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Exercises in Style

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 2,319 ratings · 193 reviews

The plot of Exercises in Style is simple: a man gets into an argument with another passenger on a bus. However, this anecdote is told 99 more times, each in a radically different style, as a sonnet, an opera, in slang, and with many more permutations. This virtuoso set of variations is a linguistic rust-remover, and a guide to literary forms.

Paperback, 197 pages

Published May 28th 1998 by Calder Publications (first published 1947)

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Feb 23, 2013 Ian Graye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2013, reviews, reviews-4-stars, frogs

Blurb

(view spoiler)

MJ Nicholls

(view spoiler)...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Megha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: its-not-you-its-me, reviews

Pearls before a swine? Perhaps.

It definitely takes a lot of talent for someone to tell one completely unremarkable story 99 times and still make a fun and readable book out of it. What Queneau (and the translator) has done here is really clever work, no doubt. And I can imagine this whole exercise must have been very amusing for him. But that doesn't mean reading it will be just as enjoyable as writing it was.**

These are exercises in writing in English (originally French). I do have some working...more
Pearls before a swine? Perhaps.

It definitely takes a lot of talent for someone to tell one completely unremarkable story 99 times and still make a fun and readable book out of it. What Queneau (and the translator) has done here is really clever work, no doubt. And I can imagine this whole exercise must have been very amusing for him. But that doesn't mean reading it will be just as enjoyable as writing it was.**

These are exercises in writing in English (originally French). I do have some working knowledge of English, but nowhere enough to understand the nuances of the language. I actually had to look up some of the chapter titles in the dictionary, most of which were technical terms related to linguistics and grammar. Being illiterate in literary matters, I may not always be able to appreciate writing proficiency. I read for fun, not for 99 exercises in reading!
People who have a better eye for word play, will probably enjoy this book better.

My rating for this book kept fluctuating throughout. There are some chapters for which I will easily give solid five stars. But then there are others which seem entirely nonsensical and impractical. No one will ever use them for any real writing. Also, writing style needs to be suitable to the content. Some of the styles seem forced. Then there a bunch of chapters which were perhaps added just to bring the number to 99.

- Add/remove a sound to/from beginning/middle/end of each word
- permutations of nth alphabets/words
These already make more than 10 chapters.

Another clever thing Queneau did was to keep the chapters very short. Otherwise I would have skipped many of them after reading only a few sentences to figure out the style.

In case anyone is wondering what the story is, here it is, in Interjections style:

"Psst! h'm! ah! oh! hem! ah! ha! hey! well! oh! pooh! poof! ow! oo! ouch! hey! eh! h'm! pffft!

Well! hey! pooh! oh! h'm! right!"

** Completely unrelated aside :

This reminds me of my visit to MoMA. One of the works of art was '10 million years', basically all the numbers from 1 to 10 million written in 10 fat books. On the artist's part, it must have taken a lot of patience and hard-work. It probably fed some sort of obsession of his. But no matter what it meant to him, to me it was just BLAH! I can be quite a lousy museum-goer.(less)

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Feb 03, 2009 Manny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french, well-i-think-its-funny, parody-homage

Meta

From what point of view should I review the book? Evidently: from all possible points of view.

Snobbish

Needless to say, I am reading the original French edition. I can hardly believe that his delicate linguistic irony would survive translation into English. Quelle horreur!

Vulgar

I laughed until I wet myself. Well, I should know better than to read this kind of book in the bathroom.

Pedantic

If nothing else, very educational. I have already learned the names of two figures of speech I didn't prev...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Fionnuala rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a lot of fun at the beginning as you realise exactly what Queneau has challenged himself to do here: rewrite the same little scene about a gangly young man in a badly fitting overcoat and an odd hat, in different styles, ninety-nine times! After number twenty however, the various word play games are no longer quite as funny. After number forty, you’re pretty sceptical about Queneau's mental health. By number sixty, you’re seriously worried about your own. By number eighty, you’re seeing...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Ademption rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french-literature, poetry, short-stories

