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Loading... Exercices de style (original 1947; edition 1982)by Raymond Queneau, Raymond Queneau (Auteur)
Work InformationExercises in Style by Raymond Queneau (Author) (1947)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is an interesting study in voice. If you're struggling to understand the impact voice can have on a story, or if you want some assistance giving your narrator a different flavor, this book has a variety of useful examples. ( ) Some books are clever in theory but dull in execution, whether due to the abstruseness of the underlying ideas or some incapacity of the writer. Exercises In Style is not one of those; even in translation (performed ably by Barbara Wright), it's obvious that this is one of those books that came out just as the author intended. While the underlying conceit may seem a bit lame, the underlying product is quite funny and enjoyable. The central conceit is that Queneau takes a boring, everyday scene - the unnamed narrator watches two other men jostle for space on a bus, and then later sees one of them again being given fashion advice - and describes it in 99 different ways. Each form can be something as simple as changing the verb tenses to set the scene in the past, more complex such as various poetic styles, or just funny as in Cockney accents or pig Latin. Each different style emphasizes either a different facet of the encounter or a different way of perceiving the action, bringing to mind McLuhan's famous "the medium is the message" dictum. Sometimes the particular style will be almost unintelligible (I'm thinking of ones like the arrangements of permutations of certain numbers of letters), but since every detail of the scene becomes intimately familiar very quickly, the nuances of each particular descriptive technique take center stage. This is a book truly immune to spoilers, but enriched by repetition. In terms of novelty, it reminds me of Pynchon's later "You never did the Kenosha Kid" scene in Gravity's Rainbow, though apparently it actually has more in common with chapter 33 of Erasmus' De Copia, where Erasmus comes up with 195 different ways to write the sentence "Your letter pleased me greatly" as part of a demonstration of technique. Regardless of provenance or influence or originality, my main takeaway is that this is a really creative way to emphasize the arbitrariness of presentation - there are an almost infinite number of ways to tell a story, and Queneau is showing so many to demonstrate that true artistry lies in selecting the right one (perhaps Flaubert's line about "le mot juste" should be amended to "le style juste" in this case). Most of these styles are obviously unsuitable for a "normal" novel, yet the concept of an entire novel being told in the form of a cross-examination, for example, seems like it could stimulate the right sort of author looking for inspiration. There is no "point" to the book - I'm not sure I'd call it a novel - beyond its display of rhetorical technique, but even this formal exercise is engaging over its course, and even if some of the styles don't quite translate (Wright quite reasonably chooses analogous English modes in some instances, which of course provokes further thoughts on the question of limits of style beyond language), the book shows that a clever writer can make even the simplest idea and the simplest story entertaining. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesDe Bezige Bij 70 ([11]) Bezige Bij pocket (89) Gallimard, Folio (1363) Mínima minor (39) — 2 more Gli struzzi [Einaudi] (282) Volk und Welt Spektrum (176) InspiredHas as a student's study guide
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 rustremover, a guide to literary forms and a demonstration of imagery and inventiveness. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)848.91207Literature French Miscellaneous French writings 1900- 1900-1999 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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