A review by lee_foust
A Void by Georges Perec

4.0

If it was not only brilliant...

A rationalization or justification, or an account anyway, of A Void’s at first striking oddity of syntax, would only add to what's said, for said book is writ with a modus or approach in form, far beyond common or insignificant brio that the book displays in its postscript. Any stab at imitation, as is plain in this, a shot at calculating a kind of worth to such artistic shinanigans, can only act as a provocation to an I such as I, who also constructs narrations, as an invitation to my own imagination—tout court many things do grow through constraint! An imagination, through avoiding things, can’t but grow, word by word, going down many intriguing and oft unthought linguistic byways, amusing us all along its many winding paths! It works—in so many ways I can think of, by imagining brand-spanking x novo syntax only this instant born through linguistic gyrations, all around what A Void can and will not say—what it must, over all things, always and for all days avoid saying—its point or raison. And that, in conclusion, is its point. Almost without flaw! I found much joy in pouring my sight through A Void’s many folios and thinking upon its many, many voluntary omissions of a singular Vowl--Anton who's missing.