Raymond Queneau tells an innocuous micro-story about a testy guy on a bus, whom later he spots elsewhere. The content of the story is meaningless, and actually the foundation of a series of exercises where the same story is retold in 99 variants. A variable, style, or theme is foregrounded in each entry: biased, reactionary, auditory, gustatory, colors, logical analysis, haiku, etc. Initially, I was charmed by how the shift in emphasis reframes an entire story and makes subsequent entries seem f...more Raymond Queneau tells an innocuous micro-story about a testy guy on a bus, whom later he spots elsewhere. The content of the story is meaningless, and actually the foundation of a series of exercises where the same story is retold in 99 variants. A variable, style, or theme is foregrounded in each entry: biased, reactionary, auditory, gustatory, colors, logical analysis, haiku, etc. Initially, I was charmed by how the shift in emphasis reframes an entire story and makes subsequent entries seem fresh, and in some cases, very different from the versions that preceded it.

The book is understandably uneven, a hazard of strict formalism. Some entries don't quite work. Part of that can be attributed to translation, since the translator makes rather personal decisions in altering the text. For example, she subs a dated West Indian dialect for Vulgaire, and a Peppy-le-Pew-fake-fransez for the equivalent of English-sounding-silly-to-French-people. Some of the translations are plain bad. The translator did as best she could to preserve the spirit of the original, in spite of an extreme amount of variance due to formal constraints; often with mixed results.

Some of the entries, while they may have taxed Queneau's abilities as a polymath, yield very little to divert or educate a reader. I'm thinking of the permutations set and also the twin entries where every other letter is placed on the opposing page. I had to stare at both pages at once and try to synthesize every word by shuttling my eyes from page-to-page (Novel drudgery! How witty! I bet this is how people grow cock-eyed. Oh fuck! Did my right eye just lock? AM I COCK-EYED? SWEET CHRIST!)

Many of the more abstract entries garnered nothing more than "Wow, that Queneau! What a word-genius! That exercise must have been difficult. I hope it's better in French, but probably not." 30 variations would have been a brilliant mélange of reference frames and emphasis, shifting perspectives and complex harmonies-- the proverbial 13th (or in this case, 100th) blackbird. And yet, 99 is beyond showing-off. In the later entries, it's sterile and masturbatory. 99 is overkill. 30 max, Ray. Maybe I'm limited. Maybe it's the translation. More than a few of the entries are nonsense, and not a la dada, but in the way that strict formalism sometimes leads to pure non-transcendent gibberish.(less)

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Apr 02, 2011 Aldrin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On Exercices de Style, considered his masterpiece and most influential work, Raymond Queneau said, “People have tried to see it as an attempt to demolish literature--that was not at all my intention. In any case my intention was merely to produce some exercises; the finished product may possibly act as a kind of rust-remover to literature to help to rid it of some of its scabs. If I’ve been able to contribute a little to this, then I am very proud, especially if I have done it without boring the...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Tosh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The most essential book for ANY writer. Genius-like Raymond Queneau gives us a brief narrative and re-writes it over and over again. The way of looking at a simple story is uplifting to a great height.

This new addition has added more 'exercises' plus additional works by Johathan Lethem. Harry Mathews, Lynne Tillman, and my current fave Enrique Vila-Matas, among others. And one wonders how many times can one tell a tale? The answer is endless.

The beauty of looking at a subject matter and tearing...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone with an interest in writing, poetry, storytelling, or humor

Recommended to Bruce by: Ian Graye

EXERCISES IN STYLE
The Motion Picture

OPEN ON:

INT. CROWDED CITY BUS – DAY

Engine rumbling becoming

(BEETHOVEN'S 7th, ALLEGRETTO MVT.)

A boorish OAF jockeys for a prime position among the enclosing strap-hangers.

NEWSPAPER READER
Oye! My foot!

PINSTRIPED SUIT
Easy there.

GROCERY BAG LADY
Please, young man!

The SMOLDERING HALF-MASCARA'D EYES of BOWLER, himself pressed in five girths down. Watching.

EXT. URBAN STREET

The bus pulls to the curb.

INT. BUS

A pensioner rises and exits.

Deftly as a trapeze artist,...more

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Dec 13, 2008 C. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: conceptual, to-be-re-read

Evidently Raymond Queneau sat down one day and decided it would be just dandy to write a cute little story about someone watching a man being jostled on the bus and then seeing the same man a bit later being told he needed an extra button on his coat. Evidently he was so taken with this story that he decided to rewrite it again in a different style. 99 times.

