Exercises in Style (Paper) - Softcover

Queneau, Raymond; Wright, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811207897 ISBN 13: 9780811207898

Publisher: New Directions, 1981

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub Date: 1981 Pages: 204 Publisher: New Directions Publishing On a crowded bus at midday. Raymond Queneau observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately When a seat is vacated the first man appropriates it. Later. in another part of town. Queneau sees the man being advised by a friend to sew a new button on his overcoat. Exercises in Style - Queneau's experimental masterpiece and a hallmark book of the Oulipo literary group - retells this unexceptional tale ninety-nine times. employing the sonnet and the alexandrine. onomatopoeia and Cockney. An Abusive chapter heartily deplores the events; Opera English lends them grandeur. Queneau once said that of all his books. this was the one he most wished to see translated. He offered Barbara Wright his heartiest congratulations. adding: I have always thought that nothing is untranslatable.Here is new proo...

About this title

Review:

"Witty, playful, ingenious, it manages to transcend its own
sophistication by a sort of verbal slapstick which Miss Wright translates
into Pure Groucho Marxism."
-- The Guardian

About the Author:

Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) is acknowledged as one of the most influential of modern French writers, having helped determine the shape of twentieth-century French literature, especially in his role with the Oulipo, a group of authors that includes Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, and Harry Mathews, among others.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0811207897
• ISBN 13: 9780811207898
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 204