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49 Ignorance CONTENTS 51 Past 53 Present 54 Reported speech page xi Preface by Barbara Wright 56 Passive 58 Alexandrines 60 Polyptotes EXERCISES IN STYLE (1958 edition) 62 Apheresis 63 Apocope 3 Notation 64 Syncope 5 Double entry 65 Speaking personally 7 Litotes 67 Exclamations 8 Metaphorically 69 You know 9 Retrograde 70 Noble 10 Surprises 72 Cockney 11 Dream 74 Cross-examination 13 Prognostication 76 Comedy 15 Synchysis 79 Asides 16 The rainbow 81 Parechesis 17 Word game 82 Spectral 19 Hesitation 84 Philosophic 21 Precision 86 Apostrophe 23 The subjective side 88 Awkward 25 Another subjectivity 91 Casual 27 Narrative 93 Biased 29 Word-composition 96 Sonnet 30 Negativities 98 Olfactory 32 Animism 99 Gustatory 34 Anagrams 101 Tactile 35 Distinguo 103 Visual 37 Homeoptotes 105 Auditory 38 Official letter 107 Telegraphic 40 Blurb 109 Ode 42 Onomatopoeia 113 Permutations by groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 letters 44 Logical analysis 115 Permutations by groups of 5, 6, 7 and 8 letters 46 Insistence 116 Permutations by groups of 9, 10, 11 and 12 letters 176 Precious 117 Permutations by groups of 1, 2, 3 and 4 words 179 Unexpected 118 Hellenisms 120 Reactionary 123 Haiku MOKE EXERCISES IN STYLE 124 Free verse BY RAYMOND QUENEAU 126 Feminine 129 Gallicisms QUENEAU'S 1973 SUBSTITUTIONS 130 Prosthesis 185 Set Theory 132 Epenthesis 187 Definitional 134 Paragoge 189 Tanka 136 Parts of speech 190 Lescurian trans-lation 138 Metathesis 192 Lipogram 139 Consequences 194 Geometrical 141 Proper names 142 Rhyming slang EXERCISES PUBLISHED OUTSIDE OF EXERCICES DE STYLE 143 Back slang 145 Antiphrasis 195 Coq-tale 146 Dog latin 197 Science fiction 148 More or less 199 Nothing 149 Opera English 201 Oil 153 ForzeFrrensh UNPUBLISHED EXERCISES 154 Spoonerisms 155 Botanical 203 “On the bus ...” 157 Medical 204 “I get on...” 159 Abusive 206 “On a beautiful...” 161 Gastronomical 207 J’accuse 163 Zoological 208 “On a warm ..." 164 Futile 209 Epistolary 166 Modern style 212 Metaphors & binocular vision 168 Probabilist 214 “Towards noon ...” 170 Portrait 215 “There were oodles ...” 172 Mathematical 217 “A shoal of sardines ...” 174 West Indian 218 “It was hotter ...” 175 Interjections 220 Fear 221 “The overcoat...” 223 The stro PREFACE 224 “I get on the bus ...” 226 How the game is played... 228 Promotional 232 Problem EXERCISES IN HOMAGE TO RAYMOND QUENEAU 237 Instructions Jesse Ball 239 Doppelgangers Blake Butler Ladies and Gentlemen:* 243 Viscera Amelia Gray From time to time people politely ask me what I 245 Assistance Shanejones am translating now. 247 Cyberpunk Jonathan Lethem So 1 say: a book by Raymond Queneau. 249 Nothing Ben Marcus They usually react to that in one of 7 different 252 For Zeu Frentch Harry Mathews ways. 254 Contingencies Lynne Tillman Either they say: that must be difficult. 258 Beat Frederic Tuten Or they say: Who’s he ? 260 Metaliterario Enrique Vila-Matas Or they say: Ah. Of those three reactions, let’s take the third— as the fortune-tellers say. People say: Ah. By: Ah—they don’t mean quite the same as the people who say: Who’s he? They mean that they don’t know who Queneau is, but that don’t much care whether they know or not. However, since, as 1 said, this sort of conversation is usually polite, they often go on to enquire: What book of his are you trans lating ? So I say: Exercices de Style, And then, all over again, they say: Ah. At this point 1 usually feel it would be a good idea * Based on a talk given in the Gaberbocchus Common Room on April isf 1958. XI to say something about this book, Exercices de Style, Acaddmie Goncourt (and they have only 10 members, but as it’s rather difficult to know where to begin, if in comparison with the 40 of the Academie Fran^aise), I’m not careful I find that my would-be explanation and he is one of the top boys of the publishing house goes rather like this: of Gallimard. But he is a kind of writer who tends “Oh yes, you know, it’s the story of a chap who to puzzle people in this country because of his breadth gets into a bus and starts a row with another chap who and range—^you can’t classify him. He is one of the he thinks keeps treading on his toes on purpose, and most influential and esteemed people in French litera Queneau repeats the same story 99 times in a different ture—but he can write a poem like this: ways—it’s terribly good ...” So I’ve come to the conclusion that it