Now this takes pastiche to a whole new level, and I was never quite sure what he was trying to achieve. I guess it was just an attempt to...more

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Dec 26, 2007 Ben Siems rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those who love the craft of writing

Categorically one of the weirdest things I have ever read! This book begins with a rather bland one-page story about two men getting into an argument on a bus. The author then proceeds to re-tell the story ... ninety-nine times.

Really. That's the book.

Let's for the moment leave aside the question of why on earth anyone would do such a thing. For in any case, it has been done, and done quite hilariously and brilliantly. In each telling, the author assumes a different point of view and/or a differ...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Nate D rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: seekers of sound sartorial suggestions

Recommended to Nate D by: scenes overheard on public transit

Shelves: vichy, france, oulipo

Oulipan mastermind R. Queneau observed a brief bus-bound argument and its surprisingly button-related denouement some time in 1942, then just could not stop retelling the story in wildly different linguistic, rhetorical, and literary forms. It's not only an impressive, wildly inventive, and somehow totally amusing experiment in language and narrative, it's also a completely heroic act of translation into english.

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Oct 05, 2007 Núria rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2006, prestados, 3-buenos, cuentos, siglo-xx, literatura-en-frances

Tiene su gracia. Una anécdota banal contada de 99 maneras diferentes. La anécdota es que el narrador ve en un autobús un tipo con un sombrero raro que increpa a otro porque cada vez que alguien sube o baja del autobús le pisa a posta, y luego dos horas más tarde el narrador vuelve a ver el mismo tipo del sombrero raro hablando con un amigo que le aconseja que en su abrigo le falta un botón y le queda demasiado escotado. Y esto es contado de 99 maneras diferentes. Se tiene que reconocer que hay a...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Eddie Watkins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This shames me to say but I was not originally on the bus with Queneau's Exercises in Style, yet I pretended to be, sitting right beside the dude with the long neck and the eccentric hat. I was not being myself, not beating my own drum, passengers stepping all over my feet, but I could not get off the bus. Shamed if I did, shamed if I didn't. So I sat there reading his proper novels, genuinely enjoying them as the bus jostled and my feet hurt and the long neck irked me. Damn sheepish passengers!...more

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Nov 10, 2012 jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translation, fiction

raymond queneau's brilliant 1947 classic could have as easily been titled achievements of ingenuity. written more than a decade before he would co-found the workshop of potential literature (oulipo), exercises in style is one of the preeminent examples (and executions) of constrained writing. beginning with a short account of an entirely inconsequential event, queneau tells the same episode ninety-nine times, but with each entry written using whatever stylistic limitation he's opted to incorpora...more raymond queneau's brilliant 1947 classic could have as easily been titled achievements of ingenuity. written more than a decade before he would co-found the workshop of potential literature (oulipo), exercises in style is one of the preeminent examples (and executions) of constrained writing. beginning with a short account of an entirely inconsequential event, queneau tells the same episode ninety-nine times, but with each entry written using whatever stylistic limitation he's opted to incorporate. his chosen constraints range from the mathematical ("permutations by groups if 2, 3, 4 and 5 letters" and "permutations by groups 5, 6, 7 and 8 letters") to the phonological ("apocope," "syncope," and "apheresis") to wordplay ("anagrams," "spoonerisms," "dog latin," and "onomatopœia") to the poetic ("synchysis," "haiku," "alexandrines," "ode," "sonnet" and "free verse") to the scientific ("botanical," "zoological," "gastronomical," and "medical") with many others, as well.

that queneau was able to translate his brief tale into so many different stylistic forms, yet still retain and convey the same story, is rather remarkable. exercises in style is but one of so many examples in which the exceptional capacity of the human intellect to make sense of disparate configurations that share a commonality is made manifest. the frenchman's work is a triumph of form over content, and makes for a dazzling display of the inherent power and potential of language, style, and meaning.

to mark the 65th anniversary of the original publication of exercises in style, new directions has released this new edition of queneau's landmark work, complete with nearly thirty variant "exercises," many of which have never before been published. as well, ten different authors (perhaps most notably enrique vila-matas and fellow-oulipian harry mathews) each contributed "exercises in homage to raymond queneau."

