poetry, editor of ACTION POETIQUE, tr Guy Bennett
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This first English translation of one of Queneau's early important works, Les Enfants du limon (1938), offers an excellent example of his stylistic range and the depth of his erudition. The novel follows clusters of characters from the town of La Ciotat near Paris, whose lives, and bloodlines, intersect in playfully absurd ways. Various members of the Claye-Chambernac-Hachamoth clan, wealthy descendants of the man who developed the wireless radio, serve as employers and the source of gossip to members of the local laboring class, such as the Italian grocer Gramigni, hunchbacked maid Clemence and ambitious ne'er-do-well Robert Bossu, who are all rewarded in the end for their loyalty by somehow becoming related to the eventually ruined family. However, Queneau is primarily concerned with the massive opus-in-progress pursued by one branch member, M. Chambernac, a school principal who has taken on the shady secretary Purpulan to research and write The Encyclopedia of the Inexact Sciences. (In fact, this was a work Queneau had hoped himself to publish, though he never did.) There are lengthy swaths quoted from the research and, rather than being tedious digressions, these excerpts from the so-called literary lunatics upstage the rest of the novel completely. Yet overall, in this thorough translation, which preserves the author's wordplay and whimsical punctuation, Queneau shows himself a master of realistic, deadpan dialogue and characterization.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Queneau was a major French literary writer in the first part of the 20th century. Published in France in 1938, this novel is just now appearing in English. The story is told in three overlapping parts: an account of villagers in La Ciotat; the story of the Claye-Chambernac-Hachamoth family, a wealthy, effete group of idiosyncratic people; and the story of M. Chambernac and his secretary, Purpulan, who are researching and writing a book?which appears here?on literary lunatics. The stories intermingle, satirize researchers and doctrinaires, and provide a view of eccentric lifestyles. Queneau offers philosophical and historical insights (there is a comprehensive bibliography) while indulging his skill at wordplay. For academic audiences.?Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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