SOURCE: "Held by the Dead Hand of a Dictator," in The Spectator, Vol. 269, No. 8576, November 21, 1992, p. 49.

In the following review, King suggests that the posthumous publication of Perec's unfinished mystery novel, 52 Days, was the result of Perec's reputation as a genius, and that the work is without significant literary merit.

Some people in this country and many people in France ascribe genius to Georges Perec. On the basis of his Life, A User's Manual ('a transcendent achievement' we were assured by the Daily Telegraph, 'one of the great novels of the century' by the Times Literary Supplement), they may well be right.

The trouble with genius is similar to the trouble with royalty: whatever it does is considered worthy of note. The result is that just as, say, Queen Victoria's knickers are regarded as collectable, so such things as Graham Greene's inconsequential dreams, Philip Larkin's life-hating and self-hating...