Raymond Queneau (21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist and the co-founder of
Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo)Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
.
Born in
Le HavreLe Havre is a city in north-western France situated on the right bank of the mouth of the Seine River as it flows into the Bay of the Seine in the English Channel. It is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region. The inhabitants of the city are called Havrais or...
,
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands.Normandy is divided between French and British...
, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot. He received his first
baccalauréatThe baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was invented under Napoleon I in 1808...
in 1919 for Latin and Greek, and a second in 1920 for philosophy, then studied at the
SorbonneThe historic University of Paris was founded in the mid 12th century, likely between 1160 and 1170 , In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous universities...
(1921–1923) where he was a fair student of both letters and mathematics, graduating with certificates in philosophy and psychology.
Queneau performed military service as a
zouaveZouave was the title given to certain infantry regiments in the French army, normally serving in French North Africa between 1831 and 1962. The name was also adopted during the 19th century by units in other armies, especially volunteer regiments raised for service in the American Civil War...
in
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
and
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
during the years 1925–1926.
Raymond Queneau (21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist and the co-founder of
Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo)Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
.
Biography
Born in
Le HavreLe Havre is a city in north-western France situated on the right bank of the mouth of the Seine River as it flows into the Bay of the Seine in the English Channel. It is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region. The inhabitants of the city are called Havrais or...
,
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands.Normandy is divided between French and British...
, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot. He received his first
baccalauréatThe baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was invented under Napoleon I in 1808...
in 1919 for Latin and Greek, and a second in 1920 for philosophy, then studied at the
SorbonneThe historic University of Paris was founded in the mid 12th century, likely between 1160 and 1170 , In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous universities...
(1921–1923) where he was a fair student of both letters and mathematics, graduating with certificates in philosophy and psychology.
Queneau performed military service as a
zouaveZouave was the title given to certain infantry regiments in the French army, normally serving in French North Africa between 1831 and 1962. The name was also adopted during the 19th century by units in other armies, especially volunteer regiments raised for service in the American Civil War...
in
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
and
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
during the years 1925–1926. He married Janine Kahn in 1928, with whom he had a son, Jean-Marie, in 1934. They remained married until Janine's death in 1972. Queneau was drafted in 1939 but demobilized in 1940, and through the remainder of World War II, he and his family lived with the painter Élie Lascaux in
Saint-Léonard-de-NoblatSaint-Léonard-de-Noblat is a village and commune of the Haute-Vienne département, in the Limousin région of France.Perched on a hill above the river Vienne, the town is named after Saint Leonard of Noblac, who, as legend suggests, was responsible for the liberation of many prisoners in 11th...
.
Queneau spent much of his life working for the Gallimard publishing house, where he began as a reader in 1938. He later rose to be general secretary, and eventually became director of l’Encyclopédie de la Pléiade in 1956. During some of this time, he also taught at l’École Nouvelle de Neuilly. He entered the Collège de ‘Pataphysique in 1950, where he became Satrap, and was elected to the
Académie GoncourtThe Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt , is a French literary organization based in Paris that was founded in 1900 in accordance with the wishes of French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt , and in opposition to the then existing policies towards writers by...
in 1951, l’Académie de l’Humour in 1952, and the jury of the
Cannes Film FestivalThe Cannes Film Festival , founded in 1946, is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film festivals. The private festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, in the resort town of Cannes, in the south of France.The 62nd edition started 13 May and ended 24 May 2009...
1955–1957.
During this time, Queneau also acted as a
translatorTranslation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language...
, notably for
Amos TutuolaAmos Tutuola was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.- Early history :Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1920, where his parents Charles and Esther were Yoruba Christian cocoa farmers. When about 7 years old, he became a servant for F.O...
's
Palm Wine Drinkard (
L'Ivrogne dans la brousse) in 1953. Additionally, he edited and published
Alexandre KojèveAlexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose readings of Hegel and Marx had an immense influence on twentieth-century French philosophy and on the American philosopher Allan Bloom...
