Exercises in Style (English and French Edition) - Hardcover

Queneau, Raymond

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811208036 ISBN 13: 9780811208031

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1981

Synopsis

Queneau uses a variety of literary styles and forms in ninety-nine exercises which retell the same story about a minor brawl aboard a bus

About this title

Review

A twentysomething bus rider with a long, skinny neck and a goofy hat accuses another passenger of trampling his feet; he then grabs an empty seat. Later, in a park, a friend encourages the same man to reorganize the buttons on his overcoat. In Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, this determinedly pointless scenario unfolds 99 times in twice as many pages. Originally published in 1947 (in French), these terse variations on a theme are a wry lesson in creativity. The story is told as an official letter, as a blurb for a novel, as a sonnet, and in "Opera English." It's told onomatopoetically, philosophically, telegraphically, and mathematically. The result, as translator Barbara Wright writes in her introduction, is "a profound exploration into the possibilities of language." I'd say it's a refresher course of sorts, but it's more like a graduate seminar. After all, how many of us are familiar with terms such as litote, alexandrine, apheresis, and epenthesis in the first place?

About the Author

Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) was a poet, novelist, editor, scholar and mathematician. He is best remembered for Exercises in Style and Zazie in the Metro.

Edition details

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811208036
• ISBN 13: 9780811208031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 197