Memed!

What does this meme?

I don't quite know but Lauren of Maitresse did it to me.

She wants me to open my nearest book at a random page, count down five sentences and write down the next three sentence I see.

Ok. It's Stupeur et Tremblements by Amelie Nothomb.

You can get it in English too, but this is the French version.

Ms Nothomb says:

Ce n'est pas informatisé.

Si. A la fin du mois, Monsieur Ujani introduira toutes les factures dans l'ordinateur. Il lui suffira alors de recopier votre travail: cela lui prendera très peu de temps.

or

'That is not computerized.'

'Yes. At the end of the month, Mr Ujani will put all the bills into the computer. He will only have to copy your work: that will take him very little time.'

Simple and direct: Nothomb's regular style and one of her great strengths. But, like Nothomb's narrator in this true story of a stage epouvantable (nightmare work-placement) in Japan, I somehow feel I should be giving you more.

I haven't finished the book yet but, mentally squashed by her bosses who don't know what to do with this eager-to-please 'Western geisha', she is reduced to roaming the office building updating the 'page-a-day' tear-off paper calendars of every employee, and photocopying her boss's golf-club regulations until they match the original document to the milimetre.

So now I've been memed, who else am I going to target?

Well Miranda ought to have some interesting books. And how about artist Matthew Rose? As he works in collage, this sort of thing should be right up his street. In fact, why don't I ask him to turn the results into one of his one-page-books? You may call it random - I'd call it a Dada-esque experiment in automatic writing.

So - anyone who's participated in this experiment - send me your results (see the 'email me' form above). Let me know who asked you to do it, and who you passed the task on to so I can get the results into some kind of order.

Looking forward to hearing from you...

Comments

[maitresse]

great idea! I'll send everyone I memed your way...

[Alice]

I'll send you my info! I was memed by Polly at Polly-vous français.

I read Stupeur et tremblements a few years back, and I've been meaning to get my hands on her latest book, which has her back in Japan dealing with the complications of a Japanese boyfriend. Just haven't had a chance yet! So many books, so little time...

[Miranda]

have just, on your suggestion, done a meme-related post, using George Steiner's new book My Unwritten Books (yes, that looks funny to me, too). Would love to see how this develops!

xxM

[badaude]

It's so great to have you on board! Could you all leave your meme quotes as comments on this post - that might work best - and as soon as I have a few, I'll post a link to a page of the project 'in development' (ie each time I receive a new quote, I'll add it so you can see how the 'story' grows)?

[Alice]

Hey there again -- sorry I didn't send the info sooner, just saw your note on my blog. Have been pretty sick the last few days!

The meme quote from my page is as follows:

"I leaned forward over the table.
'If I gave you an exact address, could you help me trace a family? A family that was arrested in Paris on 16 July 1942?'"

And I tagged Maîtresse, Tatiana at Figtreefranglais, Poppy Fields and La Page française.

Looking forward to seeing how things develop!

[sophie]

hello! here's the info you requested.
~sophie

quote: "Well, then," Ed said, "you haven't lived."

"His mom makes a very good one," Jennifer added.

"I know, you should watch her the next time we're there," Ed said.

book: Cooking for Mr. Latte
memed by: Lauren at La Maitresse
I memed: Anna at annadoesparis and Sam at samdebretagne

[maitresse]

here's mine:

She carried a sceptre and a little orb. England was she? Queen Anne was she?

book: Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts (1941).
member by: Always Ace
I memed: Sophie, Bookpacker, La Coquette

[maitresse]

oh, duh. and you.