Exercises in Style

Raymond Queneau

£7.99

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Alma Books Ltd
4 September 2013
ISBN: 9781847492418
Paperback
128 pages

From the publisher

Translated by Barbara Wright

FOREWORD BY UMBERTO ECO WITH AN ESSAY BY ITALO CALVINO

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.