Between 1959 and 1963, Georges Perec and some of his friends analyzed and reconsidered a project for a magazine, named La Ligne générale (The General Line), in reference to Eisenstein's film. The La Ligne générale group was a nebula of uncertain boundaries: from one to several dozen participants, all very young (between eighteen and thirty), mostly students, frequently members of the Communist Party and even more frequently in conflictual proximity. with this.

From this magazine that never saw the light, the most substantial scattered fragments are presented here, those that were partially or totally written by Georges Perec. Although the group of La Ligne générale perecquiana erred on intellectualist idealism, there was nothing insensitive about their models. In a mixture of optimism and voluntarism, these texts expressed a dream of fullness, of a broad life that showed the word "happiness" that returned with insistence. “Happiness” with which images, contradictory or not, were explored, both in the singing and dancing life of the North American musical comedy, as in the greatness of Eisenstein or even in the laughter of Rabelais, Swift or Queneau.

Through the texts of this volume, one sees how the stilts on which Perec is going to build the essentials of his work are put into operation, with evident consistency in the choice of the guiding threads. Novels as diverse as Las cosas, A man who sleeps, W or childhood memories and La Vida instructions for use are odysseys of consciousness that finds one of its origins here.