blurb

in this new novel, executed with his accustomed brio, the famous novelist x, to whom we are already indebted for so many masterpieces, has decided to confine himself to very clear-cut characters who act in an atmosphere which everybody, both adults and children, can understand. the plot revolves, then, around the meeting in a bus of the hero of this story and of a rather enigmatic character who picks a quarrel with the first person he meets. in the final episode, we see this mysterious individual listening with the greatest attention to the advice of a friend, a past master of sartorial art. the whole makes a charming impression which the novelist x has etched with rare felicity.

metathesis

noe dya aobut dimday on teh rera platform of a sub, i toniced a nam whoes cenk saw oto glon nad whoes aht ahd a rost of strnigorund it. dudsenly he cmailed hatt shi beighnour saw purspoely deatring on shi otes. tub he adoived teh ueiss by worthing shimelg on to a cavant teas.

wot shour taler i was hmi anaig in tronf of teh rage satin-razale thiw an invididual woh saw gingiv hmi mose avdice atbou a nubbot.

people have tried to see it as an attempt to demolish literature - that was not at all my intention. in any case my intention was merely to produce some exercises; the finished product may possibly act as a kind of rust-remover to literature, help to rid it of some of its scabs. if i have been able to contribute a little to this, then i am very proud, especially if i have done it without boring the reader too much.

*original translations from the french by barbara wright with renderings of the newly-included exercises by chris clarke.
(less)

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Feb 20, 2012 Tyler rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wait, so what happens in this book?

Seriously though, I wasn't blown away by this at all. I like the idea, and you have to give props to the author for being so talented that a book like this could be written. I suppose what you think about this is dependent on how you approach it.

If you're wowed by how many styles this is written in, I can see it getting 5 stars or whatever you want to give it. To me, this comes off like listening to a guitarist wank on his guitar for 4 minutes and there not rea...more Wait, so what happens in this book?

Seriously though, I wasn't blown away by this at all. I like the idea, and you have to give props to the author for being so talented that a book like this could be written. I suppose what you think about this is dependent on how you approach it.

If you're wowed by how many styles this is written in, I can see it getting 5 stars or whatever you want to give it. To me, this comes off like listening to a guitarist wank on his guitar for 4 minutes and there not really being much of a song around it to make it worth listening to. Meaning it's good for guitarists who want to hear technique, but not great in a conventionally entertaining way.

To stay with the guitar analogy; I prefer that if there's a solo in a song, there's a wonderful song in there. I don't like when a song is built around a guitar solo, I like when a solo is built into an otherwise good song. This is how I feel about this book. It's a virtuoso experience, I give all the props in the world to the ability of the author. I also find it to be an interesting experiment.

But truth-be-told, it's boring. It's really, really boring. I was mildly amused on a couple of the "chapters," but a couple out of 99 is too little. I was intrigued by a couple of the "chapters" as well, but again, a couple out of 99 is too little. I enjoyed how the book plays with perception on occasion, some of the "chapters" give an interesting look into how some people can view things differently. But again, yes, it was during a couple and a couple out of 99 is too little. "A couple" isn't exact science and I'm not saying it literally, because I didn't count how many I actually liked, but if I had to give a rough estimate, I was entertained by like 20 of these.

It was hard to slug through this, admiration for the skills aside. You could honestly read the first couple sentences of each "chapter" and skip the rest and get the same affect, as much as I hate saying that. I mean yeah, it's best to read it the whole way through but if you're into seeing how the styles change, then a few sentences would be enough to understand. Because otherwise you're just reading the same thing over... and over... and over... and over.

But by all means, if you're a scholar, and you want to see what the title suggests; you'll probably love this. I believe a book should entertain, and I don't even mean in a specific way like being thrilling. I mean a book (or any artform) should entertain in some way. That's why this gets 2 stars from me and not a 0, because the idea of different styles entertained me. Casual readers who are only entertained by a good plot will dislike this more than I did. I can at the very least admire it if not overly like it.(less)

