An Omnipresent Absence: Georges Perec’s Silent Protest of the Holocaust in La Disparition

Abstract

In his novel La Disparition (1969), Georges Perec raises his voice in protest to the horrors of the Holocaust in a virtually silent way. He evokes the loss of the Holocaust by making absence a central theme of the book, a lipogram in “e” meant to evoke the lack of “eux,” those who perished in the Holocaust, including his own mother. Scholars often study lacks of various sorts in this work, but food also happens to be lacking here. The hunger of numerous characters is paired with harsh conditions. And while food is largely absent, when it does surface it is unappetizing or odd, even suspicious and sinister, often lethal. Memory is also lacking. The unspeakable nature of the lipogram points to the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. What is more, the absence of food with which the protagonists of this text must live echoes the fate of the victims of the Nazi camps. This amounts to a re-writing of Proust’s madeleine episode. Despite the horrors from which this absence arises, it is personified, privileged, and valorized. Perec’s texts are a triumph of presence in the face of absence, a courageous filling of a horrible void.