Volume 48, Number 3 · February 22, 2001
Farce & Philosophy
By Roger Shattuck
Stories & Remarks
by Raymond Queneau, with a preface by Michel Leiris, translated and with an introduction by Marc Lowenthal
University of Nebraska Press,155 pp., $45.00; $15.00 (paper)
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS REVIEW
The Bark Tree[Le Chiendent]
by Raymond Queneau, translated from the French by Barbara Wright
New Directions, 281 pp. (out of print)
Odile
by Raymond Queneau,translated from the French by Carol Sanders
Dalkey Archive Press, 117 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Raymond Queneau (1985)
by Allen Thiher
Twayne, 148 pp. (out of print)
Exercises in Style
by Raymond Queneau,translated from the French by Barbara Wright
New Directions, 197 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Zazie[Zazie dans le métro]
by Raymond Queneau, translated from the French by Barbara Wright
Riverrun Press, 207 pp. (out of print)
Œuvres complètes, Volume One
by Raymond Queneau, edited by Claude Debon
Paris: Gallimard, 1,647 pp.FF420
We Always Treat Women Too Well [On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes]
by Raymond Queneau. translated from the French by Barbara Wright
London: John Calder, 175 pp., $10.95 (paper)
In Paris around 1949, 'existentialist cabarets' became very chic. That year the Frères Jacques and Juliette Greco, popular singers on the cabaret scene, recorded a song that quickly became a hit. The words were written by a moody ex-Surrealist in his forties, Raymond Queneau. The simple lyrics, set to music by Joseph Kosma, combined a 'seize the day' motif with the low-life diction Jacques Prévert had popularized in Paroles (1945). Such playful-plaintive language is nearly impossible to translate:
Review, 4055 words
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