is thus my Ce soir own fault when these people I have been talking about si j’ecrivais un podme finally stop saying “Ah” and tell me that it’s a pity I pour la posterite ? always do such odd things. It’s not that my wooffly description is inaccurate—there are in fact 99 exer fichtre cises, they all do tell the same story about a minor la belle idee brawl in a bus, and they are all written in a different, style. But to say that much doesn’t explain anything, je me sens sflr de moi and the Exercices and the idea behind them probably j’y vas do need some explanation. et In essaying an explanation, or rather, perhaps, a proper description, I have an ally in this gramophone record, which has recently been made in France, of 22 la of the 99 exercices. It is declaimed and sung by les postdrite Ere res Jacques—who have been likened to the English j'y dis merde et remerde Goons. You will hear that the record is very funny. et reremerde I said it was an ally, yet on the other hand it may be an enemy, because it may lead you to think that the dr61ement feintde exercices are just funny and nothing else. I should la postdritd like to return to this point later, but first I want to say qui attendait son podme something about the author of the Exercices. Raymond Queneau has written all the books you ah mais see here on the table—and others which I haven’t been able to get hold of. He is a poet—not just a writer of Queneau, you see, is not limited, and he doesn’t take poetry, but a poet in the wider sense. He is also a himself over-seriously. He’s too wise. He doesn’t scholar and mathematician. He is a member of the limit himself to being either serious or frivolous—or xii xiii even, I might say, to being either a scientist or an writes: “I consider spoken French to be a different artist. He’s both. He uses everything that he finds in language, a very different language, from written life for his poetry—and even things that he doesn't French.’’ And in the same book, he says: “I came to find in life, such as a mathematically disappearing dog, realise that modern written French must free itself or a proud trojan horse who sits in a French bar and from the conventions which still hem it in, (conven drinks gin fizzes with silly humans.* And all this is, I tions of style, spelling and vocabulary) and then it will think, the reason why you find people in England who soar like a butterfly away from the silk cocoon spun don’t know who Queneau is. Two of his novels were by the grammarians of the i6th century and the poets published here, by John Lehmann, in English trans of the 17th century. It also seemed to me that the first lations, about lo years ago. They were, 1 think, not statement of this new language should be made not by very successful here. Even though the critics thought describing some popular event in a novel (because they were writing favourably about them. I was look people could mistake one’s intentions), but, in the same ing through the reviews of one of them—Vierrot—the way as the men of the i6th century used the modern other day, and this brings me back to what I was say languages instead of latin for writing their theological ing about Queneau^ wit and lightness of touch being or philosophical treatises, to put some philosophical possibly misleading—the book’s very brilliance seemed dissertation into spoken French.’’ to blind the critics to the fact that it was about any Queneau did in fact “put some philosophical dis thing. The New Statesman wrote: ‘"Vierrot is simply a sertation into spoken French’’—Descartes’ Discours de light-hearted little fantasy . .”, and Time & Tide came la Methode. At least, he says that it was with this idea down to Parish Magazine style: “This novel is of the in mind that he started to write “something which kind called ‘so very french’. It is all very unassuming later became a novel called le Chiendent.” I won’t say and amusing, and most of us enjoy this kind of fun.’’ anything about the correspondence between it and le According to the current way of thinking (or not- Chiendent now, but this novel, le Chiendent, is one of thinking), it seems that if we are to enjoy anything the easiest to read of all Queneau’s novels, and also one then we must not have to think about it, and, con of the most touching and thought-provoking. It is also versely, if we are to think about anything, then we almost farcically funny in parts.

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