Georges Perec - The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise

The dramatic version had a successful run in Paris in 1970 but its triumph came in 1972, once again in German translation, as Die Gehaltserhöhung , in productions that were more agit-prop than absurdist, in Munich, Münster and Wiesbaden. The play is now often performed in France by amateur and professional companies and has been translated into Italian and Swedish and probably other languages too, but it has never been staged in English.

In the ‘prose’ as in the ‘radio’ version of this simulation of a flow-chart in action Perec pursues the exhilarating potential of repetitiveness and recursion, but he does not stick to the mindless monotony that a real computer would experience (if it could be said to experience anything at all). Enthralled as he is by writing with rules and with the exhaustive completion of self-devised schemes and grids, Perec seeks in these ‘logic’ texts as in all his works to communicate a human experience of the world. Each of the standard formulas he devised to represent the fixed steps in the recursive procedure is repeated often enough with precision to make the variations that he introduces at some stage both comic and significant. As time goes on, the supplicant for a raise grows older; the world around him changes ever so slightly; and the story — for there is a story buried inside — speaks to us in the end of entropy and human mortality.

Perec reused the material of the art and craft one last time in Chapter 98 of Life A User’s Manual , where he gives the topic of obtaining a raise in pay a different and more novelistic turn. Even so, the character of Maurice Réol is distinctly familiar to anyone who has read, heard or seen any one of the many versions of the project whose true original is translated here.

Translating a text which is close to being unreadable in the original is a paradoxical but not a particularly difficult task, since ordinary readability is hardly an issue. Assuming a willing explorer of this strange and wonderful corner of the universe of Georges Perec, I sought to replicate in English most especially the humour and the underlying rhythm of the French text. With that aim uppermost I chose to introduce variations on the formulas where they worked best in English, not always in exactly the same place as in French. I also took some pleasure in using a word that is not attested in any dictionary that I can find but which was taught me by my Latin master, Jim Brogden. ‘Circumperambulate’ is a word of English spoken, heard and understood by pupils and teachers at Westcliff High four and more decades ago. It really should have been logged by a lexicographer by now.

David Bellos

Princeton, 10 October 2010

having carefully weighed the pros and cons you gird up your loins and make up your mind to go and see your head of department to ask for a raise so you go to see your head of department let us assume to keep things simple — for we must do our best to keep things simple — that his name is mr xavier that’s to say mister or rather mr x so you go to see mr x it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk if mr x is at his desk it will be quite straightforward but obviously mr x is not at his desk so all you can do is stand in the corridor waiting for him to come back or come in but let us suppose not that he never comes in that case there would be but one solution to go back to your own desk and wait for the afternoon or the morrow to launch your campaign afresh but as is often the case that he takes his time in which case all you can really do instead of walking up and down in the corridor is to go and see your colleague ms y whom we shall call henceforth ms wye to give a touch of human warmth to our schematic demonstration but it’s one or t’other either ms wye is at her desk or ms wye is not at her desk if ms wye is at her desk it would be quite straightforward but let us suppose that ms wye is not at her desk in which case seeing as you have no desire to carry on walking up and down in the corridor while waiting for mr x either to return or to come in whichever may be the case the only course now available to you is to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then go back to see mr x while hoping that this time he has indeed come back or in it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk let us grant that he is not so you await his coming back or his coming in by walking up and down in the corridor sure but let’s just suppose he’s taking his time in this case you go and see if ms wye is at her desk it’s one or t’other either she is in or she is not if she is not the best thing you can do is to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute

the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee but let’s rather assume she is at her desk in this case it’s one or t’other either ms wye is in a good mood or ms wye is not in a good mood let’s suppose for starters that ms wye is not i mean really not in a good mood in this case you don’t let it get you down and circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then go back to see mr x hoping he has come in it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk are you at your desk no so why expect mr x to be at his maybe he is at your desk expecting to give you a drubbing when you get back or maybe he is walking up and down in the corridor outside his boss’s office that’s mr zosthene whom we will henceforth designate as mr z so mr x is not at his desk and as a result you look out for his coming back or coming in while walking up and down in the corridor outside his office we grant without reservation that a certain length of time may elapse before mr x comes back or comes in we advise you that in order to cope with the boredom that your monotonous pacing could easily prompt you should go have a chinwag with your colleague ms wye provided of course not only that ms wye is at her desk if she is not you would not have much of a choice save to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee unless of course you were to go back to your own desk to wait for more auspicious times but also that she is in a good mood if ms wye is at her desk and in a bad mood circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee but let us rather assume to keep things simple — for we must do our best to keep things simple — that ms wye is both in her office and a good mood in this case you enter ms wye’s office and you have a chinwag with her at any rate it’s one or t’other as time goes by either you spy mr x coming back or going in to his office or else you do not see mr x coming back or going in to his office let us assume the most likely outcome namely that you do not see mr x for the good reason that mr x does not come that is to say we are ruling out a hypothesis that would have been disastrous for our demonstration namely mr x coming back or going in without your noticing it from being engrossed in conversation with ms wye in this case you would have to carry on chatting with ms wye unless of course by misfortune your conversation had put ms wye in a bad mood if this latter circumstance had arisen you would have had no choice but to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then wander back to your own desk lost in thought and awaiting happier days but in the end there has to be a moment while chatting with ms wye when you see mr x go past on his way in to or out of his office you must then act with speed and skill by finding a good excuse for getting out of ms wye’s office otherwise you might ruffle her feathers and next time she won’t even let you have a chinwag with her which would oblige you to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee in perambulations that would eventually become suspicious and maybe even annoy your head of department which is obviously not what you had in mind so you find a good excuse for getting out for example i have to pop out to feed the parking meter or i’m afraid i swallowed a fish bone at lunch or excuse me but i must go and have a vaccination against measles you go and see mr x with every reason to believe that since you just saw him going by mr x is now well and truly at his desk we shall suppose to keep things simple — for we must do our best to keep things simple — that mr x is indeed in his office although we should never forget as eugene ionesco once said that when there’s a ring on the doorbell sometimes someone is there and sometimes not the truth lying somewhere between the two so mr x is in his office and as mr x is your line manager you knock before entering then await a response obviously it’s one or t’other either mr x raises his eyes or mr x does not raise his eyes if he raises his eyes that means at least that he noticed your knocking and intends to respond to it either positively or negatively a mystery that will soon be solved by a decision that we could then subject to analysis but if he does not raise his eyes but carries on talking on the telephone reading his file refilling his fountain pen in short doing whatever he had been doing at the point when you knocked on his door that means either that he hasn’t heard and yet i’m sure you knocked clearly and firmly or else that he doesn’t want to hear in any case that comes to exactly the same thing from your point of view because if he has not heard your knocking it would be quite inappropriate and even unseemly to persist so if he does not raise his eyes you go back to your desk and decide to try your luck afresh in the afternoon or tomorrow or next tuesday or forty days later obviously when you do go back