Books like Works

“A book describes works conceived of but not realized by its author.” Like Suicide and Autoportrait, Works is another of Eduoard Levé’s bewitching reconceptions of what the novel can (or should) do.A list of 533 projects, beginning with its own description–both likely and unlikely, sober and ridiculous; some of which Levé later realized, most of which he did not. Works ranks with the fiction of Georges Perec for its seemingly limitless, ingenious, and comical inventiveness. A lampoon of conceptual art–if not, indeed, an exemplar of its charms at their best–Works is another piece in the puzzle of Levé’s brief and fascinating life.