Portrait of a Man – novel set in France, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia

18th December 2014

Portrait of a Man – by Georges Perec: novel set in France, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia.

I chose to read Portrait of a Man for TripFiction because of the locations. The story is set in Dampierre (just outside Paris), Geneva and Gstaad in Switzerland, and an unnamed place in what was then (the 1960s) still Yugoslavia. A fair collection of locations for any book… But I was sadly disappointed. The locations are irrelevant and absolutely unimportant to the book… and hardly in fact described at all.

So, if you are looking for brilliant descriptions of the places to bring the book alive, then Portrait of a Man is not for you. It is, though, a thoroughly good and thought-provoking read. George Perec was born in 1936, his father lost his life fighting in the Second War, and his mother died in Auschwitz. He decided he wanted to be a writer, but had a day job as a librarian until his first published work, Things, appeared in 1965. He wrote many subsequent books, and became one of the leading novelists of his generation. He died of lung cancer in Paris in 1982. The history of Portrait of a Man is fascinating. The story was written in the early 1960s and to Perec’s frustration and disappointment rejected by publishers. It remained buried in a trunk until many years later when David Bellos (the excellent translator of Portrait of a Man) was researching a biography of Perec’s life that he was writing. Fittingly, therefore, the book now becomes both Perec’s first and last work.

It is quite a simple story told in a quite complex manner. The key character is Gaspard Winkler who falls in with a painter called Jérôme in Geneva where he had been sent to school during the War. Jérôme is also a master forger who trains him in the art, and Gaspard then works with a gang of international criminals for 12 years. He is an excellent and meticulous craftsman who really studies the works of the artists whose work he is copying – including sending days in museums and galleries, and on basic research. He earns 25% of what each forgery sells for, and becomes extremely rich. But he needs very little creativity for his work – his life is that of the craftsman, recreating what others have already executed. It is a life which seems perfectly agreeable. But something then changes… He is commissioned to paint a version of a Portrait of a Man by 15th century Italian artist Antonello de Messina. He becomes totally obsessed by the picture and crosses the line between craftsman and creator – he wants to create a great work of art. And he suffers ‘artists cramp’ – nothing will go right, and he spends days looking at the almost blank canvas. His frustration becomes so great that he eventually murders Madera, the leader of the gang of forgers. And that is where the story really starts…

It is written in two parts. In the first he blockades himself into the subterranean studio (almost cell…) in which he has been working in order to avoid the revenge of the gang – and plans his escape by tunnelling through to the outside world. It is an almost surreal account of the escapade, with many questions left unanswered. In the second part Gaspard is in Yugoslavia (where he has fled…) and tells the whole story of his life, including the events leading up to Madera’s murder, to an old acquaintance, Streten.

Nothing really more complicated than that – but told in a manner that fascinates. The book is an excellent description of a forger’s life, and what might go wrong if his ambition changes, and he actually seeks to become the artist.

Not, as I said at the beginning, a book that is worth reading for descriptions of the locations in which it takes place (so not really a TripFiction title) – but, nevertheless, a very worthwhile (and quite short) read.

Tony for the TripFiction Team

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