| Author | Georges Perec |
|---|---|
| Original title | L'art et la manière d'aborder son chef de service pour lui demander une augmentation |
| Translator | David Bellos |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Prose |
| Publisher | Verso Books |
Publication date | 1968 |
Published in English | 2011 |
| ISBN | 178478656X |
The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise [a] is a book by French writerGeorges Perec (1936–1982). In 2011, publishing houseVerso Books published a translation into English byDavid Bellos.
The original idea by Perec consists of
According toBellos, who also wrote the prologue to the 2011 edition, the text was first published in December 1968 in issue 4 of journalEnseignement programmé (Hachette Livre), an academic review devoted to what was then called Programmed Learning, or computer-assisted education.[2] The source text is based on a formal flowchart drawn up byJacques Perriault [fr], a researcher at the Computing Service of the Humanities Research Centre in Paris. Perriault came up with the idea to challenge an artist to write within a constraint that approximated the limitations of a computer's operations, that is, following or imitating a series of algorithms.[3][4][5]
Around the time of its first publication, Perec was asked by his German translator,Eugen Helmlé [de], if he might come up with something suitable to broadcast on the radio.[2] This became the radio playWucherungen, broadcast bySaarländischer Rundfunk on 12 November 1969.[6][d] The huge success of this radio play prompted requests for more material.[2]
For instance, in 1973, a slightly abridged version was published in journalCommunications et langages.[9][10] Then, in 1981, Hachette published the playL'Augmentation as part of its P.O.L. collection, along with the playLa Poche Parmentier, in the bookThéâtre I. La Poche Parmentier précédé de l'Augmentation.[11][12]
In November 2007, while working on the Spanish translation ofL'Augmentation, Pablo Moíño Sánchez found a copy of the 1967 edition at theAssociation Georges Perec [es]. Thanks to this discovery, Hachette Livre was able to publish a new edition of the text in its original language, this time as a book, in November 2008.[13]
According to the language used by theOuLiPo group, the structure of these texts, based on the exhaustive description of all possible paths in a flowchart and with almost no progression in the events, corresponds to an "anti-arborescence", contrary to the "arborescent stories" that, in accordance tograph theory, seek to bifurcate events as much as possible, based on the consequences generated by the multiple possible alternatives.[14] An example of Oulipo's independent arborescent stories are children's books in theChoose Your Own Adventure series.[4][6]
Perec also used a similar structure in other texts, such as81 fiches-cuisine à l'usage des débutants (inPenser/Classer, Hachette Livre, 1985ISBN 2-01-011554-6),Deux cent quarante-trois cartes postales en couleurs vèritables (inL'Infra-ordinaire, Éditions du Seuil, 1989,ISBN 2-02-010899-2), andExemple d'anagramme saturé (inAtlas de littérature potentielle,Éditions Gallimard, 1988,ISBN 2070325008).[6]
This play—the full title of which isL'Augmentation (ou Comment, quelles que soient les conditions sanitaires, psychologiques, climatiques, économiques ou autres, mettre le maximum de chances de son [sic] côte en demandant à votre chef de service un réajustement de votre salaire)[e][15]—corresponds to the exhaustive description of a flowchart portraying various obstacles through which the employee of a company he has served for many years must pass in order to be able to meet with his department head and, unsuccessfully, ask him for a pay raise.[16]
The characters in the play are not the individuals spoken about, such as the employee, his boss, and the latter's secretary, but rather the various components of the diagram, namely:[17]
In addition, a character namedRubéole appears, which precisely representsthis disease, mentioned in certain parts of the diagram.
The diagram that gives structure to the play is a simplified version of the one drawn in the book, which is in turn the one described inThe Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise.
