Espéces d'Espaces

Tomado del libro Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
del autor Georges Perec

(Cuando encuentro libros así los dioses me confirman que todo es cuestión de creerse y escucharse,
como lo han hecho los grandes inventores y los libres)

Vincent Van Gogh. Bedroom in Arles

"For a long time I went to bed in writing"

The Bed

We generally utilize the page in the larger of its two dimensions. The same goes for the bed. The bed (or if you prefer, the page) is a rectangular space, longer than it is wide, in which, or on which, we normally lie longways. 'Italian' beds are only to be found in fairy tales (Tom Thumb and his brothers, or The seven daughters of the Ogre, for example) or in altogether abnormal and usually serious circumnstances (mass exodus, aftermath of a bombing raid, etc.). Even when we utilize the bed the more usual way round, it's almost always a sign of a catastrophe if several people have to sleep in it. The bed is an instrument conceived for the nocturnal repose of one or two persons, but no more.

The bed is thus the individual space par excellence, the elementary space of the body, the one which even the man completely crippled by debts has the right to keep: the bailiffs don't have the power to seize your bed. This also means -this is easily verified in practice- that we have only one bed, which is our bed. When there are other beds in a house or an apartment, they are said to be guest beds or spare beds. It seems we only sleep well in our own bed.

(...)

The Bedroom

What does it mean, to live in a room?
Is to live in a place to take possession of it?
What does taking possession of a place mean?
As from when does somewhere become truly yours? Is it when you've put your three pairs of socks in a pink plastic bowl? Is it when you've heated up your spaghetti over a camping-gaz? Is it when you've used up all the non-matching hangers in the cupboard? Is it when you've drawing-pinned to the wall an old postcard showing Carpaccio's "Dream of St Ursula"? Is it when you've experienced there the throes of anticipation, or the exaltations of passion, or the torments of a toothache? Is it when you've hung suitable curtains on the windows, and put up the wallpaper, and sanded the parquet flooring?


(Luego continúa con The Apartment Building, The Street, The Neighbourhood, The Town, The Counryside, The Country)

Leerlo es como diseccionarme; verme desde afuera; ver cómo ocupo el espacio que me rodea; cómo vivo con los objetos que nunca he considerado lugares comunes, y preguntarme entre carcajadas por qué.

Dejo aquí un retrato de Perec que basta y sobra para querer buscar su otro libro necesario: Life: A User's Manual.