An Overview of "Approaches to What?"

In Georges Perec's "Approaches to What?" essay, Perec questions the importance that human beings place on extraordinary and uncommon circumstances in everyday life, as opposed the ordinary circumstances that affect us daily. Throughout the essay Perec makes a strong argument about how too much focus, whether it be from the television, newspapers, or magazines, is purely based on uncommon and unusual events that in fact don’t have much affect on how our everyday lives are lived. Only if something spectacular happens does it make headlines, states Perec , but he goes on to argue that the habitual and commonplace should be just as important, if not more, than these spectacular headlines. His essay explores the idea that the trivial and futile are extremely essential to our lives and writes how many people have forgotten this. 

“What is the true scandal”, questions the author.  Perec explains that true scandal is not what is read in the newspaper headlines, it is not the freak accidents reported on t.v., nor the natural disasters that strike some far off land.  On the contrary, the “true scandal” is that there is no documentation on the everyday life that leads to these events. If anything, states the author, these scandals only tell us not to worry, “as you can see life exists, with its ups and its downs.” Perec argues that rather what we need to question is the habitual.  Only through documenting such things as the small and trivial can all other questions in which we have tried in vain to answer can be solved.

So next time, “question your teaspoon,” states the author. Wonder at the ordinary, dig deeper into your everyday way of life and ask yourself “where is our life, where is our body, and where is our space.” These simple, unexplored questions might surprise you with the complexity of the answer.