Hortense in Exile - Hardcover

Roubaud, Jacques; Bernandi, Dominic Di

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1564780015 ISBN 13: 9781564780010

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 1992

Synopsis

Set to marry Gormanskoï, the Premier Prince Presumptive, our beautiful heroine Hortense has been exiled to Queneau stown, where she finds herself in a real-life production of Hamlet or is it Hatmel, the original Poldevian tale scandalously plagiarized by that Englishman William Shahkayspear? Something is definitely amiss in the Poldevian Principalities, and if her loyal friends can t rescue her or foil the plagiarized plots of her evil twin, she may require intervention from the Author and Publisher those unlikely cohorts responsible for bringing this deftly satiric, madcap adventure to light. Brimming with literary allusions, philosophical conundrums, witty interjections, and (of course) cats, Hortense in Exile is the third installment in the altogether delightful and hilarious Hortense Series by French novelist and mathematician Jacques Roubaud. Combining high literary sentiments with mathematical games, brilliant wordplay and an effusive sense of humor, Roubaud s works are some of the most enjoyable in all of contemporary literature, and he is considered to be one of the most accomplished members of Oulipo (the workshop for experimental literature founded by Raymond Queneau and including such figures as Georges Perec, Harry Mathews, and Italo Calvino).

About this title

Review

"For anyone whose mind has wandered while perusing France's more tedious linguistic moil, Hortense will restore faith in the nation's esprit." -- PW "This delightfully unconventional novel, Roubard's third work featuring Hortense, takes up where Hortense Is Abducted left off." -- LJ

About the Author

Jacques Roubaud (born 1932 in Caluire-et-Cuire, Rhône) is a French poet and mathematician, and a member of the Oulipo group. He has also published poetry, plays, novels, and translated English poetry and books into French such as Lewis Carroll'sThe Hunting of the Snark.

Roubaud's fiction often suppresses the rigorous constraints of the Oulipo (while mentioning their suppression, thereby indicating that such constraints are indeed present), yet takes the Oulipian self-consciousness of the writing act to an extreme. This simultaneity both appears playfully, with his Hortense novels, Our Beautiful Heroine,Hortense in Exile, and Hortense is Abducted, and with the gravity and reflection of the writing act as the affirmation of one's worth and existence inThe Great Fire of London, considered the pinnacle of his prose.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564780015
• ISBN 13: 9781564780010
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 211