Exercises in Style [Paperback]

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

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 appropriates it. Later, in another part of town, the narrator
sees the man being advised by a friend to sew another button on his
overcoat.

'Exercises in Style' retells this unexceptional tale 99 times, employing
the sonnet and the alexandrine, "Ze Frrench" and "Cockney". An "abusive"
chapter heartily deplores the events, "Opera English" lends them grandeur.

In 1947, when 'Exercises in Style' was first published in French, it led to
Queneau's election to the highly prestigious Academie Goncourt. This
virtuoso set of theme and variations is a linguistic rust-remover, a guide
to literary forms - a demonstration of the use of imagery and expletive.
But it is far too funny to be merely a pedantic thesis.

Barbara Wright's translation is a marvel of the art - much of it done in
collaboration and under the guidance of the author. The late Raymond
Queneau, novelist, poet, mathematician and editor, once told Barbara Wright
that of all his books, this was the one he most wished to see translated.
He rendered her his "heartiest congratulations", adding: "I have always
thought that nothing is untranslatable. Here is new proof. And it is
accomplished with all the intended humour."

One of the most versatile and interesting of French twentieth
century authors, Queneau (1903-1976) was widely respected as an
intellectual, but also touched a bestseller public, and can be compared to
James Joyce, his friend, in his originality and ability to write
simultaneously on many levels. He was a legendary figure, not only in the
literary world, but as mathematician, philosopher and editor of the
Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. His translations by Barbara Wright are literary
masterpieces in themselves.