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Jul 30, 2011 Dorian Neerdael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On aurait pu croire naïvement que Queneau déclinerait une histoire simple de 99 façons différentes, et ce pour montrer l'implication de la subjectivité à l'oeuvre dans tout acte de conscience.
C'est ce qu'il n'a pas fait, déplorons-nous.
Les "exercices de style" sont autant de redondance de la même histoire écrite de manière différente, c'est-à-dire que seule la forme, l'enveloppe, l'apparence change. C'est superficiel.
Fidèle à l'Oulipo, Queneau se livre ici à une entreprise dégoûtante et malveill...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Adam Floridia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: to-assign-in-creative-writing-class

A million points for creativity, I'll give it that. A short, two paragraph vignette repeated 99 times, but each in a different style really illustrates the protean (and fun!) nature of language. There have been quite a few books that have caused me while reading to think "If I ever teach a creative writing class, I've got to use this!" Well this book actually coerced me into creating a new shelf "to-assign-in-creative-writing-class." Happy New Year! Will it be a Happy New Year? Miserable Old Day...more

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Oct 11, 2011 Calyre rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, french-literature, read-in-2011

How to tell a story 99 times in different ways !
Very funny !

Distinguo
Dans un autobus (qu'il ne faut pas prendre pour un autre bus), je vis (et pas avec une vis) un personnage (qui ne perd pas son âge) coiffé d'un chapeau (pas d'une peau de chat) cerné d'un fil tressé (et non de tril fessé). Il possédait (et non pot cédait) un long cou (et pas un loup con). Comme la foule se bousculait (non que la boule se fousculât), un nouveau voyageur (et non un veau nouillageur) déplaça le susdit (et non suça...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Whitaker rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: en-français, uncategorised, 2011-read

This was The Well-Tempered Clavier, but in writing.

Given its status and how loved this book seems to be on GR, I feel somewhat like it’s an epic F.A.I.L on my part to not have been blown away by it. But seriously, guys, I don’t get it.

It’s clever, I’ll give you that. Other than that, it’s mostly gimmicky, sometimes amusing, and occasionally interesting. I liked the episodes rewritten as told by a yokel or in mangled French as spoken by an English person (amusing), as well as the episodes rewri...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Catherine Mustread rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, france, humor, unique, classics, translation

Amazingly brilliant ! I could write 99 reviews in 99 different styles, yes I could, if I had the talent and interest and humorously mocking amazing abilities of Queneau and his obviously talented translator who rework a simple two paragraph story and are able to keep the reader entertained by retelling it 99 times.

Is it a novel? A collection of stories? A textbook for demonstrating an amazing array of styles? An experiment as stated in the title? In the foreword, translator Barbara Wright says t...more

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Jan 15, 2011 R rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
Calder Publications, 1998

So there's this guy named Raymond Queneau, right, and one day he decides to write the same little scene (i.e. a man is jostled by another man on the bus and they argue, then the first man goes and sits down; later on the narrator spots him being questioned by a friend about his fashion sense) in ten different styles. He sends the completed work in to a literary magazine and the editor looks at it and is puzzled and sends it back. Then...more

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Jul 06, 2010 C. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, french, own-or-access, conceptual, language-linguistics, to-be-re-read, to-read-again-in-twenty-years

I enjoyed this much more in French than in English, and can't find any reason for this except that I must have changed a lot in the three years or so between the readings. I was, I think, much more interested (and convinced) by the central concept and its artistic (as opposed to merely conceptual) merit this time around. The repetitive description of such a mundane event elevates it to something resembling art and allows some very interesting (and often meta) things to be done, such as finishing...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Rozzer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: france, favorites, reviewed, own

I think this is and always will be a brilliant, hilarious book. Caveat: I was raised speaking both French and English. Double caveat: I was also raised, from the beginning, to know and appreciate French culture. The incomprehension displayed in most of the comments about this book is completely understandable. It's not just a matter of translation: if you don't have the French cultural background, you just won't get it. Like so much of French culture, it's a big "in" joke. And to be "in" on the...more

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Sep 18, 2009 Steven rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, literary-theory, writing

Should I ever teach creative writing again Queneau's Exercises in Style would be one of my required texts because of what it demonstrates about control of language. Queneau takes one story and rewrites it using 99 different language constructs. Some are straightforward, emphasizing tone (hesitation, precision, ignorance, abusive, etc.) or senses (olfactory, visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory). Other approaches play more with speech types and dialect or with poetic and dramatic forms. Still oth...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Leonard Pierce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

Probably the pre-eminent book of the proto-structuralist Oulipou movement, "Exercises in Style" is one of those books that's so astonishingly simple that it's amazing no one ever thought of it before -- but so brilliant no one could have pulled it off but its author. Here's all there is to it: Queneau sees a goofy-looking guy getting into an argument on a bus, then sees him later that day chatting with a friend. He then tells this story 99 times: as a news story, an operetta, a haiku, a bureaucr...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you've been looking to add a dadaist flavor to your bathroom bookshelf, this completely whimsical book is for you.

