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La Vie mode d'emploi is an immensely complex and rich work; a tapestry of interwoven stories and ideas and literary and historical allusions. It was written according to a complex plan of writing constraints, and is primarily constructed from several elements, each adding a layer of complexity:
This is a story imagined by Perec when working on a large jigsaw puzzle, and is briefly this: a tremendously wealthy Englishman, Bartlebooth, devises a plan that will both occupy the remainder of his life and spend his entire fortune. First, he spends 10 years learning to paint watercolours. Then, he embarks on a 20-year trip around the world, painting a watercolour of a different port every two weeks. Each painting is sent back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a craftsman cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each jigsaw, re-creating the scene. Each finished puzzle is treated to re-bind the paper, the wooden support is removed, and the painting is sent to the port where it was painted. Exactly 20 years to the day that it was painted, the painting is placed in the seawater until the colours dissolve, and the paper, blank except for the faint marks where it was cut and re-joined, is returned to Bartlebooth. Ultimately, there would be nothing to show for 50 years of work: the project would leave absolutely no mark on the world.
The story is gradually revealed as the book progresses.
One of Perec's long-standing projects was the description of a Parisian apartment block, as it could be seen if the entire facade would be removed, exposing every room. Perec was obsessed with lists: such a description would be exhaustive down to the last detail.
A Knight's Tour as a means of generating a novel was a long-standing idea of the Oulipo group. Perec devises the elevation of the building as a 10×10 grid: 10 storeys, including basements and attics and 10 rooms across, including 2 for the stairwell. Each room is assigned to a chapter, and the order of the chapters is given by the knight's moves on the grid.
These elements come together with Perec's constraints for the book (in keeping with Oulipo objectives): he created a complex system which would generate for each chapter a list of items, references or objects which that chapter should then contain or allude to. He described this system as a "machine for inspiring stories".
There are 42 lists of 10 objects each, gathered into 10 groups of 4 with the last two lists a special "Couples" list. Some examples:
The way in which these apply to each chapter is governed by an array called a Graeco-Latin square. The lists are considered in pairs, and each pair is governed by one cell of the array, which guarantees that every combination of elements is encountered. For instance, the items in the couples list are seen once with their natural partner (in which case Perec gives an explicit reference), and once with every other element (where he is free to be cryptic). In the 1780s, the great mathematician Leonard Euler had conjectured that a 10×10 Graeco-Latin square could not exist and it was not until 1959Events January-February January 1 Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. January 1 Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when forces of Fidel Castro advance January 2 CBS Radio cuts four soap operas: Bac that one was actually constructed, refuting Euler.
To further complicate matters, the 38th and 39th list are named "Missing" and "False" and each list comprises the numbers 1 to 10. The number these lists give for each chapter indicates one of the 10 groups of 4 lists, and folds the system back on itself: one of the elements must be omitted, and one must be false in some way (an opposite, for example). Things become tricky when the Missing and False numbers refer to group 10, which includes the Missing and False lists.
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