Scope and Contents Originally published in French in 1978, this novel is considered to be an outstanding example of twentieth century fiction in the tradition of Canterbury Tales and Ulysses. It is composed of a seies of stories that occur at the same time in an apartment building in the 17th arrondisement of Paris. Fictional but meaningful, the people and events are described in humorous and specific detail. The book is constructed like a puzzle and contains an index and a chronology.WikipedIa: Life A User's Manual (the original title is La Vie mode d'emploi) is Georges Perec's most famous novel, published in 1978, first translated into English by David Bellos in 1987. Its title page describes it as "novels", in the plural, the reasons for which become apparent on reading. Some critics have cited the work as an example of postmodern fiction, though Perec himself preferred to avoid labels and his only long term affiliation with any movement was with the Oulipo or OUvroir de LItterature POtentielle.La...