Raymond Queneau's 1947 story is this, in it's entirety: Queneau sees one man accusing another of jostling him on a Paris bus. The first man quickly grabs a vacated seat. Later, in another part of town, Queneau sees the man being advised by a friend that he needs a new button on his overcoat.

Queneau tells the two paragraph story 99 times, each time using a different literary style...more

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Feb 22, 2009 Nora Dillonovich rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Read while going poop over the course of a week or so. I laughed out loud while voiding my bowels, such enjoyment and amusement I could not help myself. More than 5 stars... a constellation!

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Jul 30, 2007 Mitch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the funniest Oulipo projects I have ever read. Queneau tells a drab little story in hundreds of voices, and ups the ante again and again in terms of style and substance. Just brilliant!

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Aug 14, 2011 Jasmina added it · review of another edition

my version :)

He was incredibly tall. It was his neck, actually – strikingly long. It gave him an air of elegance and superiority, even if he only saw it as awkwardness and was often ashamed of it. In the tumultuous years of puberty it was just the thing to push him further into seclusion which he had chosen long ago – since the earliest childhood he had been burdened by self-consciousness, inexplicable guilt and constant loneliness. There were governesses and at times he would even spend an hour...more my version :)

He was incredibly tall. It was his neck, actually – strikingly long. It gave him an air of elegance and superiority, even if he only saw it as awkwardness and was often ashamed of it. In the tumultuous years of puberty it was just the thing to push him further into seclusion which he had chosen long ago – since the earliest childhood he had been burdened by self-consciousness, inexplicable guilt and constant loneliness. There were governesses and at times he would even spend an hour or so with his dear soft spoken mother, but his father was no more than a phantom, hardly ever seen but invariably feared by all.

The day I first met him he was wearing a long coat, and carrying with him Thoreau’s Walden. I could not have know that at the time, of course, because it was tucked inside his pocket. Much later still did I discover it was his favourite book which he hardly ever parted from and could spend days contemplating a sentence or passage from it. But my first impression was entirely different than all my subsequent ones. He was on the "S" bus, fidgeting and extremely agitated as was clear even from where I was standing –the opposite corner of the bus… it was obvious he was finding it really difficult to control himself as he started coming down absurdly hard on an unsuspecting passenger. It was an older, sheepish little fellow but my future friend loudly ranted about the man stepping on his toes and pushing him on purpose. As I found out later the rage was caused by the anticipation of meeting with T. He knew he should expect scorn, outright contempt and false attempts of covering it up with cordiality. And in fact I did see that too. How curious that I should meet this quizzical chap twice in one day, I remember thinking. I saw him being bullied by T. and patronized at the same time. I could feel the agony he was undergoing while suppressing his resistance… Somehow, I felt as if he was calling out for someone, reaching out with invisible arms…and that is when I first approached him. (less)

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Feb 26, 2011 Mike rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The word "exercises" in the title is very appropriate. A select few chapters can stand by themselves and are very enjoyable, but the majority of Exercises in Style feels too much like a workbook—the stylistic devices are taken to their extremes and the storytelling suffers. I'd rather there were 1/3 as many versions of the story, each one more polished and less rigid in technique. But, I acknowledge that that's not the point of the book. I'm glad I bought it—mainly because I'd been looking for t...more

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About Raymond Queneau

Queneau was born in Le Havre in 1903 and went to Paris when he was 17. For some time he joined André Breton's Surrealist group, but after only a brief stint he dissociated himself. Now, seeing Queneau's work in retrospect, it seems inevitable. The Surrealists tried to achieve a sort of pure expression from the unconscious, without mediation of the author's self-aware "persona." Queneau's texts, on...more

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