Things (Brief Encounters)

Georges Perec’s cool, exacting portrait of a couple torn apart by consumer desire

A young couple build their lives around the objects they long to own. From furniture to clothes to carefully imagined interiors, their desires shape their sense of who they are – and who they might become. Yet satisfaction always seems just out of reach.. Precise and quietly ironic, Things explores the promises of material life – and the emptiness that can follow.

Translated by David Bellos