Mark Bailey's Reviews > Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

'We have difficulty changing, even if it's only the position of our furniture'.

The easiest way of explaining this book is to break the title down by definitions:

Species - a kind or sort.
Space - an area which is free, available, or unoccupied.

Ironically, there's limited space to condense into a review that'll do its quality justice.

Perec's book, first published in 1974, is a unique account of space. Not in the planetary sense - in the explicit everyday spaces that we inhabit.

'We live in space, in these spaces, these towns, this countryside, these corridors, these parks'.

Perec ruminates:

The power of space: How space can evoke vivid memories - a particular room in the house, a building, or town.

The freedom of space: The space of a sheet of paper, its measurements, margins and lines, and the possibilities of a blank or page.

The universality of space: 'Every apartment consists of a variable, but finite, number of rooms, each room has a particular function'.

The effectuality of space: 'A cat owner will rightly tell you that cats inhabit houses much better than people do.

Spaces within space: How we divide our houses or apartments and how this relates to time and routine. No particular space in a house is also any more important than another in a functional sense.

While seemingly trivial, Perec's ideals on space can be applied to the mind. The mind is a space, and how we fill that space is instrumental in the quality of our lives. Particularly as modern living becomes more intense, more externally overwhelming - we can use Perec's writing for meditative purposes, to increase presence and clarity in our lives.

For example, there are various exercises Perec sets for us:

'Observe the street from time to time...Note down the place...note down what you can see. Is there anything that strikes you?'.

Because, as Perec poignantly illustrates:

Our spaces, like our lives, are impermanent:

'My spaces are fragile: time is going to wear them away, to destroy them. Nothing will any longer resemble what was, my memories will betray me, oblivion will infiltrate my memory...'

One of the best books I've read this year. Highly recommend.