Structure
The entire block is primarily presented frozen in time, on June 23, 1975, just before 8 pm, moments after the death of Bartlebooth. Nonetheless, the constraints system creates hundreds of separate stories concerning the inhabitants of the block, past and present, and the other people in their lives. The story of Bartlebooth is the principal thread, but it interlinks with many others.
Another key thread is the painter Serge Valène's final project. Bartlebooth hires him as a tutor before embarking on his tour of the world, and buys himself a flat in the same block where Valène lives. He is one of several painters who have lived in the block over the century. He plans to paint the entire apartment block, seen in elevation with the facade removed, showing all the occupants and the details of their lives: Valène, a character in the novel, seeks to create a representation of the novel as a painting. Chapter 51, falling in the middle of the book, lists all of Valène's ideas, and in the process picks out the key stories seen so far and yet to come.
Both Bartlebooth and Valène fail in their projects: this is a recurring theme in many of the stories.
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Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)
“Vashtar: So it’s finished. A structure to house one man and the greatest treasure of all time.
Senta: And a structure that will last for all time.
Vashtar: Only history will tell that.
Senta: Sire, will he not be remembered?
Vashtar: Yes, he’ll be remembered. The pyramid’ll keep his memory alive. In that he built better than he knew.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)