's lectures on
HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
's
Phenomenology of Spirit. Queneau had been a student of Kojève's during the 1930s and was, during this period, also close to writer
Georges BatailleGeorges Bataille was a French writer. Although subsequent philosophers have been significantly influenced by his thought, Bataille tended not to refer to himself as a philosopher.-Life and work:...
.
As an author, Queneau came to general attention in France with the publication in 1959 of his novel
Zazie dans le métroZazie in the Metro — or simply Zazie, depending on the translation — a French novel written in 1959, was the first major success of author Raymond Queneau...
, and again in 1960 with the film adaptation by
Louis MalleLouis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...
at the height of the
Nouvelle VagueThe New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema...
movement.
Zazie explores colloquial language as opposed to 'standard' written French; a distinction which is perhaps more marked in French than in some other languages. The first word of the book, the alarmingly long "Doukipudonktan" is a
phoneticPhonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and their physiological production, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status.Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 years ago in...
transcription of "D'où qu'ils puent donc tant?" "Why do they stink so much?".
Juliette GrecoJuliette Gréco is a French actress and popular chanson singer.-Biography:Juliette Gréco was born in Montpellier to a Corsican father and a mother who became active in the Résistance, in the Hérault...
made popular his song 'Si tu t'imagines.'
Even before the founding of the
Ouvroir de littérature potentielle (Oulipo)Oulipo is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais...
in 1960, Queneau was attracted to
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
as a source of inspiration. He became a member of la
Société Mathématique de FranceThe Société Mathématique de France is the main professional society of French mathematicians.The society was founded in 1872 by Émile Lemoine and is one of the oldest mathematical societies in existence....
in 1948. In Queneau's mind, elements of a text, including seemingly trivial details such as the number of chapters, were things that had to be predetermined, perhaps even calculated. A later work,
Les fondements de la littérature d’après David Hilbert (1976), alludes to the mathematician
David HilbertDavid Hilbert was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry...
, and attempts to explore the foundations of literature by quasi-mathematical derivations from textual axioms.
One of Queneau's most influential works is
Exercises in StyleExercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. In each, the narrator gets on the "S" bus Exercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau (in French, the original title is Exercices de style) is a collection of 99...
, which tells the simple story of a man seeing the same stranger twice in one day. It tells that very short story in 99 different ways, demonstrating the tremendous variety of styles in which storytelling can take place. A graphical story adaptation of the book's concept,
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style99 Ways To Tell a Story: Exercises in Style is an experimental graphic novel by Matt Madden, published by the Penguin Group. Inspired by Raymond Queneau's book Exercises in Style, it tells the same simple story in 99 different ways...
, was published by
Matt MaddenMatt Madden is a U.S. comic book writer and artist. He is best known for original alternative comics, for his coloring work in traditional comics, and for the textbook 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, a comics adaptation of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style...
in 2005.
Queneau is buried with his parents in the old cemetery of
Juvisy-sur-OrgeJuvisy-sur-Orge is a commune of the Essonne département in France.-Geography:Neighboring communes:* Athis-Mons* Draveil* Savigny-sur-Orge* Viry-Châtillon-History:...
, in
EssonneEssonne is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It is named after the Essonne River.It was formed on 1 January 1968 when Seine-et-Oise was split into smaller departments.- History :...
outside Paris.
Queneau and Surrealists
In 1924 Queneau met and briefly joined the Surrealists, but never fully shared in the methods of
automatic writingAutomatic writing is the process or production of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. Practitioners say that the writer's hand forms the message, with the person being unaware of what will be written....
or Surrealist ultra-left politics. Like many surrealists, he entered psychoanalysis—however, not in order to stimulate his creative abilities, but for personal reasons, like Leiris, Bataille, Crevel.
Michel LeirisJulien Michel Leiris was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer.-Biography:...
describes, in
Brisees, how he first met Queneau in 1924, while vacationing in
NemoursNemours is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-Geography:Nemours is located on the Loing and its canal, c...
with
André MassonAndré-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, near Senlis in Picardy, but was brought up in Belgium. He studied art in Brussels and Paris. He fought for France in World War I and was seriously injured.Masson's early works display an interest in cubism...
,
Armand SalacrouArmand Camille Salacrou was a French dramatist.He was born in Rouen, but spent most of his childhood at Le Havre, and moved to Paris in 1917. His first works show the influence of the Surrealists....
and
Juan GrisJosé Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
. A common friend, Roland Tual, met Queneau on a train from
Le HavreLe Havre is a city in north-western France situated on the right bank of the mouth of the Seine River as it flows into the Bay of the Seine in the English Channel. It is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region. The inhabitants of the city are called Havrais or...
and brought him over. Queneau was just a couple years younger and felt less accomplished. He did not make a big impression on the young bohemians. After Queneau came back from the army, around 1926-7, he and Leiris met at the Café Certa, near L'Opera, a Surrealist hang-out. On this occasion, when conversation delved into Eastern philosophy, Queneau's comments showed a quiet superiority and erudite thoughtfulness. Leiris and Queneau became friends later while writing for Bataille's Documents.
Queneau questioned the Surrealist support to the USSR in 1926. He remained on cordial terms with
André BretonAndré Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism...
, although he continued associating with Simone Kahn, after Breton split up with her. Breton usually demanded that his followers ostracize his former girlfriends. It would have been difficult for Queneau to avoid Simone, however, since he married her sister, Janine, in 1928. The year that Breton left Simone, she sometimes traveled around France with Queneau and his wife.
By 1929, Queneau had separated himself significantly from Breton and the Surrealists. In 1930, the year Crevel, Eluard, Aragon and Breton joined the French Communist party, Queneau participated in
Un CadavreUn Cadavre was the name of two separate surrealist pamphlets published in France in October of 1924, and January of 1930, respectively.-Pamphlet of October 18th, 1924:...
(A Corpse, 1930), a vehemently anti-Breton pamphlet co-written by Bataille, Leiris, Prévert,
Alejo CarpentierAlejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essay writer, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period...
,
Jacques BaronJacques Baron was a French surrealist poet whose first collection of poems was published in Aventure in 1921. Although he was initially involved with the Dada movement, he became a founding member of the Surrealist movement following his meeting with André Breton in 1921, and contributed to La...
, J.-A. Boiffard,
Robert DesnosRobert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the surrealistic movement of his day. His last name is pronounced "Deznoss."- Biography :...
, Georges Limbour,
Max MoriseMax Morise was a French artist, writer & actor, associated with the Surrealist movement in Paris from 1924 to 1929. He was friends with Robert Desnos and Roger Vitrac before they joined the Surrealist movement. He contributed articles to La Revolution Surrealiste and took part in a series of...
,
Georges Ribemont-DessaignesGeorges Ribemont-Dessaignes was a French writer and artist associated with the Dada movement. He was born in Montpellier....
, and
Roger VitracRoger Vitrac was a French surrealist playwright and poet.Born in Pinsac, Roger Vitrac moved to Paris in 1910. As a young man, he was influenced by symbolism and the writings of Lautréamont and Alfred Jarry, and he developed a passion for theatre and poetry...
.
For
Boris SouvarineBoris Souvarine was an Imperial Russian-born French socialist, communist activist, essayist, and journalist.-Biography:...
's
La Critique sociale (1930-34) Queneau mostly wrote brief reviews. One characterized
Raymond RousselRaymond Roussel was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French literature, including the Surrealists, Oulipo, and the authors of the nouveau...
as one whose ‘imagination combines passion of mathematician with rationality of the poet’. He wrote more scientific than literary reviews – on Pavlov, on Vernadsky (from whom he got a circular theory of sciences), and a review of a book on the history of equestrian caparisons by an artillery officer. He also helped with the passages on Engels and mathematical dialectic for Bataille's article "A critique of the foundations of Hegelian dialectic."
Novels
- Le Chiendent or The Bark-Tree (1933), ISBN 1-59017-031-8 (as Witch Grass)
- Gueule de pierre (1934)
- Les Derniers jours or The Last Days (1936), ISBN 1-56478-140-2
- Odile (1937), ISBN 0-916583-34-1
- Les Enfants du Limon or Children of Clay (1938), ISBN 1-55713-272-0
- Un Rude hiver (1939) or A Hard Winter (1948)
- Les temps mêlés (1941)
- Pierrot mon ami or Pierrot (1942), ISBN 1-56478-397-9
- Si tu t’imagines (1942)
- Loin de Rueil or The Skin of Dreams (1944), ISBN 0-947757-16-3
- En passant (1944)
- On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes or We Always Treat Women Too Well (1947), ISBN 1-59017-030-X
- Saint-Glinglin (1948), ISBN 1-56478-230-1
- Le Journal intime de Sally Mara (1950)
- Le Dimanche de la vie or The Sunday of Life (1952), ISBN 0-8112-0646-7
- Zazie dans le métro or Zazie in the Metro
Zazie in the Metro — or simply Zazie, depending on the translation — a French novel written in 1959, was the first major success of author Raymond Queneau...
(1959), ISBN 0-14-218004-1
- Les Fleurs bleues or The Blue Flowers
The Blue Flowers, also known as Between Blue and Blue, is a French novel written by Raymond Queneau in 1965....
or Between blue and blue (1965), ISBN 0-8112-0945-8
- Le Vol d'Icare or The Flight of Icarus (1968), ISBN 0-8112-0483-9
Poetry
- Chêne et chien (1937), ISBN 0-8204-2311-4
- Les Ziaux (1943)
- L'Instant fatal (1946)
- Petite cosmogonie portative (1950)
- Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes or Hundred Thousand Billion Poems
Raymond Queneau’s Hundred Thousand Billion Poems or One hundred million million poems , published in 1961, is a set of ten sonnets. They are printed on card with each line on a separated strip, like a heads-bodies-and-legs book...
(1961)
- Le chien à la mandoline (1965)
- Battre la campagne or Beating the Bushes (1967), ISBN 0-87775-172-2
- Courir les rues or Pounding the Pavements (1967), ISBN 0-87775-172-2
- Fendre les flots (1969)
- Morale élémentaire (1975)
Essays and articles
- Bâtons, chiffres et lettres (1950)
- Pour Une Bibliothèque Idéale (1956)
- Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier (1962)
- Bords (1963)
- Une Histoire modèle (1966)
- Le Voyage en Grèce (1973)
- Traité des vertus démocratiques (1993)
Other
- Un Cadavre (1930) with Jacques Baron, Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. Although subsequent philosophers have been significantly influenced by his thought, Bataille tended not to refer to himself as a philosopher.-Life and work:...
, J.-A. Boiffard, Robert DesnosRobert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the surrealistic movement of his day. His last name is pronounced "Deznoss."- Biography :...
, Michel Leiris, Georges Limbour, Max Morise, Jacques PrévertJacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. -Life:Prevert was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine and grew up in Paris, where he was bored by school. He often went to theatre with his father, a drama critic, and acquired a love of reading from his mother...
, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Roger VitracRoger Vitrac was a French surrealist playwright and poet.Born in Pinsac, Roger Vitrac moved to Paris in 1910. As a young man, he was influenced by symbolism and the writings of Lautréamont and Alfred Jarry, and he developed a passion for theatre and poetry...
.
- Exercices de Style or Exercises in Style
Exercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. In each, the narrator gets on the "S" bus Exercises in Style, written by Raymond Queneau (in French, the original title is Exercices de style) is a collection of 99...
(1947), ISBN 0-7145-4238-5
- Les fondements de la littérature d’après David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry...
(1976)
- Contes et propos (1981)
- Journal 1939–1940 (1986)
- Journaux 1914–1965 (1996)
In other art
- Pierre Bastien has made a CD with the bilingual pun
A bilingual pun is a pun in which a word in one language is similar to a word in another language. Typically, use of bilingual puns results in in-jokes, since there is often a very small overlap between speakers of the two languages....
title Eggs Air Sister Steel, based on Exercices de Style (which "Eggs Air Sister Steel" sounds like when spoken).
External links