This play was first performed on 26 February 1970 at theThéâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse in Paris, directed byMarcel Cuvelier [fr].[18] The cast was as follows:[19]
The rubella character was replaced by a voice-over, played byDanielle Lebrun.[14] A recording of these performances was broadcast onFrance Culture radio on 5 March 1972 under the titleAudioPerec [es], along with other radio works by the writer.[20]
Critical acclaim for the premiere was understated, but it achieved greater success at its revival in January 1981, at the Théâtre de la Comédie inSaint-Étienne, and for a three-month season starting in February 1982 at theThéâtre de la Huchette in Paris. Since then, the play has been staged by various theatre companies in France and abroad.[14][21]
In German, it was directed by Anette Spola under the titleDie Gehaltserhöhung, [f] and premiered at theTheater am Sozialamt inMunich in November 1972. It was then performed inMünster,Wiesbaden, and other cities between February and June 1973.[22][23]
In April 1988, playwrightSergi Belbel translated and staged a version in Catalan, with a minimalist staging and the titleL'augment,[g] at theInstitut del Teatre in Barcelona.[24]
Two years later, Enrico Groppali translated it into Italian asL'Aumento,[h] and under the direction of Alessandro Marinuzzi it was staged inUdine andTrieste in 1990, and in Milan in May 1991. Between October and December 1991, Magnus Hedlund's Swedish versionLöneförhöjningen[i] was presented in Stockholm, directed byKarl Dunér [sv].[22]
Around the year 2000, Jesús Díez staged the play once again in Catalan, but this time using a baroque,Brechtian aesthetic that played withfarce andclown elements. The production was staged atTeatreneu [es], and featured performances by, among others, actorsPep Anton Muñoz [es] and Carles Sales, the latter playing the characters of "The conclusion" and Perec himself.[24]
The play was translated into Spanish by Argentine director Carlos Mathus in 2001 with the titleEl aumento de sueldo.[j] He directed and staged it that same year atTeatro Empire [es] in Buenos Aires.[25] A few years later, the play was staged in Chile by director Carolina Sagredo. The adaptation consisted of a monologue performed byJosé Soza with music by Andrés Núñez, thanks to funding byFONDART. After more than a year of rehearsals, it premiered with fourteen performances, between 18 March and 10 April 2016, at theCentro Cultural Matucana 100.[26]
This text follows the same plot of the play, but describes a longer outline. It is not written as a theater play, but rather as a long text without any punctuation marks. Nevertheless, the same idea is maintained of describing first a proposition, then the two possible alternatives, the positive and negative hypotheses, and finally the choice and its corresponding conclusion, thus starting again with a new proposition of the scheme.[27]
Interspersed throughout the text are eleven drawings that are related to the plot, some of which are repeated: a woman, a clock, a fish, some girls, an egg, a man, a woman, an egg, a man, a fish, and a clock.[27]
According to Bellos:[5]
An algorithm, as defined for this experiment, is an ordered sequence of instructions written in a programming language for input into a computer, usually laid out as a flow chart for human understanding. Perec's commission was to turn into a text the flow-chart representing the steps that a lowly employee would take in order to obtain a pay rise. The plot itself is a pun, since the French word for a pay rise or increment (augmentation) also signifies "incrementation," the procedure used by a computer to mark its path around an algorithm. The idea was originally conceived byJacques Perriault [fr] for theBull computer company and then amended by Perec before he began to write out his text.
Jesús Camarero described these texts as a "combinatorial drama."[6] The bureaucracy that exists in large companies and, in particular, the difficulties that an employee has to go through to obtain a meeting with his boss and be able to ask for a salary adjustment, are not exclusive to these two works by the author. Perec also deals with this subject in the story of the Réol family in his novelLife: A User's Manual.[6] Because of their subject matter, these texts have also been associated with the articleVuelva usted mañana,[k] written in the 19th century byMariano José de Larra.[28] Journalist Eric Libiot, writing forL'Express, highlights Perec's ability to raise the subject of a pay rise to the level of an act of political art:[29]
Lorsque Perec écrit ces lignes dans une revue confidentielle, en octobre 1968, il est, depuis un an, membre de l'Oulipo, l'Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, où, notamment avec Queneau, il s'amuse à montrer que les contraintes d'écriture stimulent l'imagination. Mais, comme toujours avec l'auteur de La Vie mode d'emploi, ses jeux littéraires vont au-delà du simple exercice de style. Ils sont une façon de dire que la littérature, se fabriquant, est un acte politique autant qu'artistique. Demander une augmentation à son chef aussi. [l]
— Eric Libiot,L'Express (20 November 2008)
According to theater criticColette Godard [fr], in her essayComment fonctionne la machine? (1970), both Perec and Cuvelier said ofL'ugmentation that the six actors represent the machine, but its efficiency lies in formulating, in its breakdown, all the thoughts that run through the head of a man; here, a man who is going to ask for a raise. The play can represent the duration of a life or the duration of a thought, that of a man imprisoned by a bureaucratic system, by a hierarchy, a man who knows that he can do nothing against that abstract force that denies his existence. The human element: despair or resignation, ends up ripping apart the machine.[30]
In this sense, Cuvelier relates the confrontation with power present in these texts to the work ofFranz Kafka and his mathematical games without a practical purpose, and to the work ofLewis Carroll. The hesitations that never lead to the set goal, as well as the "merciless humour," for their part, link them to the work ofAnton Chekhov.[6]
The notion of "increase," which appears in the titles of both texts, is developed in three different ways: from a financial (wage increase), rhetorical (grouping of arguments to arrive at a consequence), and mathematical (combinatorialrecursion) point of view.[14]