レーモン・クノー

『文体練習』は、フランスの小説家、レーモン・クノーの作品である。「語り手がバスに乗っているとき、首が長く奇妙な帽子をかぶった一人の男ともう一人の乗客との口論を目撃する。そしてその2時間後に、サン・ラザール駅前でその時と同じ人物が、友人に『オーバーコートにもう一つボタンをつけるべきだ』と助言されているのを見かける。」という1つのストーリーを99通りのそれぞれ異なる文体で描いている。デジデリウス・エラスムスによる1512年の修辞学の手引き『De Utraque Verborum ac Rerum …

Impish, foul-mouthed Zazie arrives in Paris from the country to stay with Gabriel, her female-impersonator uncle. 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 …

Only a pataphysician nurtured lovingly on surrealist excess could have come up with The Blue Flowers, Queneau's 1964 novel. At his death in 1976, Raymond Queneau was one of France's most eminent men of letters––novelist, poet, essayist, editor, scientist, mathematician, and, more to the point, pataphysician. And only …

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 …