Raymond Queneau Books

On a crowded bus at midday, the narrator observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately. When a seat is vacated, the first man takes it. Later, in another part of town, the man is spotted again, while being advised by a friend to have another button sewn onto his overcoat. Exercises in Style retells this apparently unremarkable tale ninety-nine times, employing a variety of styles, ranging from sonnet to cockney to mathematical formula. Too funny to be merely a pedantic thesis, this virtuoso set of themes and variations is a linguistic rust-remover, a guide to literary forms and a demonstration of imagery and inventiveness.

These hilarious adventures make Queneau's novel, presented in the form of a script and parodying various genres, one of the best literary jeux d'esprit in modern literature.

Seated in a Paris café, a man glimpses another man, a shadowy figure hurrying for the train: Who is he? he wonders, How does he live? And instantly the shadow comes to life, precipitating a series of comic run-ins among a range of disreputable and heartwarming characters living on the sleazy outskirts of the city of lights. Witch Grass (previously titled The Bark Tree) is a philosophical farce, an epic comedy, a mesmerizing novel about the daily grind that is an enchantment itself.

Presents a bilingual survey of the author's poems as written from his early Surrealist days of the 1920's through to 1943 and is representative of the author's range of poetic voices.

A very funny book with great charm. The Times..This first English translation of The Sunday of Life is excellent. The Financial Times

Set against the backdrop of 1960s Paris, the narrative intertwines the lives of Cidrolin, a barge-dwelling dreamer, and the Duke d'Auge, a historical figure defying norms across seven centuries. Their peculiar connection raises questions about reality and dreams, echoing an ancient Chinese saying about identity and existence. Queneau's playful language, rich with puns and humor, reflects the vibrancy of French street culture, brilliantly preserved by translator Barbara Wright, making this work a captivating exploration of time and consciousness.

Pierrot Mon Ami, considered by many to be one of Raymond Queneau's finest achievements, is a quirky coming-of-age novel concerning a young man's initiation into a world filled with deceit, fraud, and manipulation. From his short-lived job at a Paris amusement park where he helps to raise women's skirts to the delight of an unruly audience, to his frustrated and unsuccessful love of Yvonne, to his failed assignment to care for the tomb of the shadowy Prince Luigi of Poldevia, Pierrot stumbles about, nearly immune to the effects of duplicity. This "innocent" implies how his story, at almost every turn, undermines, upsets, and plays upon our expectations, leaving us with more questions than answers, and doing so in a gloriously skewed style (admirably re-created by Barbara Wright, Queneau's principle translator).

A metro strike sends country-girl Zazie on a crazy Parisian adventure in this comic cult classic Impish, foul-mouthed Zazie arrives in Paris from the country to stay with her uncle Gabriel. All she really wants to do is ride the metro, but finding it shut because of a strike, Zazie looks for other means of amusement and is soon caught up in a comic adventure that becomes wilder and more manic by the minute. Queneau's cult classic was made into a hugely successful film by Louis Malle in 1960. Packed full of word play and phonetic games, Zazie in the Metro remains as stylish and witty today as it did back then.

Collects the best of the author's shorter prose that span his career and include short stories, an uncompleted novel, melancholic and absurd essays, occasionally baffling 'Texticles', a pastiche of Alice in Wonderland, and his only play. schovat popis