There are many things in place Saint-Sulpice […] A great number, if not the majority of these things have been described, inventoried, photographed, talked about, or registered. My intention in the pages that follow was to describe the rest instead: that which is generally not taken note of, that which is not noticed, that which has no importance: what happens when nothing happens other than the weather, people, cars, and clouds.

Perec, introduction to An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris

Attempt was one of Perec's clearer efforts to grapple with what he termed the 'infraordinary': the markings and manifestations of the everyday that consistently escape our attention as they compose the essence of our lives – 'what happens', as he puts it here, 'when nothing happens'.

Translator's afterword to Perec's An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris