Raymond Queneau

Impish, foul-mouthed Zazie arrives in Paris from the country to stay with Gabriel, her female-impersonator uncle. 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. In 1960 Queneau's cult classic was made into a hugely successful film by Louis Malle. Packed full of word play and phonetic games, Zazie in the Metro remains as stylish and witty as ever.

Zazie in the Metro

Seated in a Paris cafe, a man glimpses another man, a shadowy figure hurrying to the train. Who is he? he wonders, and how does he live? Instantly the shadow comes to life, precipitating a series of hilarious encounters involving a range of disreputable and heartwarming characters that prove as incredible as "real life."

Witch Grass

roman

Zazie dans le métro

I fiori blu

Esercizi di stile

Les Fleurs Bleues

A new edition of a French modernist classic - a Parisian scene told ninety-nine different ways - with new material written in homage by the likes of Jonathan Lethem, Rivka Galchen, and many more. 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 proof.” To celebrate the 65th anniversary of the 1947 French publication of Exercises de Style, New Directions has asked several writers to contribute new exercises as a tribute. Tantalizing examples include Jonathan Lethem’s “Cyberpunk,” Harry Mathew’s “Phonetic Eros,” and Frederic Tuten’s “Beatnik” exercises. This edition also retains Barbara Wright’s original introduction and reminiscence of working on this book — a translation that in 2008 was ranked first on the Author’s Society’s list of “The 50 Outstanding Translations of the Last 50 Years.”

Exercises in Style

Ejercicios De Estilo (Critica Y Estudios Literarios)

Armağan Ekici

Biçem alıştırmaları

We Always Treat Women Too Well was first published as a purported work of pulp fiction by one Sally Mara, but this novel by Raymond Queneau is a further manifestation of his sly, provocative, wonderfully wayward genius. Set in Dublin during the 1916 Easter rebellion, it tells of a nubile beauty who finds herself trapped in the central post office when it is seized by a group of rebels. But Gertie Girdle is no common pushover, and she quickly devises a coolly lascivious strategy by which, in very short order, she saves the day for king and country. Queneau's wickedly funny send-up of cheap smut—his response to a popular bodice-ripper of the 1940s—exposes the link between sexual fantasy and actual domination while celebrating the imagination's power to transmute crude sensationalism into pleasure pure and simple.

We Always Treat Women Too Well

Zazie nel metró

"Pierrot Mon Ami was perhaps Queneau's masterpiece . . . This unlikely guru exerted a major influence on a new avant-garde (notably on Georges Perec, who was devoted to him). But if there was a sage in Queneau he never imparted his wisdom more touchingly than in Pierrot Mon Ami."—Times Literary Supplement

Pierrot Mon Ami

«C'est plus inspiré par le livre pour enfants intitulé Têtes de rechange que par les jeux surréalistes du genre Cadavre exquis que j'ai conçu - et réalisé - ce petit ouvrage qui permet à tout un chacun de composer à volonté cent mille milliards de sonnets, tous réguliers bien entendu. C'est somme toute une sorte de machine à fabriquer des poèmes, mais en nombre limité ; il est vrai que ce nombre, quoique limité, fournit de la lecture pour près de deux cent millions d'années (en lisant vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre).»Raymond Queneau.

Cent mille milliards de poèmes

Oeuvre ouverte, invitant le lecteur à devenir lui-même "écriveron", Exercices de style est un des livres les plus populaires de Raymond Queneau. Cette édition au tirage limité est augmentée de vingt exercices supplémentaires et de variations publicitaires inédites.

Exercices de style

un roman irlandais de Sally Mara

On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes

Odile (French Literature)

L'oeil inconsciemment gris-bleu, la molletière galamment embobinée avec inconscience, le soldat Brû promenait naïvement avec lui tout ce qu'il fallait pour plaire à une demoiselle ni tout à fait jeune ni tout à fait demoiselle. Il ne savait pas. Julia pinça le bras de sa soeur Chantal et dit - 'Le v'là'. Tapies derrière un entassement brut de bobines et de boutons, elles le regardèrent passer, muettes.

Raymond Queneau

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