Search results for ""Author Raymond Queneau""

Raymond Queneau (1903-76) was born at Le Havre in 1903, where he was educated before studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. Between 1924 and 1929 Queneau was active in the surrealist movement and composed its manifesto, "Permettez!". Queneau collaborated with a number of Nouvelle Vague film directors, most successfully with Louis Malle's 1960 adaptation of his novel "Zazie dans le metro". Also, Juliette Greco made popular his song "Si tu t'imagines." In 1951, Queneau was elected to the Goncourt Academy. He died on October 26, 1976.

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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).

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In late-nineteenth-century Paris, the writer Hubert is shocked to discover that Icarus, the protagonist of the new novel he’s working on, has vanished. Looking for him among the manuscripts of his rivals does not solve the mystery, so a detective is hired to find the runaway character, who is now in Montparnasse, where he learns to drink absinthe and is picked up by a friendly prostitute.

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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.

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Published originally as the purported French translation of a novel by fictional Irish writer Sally Mara, We Always Treat Women Too Well is set in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising and tells the story of the siege of a small post office by a group of rebels, who discover to their embarrassment that a female postal clerk, Gertie Girdle, is still in the lavatory some time after they have shot or expelled the rest of the staff. The events that follow are not for prudish readers, forming a scintillating, linguistically delightful and hilarious narrative. By far Queneau’s bawdiest work, We Always Treat Women Too Well contains all of its author’s hallmarks: wit, stylistic innovation and formal playfulness – expertly rendered into English by Barbara Wright’s classic translation.

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The cult classic from one of France's most stylish writers'Don't give a damn,' says Zazie, 'what I wanted was to go in the metro'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. 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.

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Unreeling like a series of film clips recorded during a stroll through Paris, Raymond Queneau's Hitting the Streets is wickedly funny. It is also a bittersweet meditation on the effects of time and memory. Hitting the Streets is Queneau's love letters to Paris - a Paris that is always in the process of becoming obsolete. This lively, idiomatic version is the first complete translation available in English.

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Lectures on the "Phenomenology of Spirit" "This collection of Kojeve's thoughts about Hegel constitutes one of the few important philosophical books of the twentieth century—a book, knowledge of which is requisite to the full awareness of our situation and to the grasp of the most modern perspective on the eternal questions of philosophy."—Allan Bloom (from the Introduction) During the years 1933–1939, the Russian-born and German-educated Marxist political philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) brilliantly explicated—through a series of lectures—the philosophy of Hegel as it was developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This collection of lectures—originally compiled by Raymond Queneau and edited for its English-language translation by Allan Bloom—shows the intensity of Kojève's study and thought and the depth of his insight into Hegel's Phenomenology. More important—for Kojève was above all a philosopher and not an ideologue—this profound and venturesome work on Hegel will expose the readers to the excitement of discovering a great mind in all its force and power.

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Stories and Remarks collects the best of Raymond Queneau's shorter prose. The works 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. Talking dogs, boozing horses, and suicides come head to head with ruminations on the effects of aerodynamics on addition, rhetorical dreams, and a pioneering example of permutational fiction influenced by computer language. Also included is Michel Leiris's preface from the French edition, an introduction by the translator, and endnotes addressing each piece individually. Raymond Queneau—polyglot, novelist, philosopher, poet, mathematician, screenwriter, and translator—was one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century French letters. His work touches on many of the major literary movements of his lifetime, from surrealism to the experimental school of the nouveau roman. He also founded the Oulipo, a collection of writers and mathematicians dedicated to the search for artificial inspiration via the application of constraint.

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When shop-owner Julia Segovia decides that she’s going to marry the handsome if exceedingly young and naive soldier Valentin Brû, he willingly goes along with her scheme. Little does he know that he will have to contend with disgruntled in-laws, eccentric locals, a cunning wife, a shifty career in fortune-telling, the approaching threat of war with Germany and the mysteries of Parisian public transport. With a cast of eccentric characters, amusing incidents and an uplifting tone, The Sunday of Life – its title playfully alluding to Hegel’s theory of history – is a scintillating novel which showcases Queneau’s trademark punning, sly wit and delight in the absurdity of people and situations.

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Queneau's tragicomic masterpiece which retells in an array of styles the primal Freudian myth of sons killing the father.Queneau satirizes anthropology, folklore, philosophy, and epistemology while spinning a story as appealing as a fairy tale about a land where it never rains and a bizarre festival is held every Saint Glinglin's Day.

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