Witch Grass [Paperback]

Raymond Queneau (Author), Barbara Wright (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2003 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

Seated in a Paris café, a man glimpses another man, a shadowy figure hurrying for the train: Who is he? he wonders, How does he live? And instantly the shadow comes to life, precipitating a series of comic run-ins among a range of disreputable and heartwarming characters living on the sleazy outskirts of the city of lights. Witch Grass (previously titled The Bark Tree) is a philosophical farce, an epic comedy, a mesmerizing book about the daily grind that is an enchantment itself.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author

RAYMOND QUENEAU (1903–1976) was born in the French town of Le Havre and educated at the Sorbonne. He performed his military service in Morocco. An early association with the Surrealists ended in 1929, and after completing a scholarly study of literary madmen of the nineteenth century for which he was unable to find a publisher, Queneau turned to fiction, writing his first novel, Le Chiendent (Witch Grass), in Greece in the summer of 1932. Influenced by James Joyce and Lewis Carroll, Queneau sought to reinvigorate French literature, grown feeble through formalism, with a strong dose of language as really spoken. He further encouraged innovation by founding, with the mathematician François Le Lionnais, the famous group OULIPO (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), which investigated literary composition based on the application of strict formal or mathematical procedures (members of the group included Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, and Harry Mathews). Queneau’s! many books, which typically blur the boundaries between fiction, poetry, and the essay, include Pierrot mon ami, The Sunday of Life, Zazie in the Metro (made into a movie by Louis Malle), and Exercises in Style; under the name of Sally Mara, he published We Always Treat Women Too Well, a brilliant comic spoof on the excesses of smutty popular novels that is also available from NYRB Classics. Queneau was the editor of the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade as well as a fine poet, whose lyric "Si tu t’imagines" was a hit for the celebrated postwar chanteuse Juliette Gréco.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (January 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590170318
• ISBN-13: 978-1590170311
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #510,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, delightful, marvellous, September 1, 2005

By 

CK Dexter Haven (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Witch Grass (Paperback)

I can't begin to explain why this book is so delightful. There are plenty of places to start with Queneau--perhaps the lighter, more accessibly funny Zazie is the best introduction--but this is my favorite. As with all of Queneau, it's a mix of silliness, absurdity, surreality, and philosophicality. He's a former philosophy student in the Hegelian tradition, but by way of the Marx brothers rather than Karl.

Like the Marx brothers, Queneau's storylines are trifles usually--but it's hard to care since his books still manage to be so uniquely humorous and thought-provoking. I won't try to explain it, but this book is such a perfect case of Queneau's marvellous ability to mix philosophy and comedy, fairy tales and tragedy, that it's a must read.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A French subrealism, January 9, 2007

By 

Heriberto Silva (NY, USA, Perugia, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Witch Grass (Paperback)

Raymond Queneau is a first class writer and it is very strange that is not famous. His translator also is very good and was able to retain the intentions of the writer. Queneau is a subrealist that has nothing to envy to the Latin American writers of the boom. He also is hilarious and there s always something else besides the first reading, that shows a French intelectual of first rate.