Исчезновение: Роман без буквы «е»

Novel by Georges Perec

A Void, translated from the original French La Disparition ( "The Disappearance"), is a 300 page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the letter e, following Oulipo constraints. Perec would go on to write with the inverse constraint in Les Revenentes, with only the vowel “e” present in the work. Ian Monk would later translate Les Revenentes into English under the title The Exeter Text.

A Void plot follows a group of individuals looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic limitation, highlighting its unusual syntax. A Void protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story's constraint risk fatal injury. Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in his column Lost Words, said "This is a story chock full of plots and sub plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant gardist magician, acrobat and clown."

Both of Georges Perec's parents perished in World War II: his father as a soldier and his mother in the Holocaust. He was brought up by his aunt and uncle after surviving the war. Warren Motte interprets the absence of the letter e in the book as a metaphor for Perec's own sense of loss and incompleteness: