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