Violent Land - First Reading

This was truly a great story to read, utterly gripping. I found myself rooting for both sides and against them as well, depending on the circumstances. It was good to read a more serious and more traditional story after having read two Queneua books in a row. It was also extremely gratifying to read a story that takes place in a setting I know so very little about. In spite of my comprehensive lack of knowledge concerning Brazilian history and the cacao rush that this book entails I felt transported to that region and time by Amado - That is the hallmark of a fantastic storyteller and a good book.

Zazie in the Metro - First Reading

Zazie in the Metro was the fifth book I've read of Queneau. On GoodReads I gave one five stars (The Flight of Icarus); three I gave four stars, (We Always Treat Women too Well, The Blue Flowers and Exercises in Style); Zazie, I gave only three. As mentioned elsewhere, I love Queneau's rambling works as they meander through side streets of his work only to find themselves in the last paragraph to come to a tidy, if somewhat random ending. Somehow, improbably all the loose ends are tied up or at least left me to feel like they were not worth exploring any more in the stories I gave four stars or more. Exercises in Style wasn't one of them - it's four star rating was based on pure wordplay alone.

Queneau wrote in French. Je suis désole je ne parle pas français. (Thanks google). Obviously, I'm reading the translations and thus, I find it odd that the wordplay is one of the pillars as to why I love Queneau's work. But, he explores language so well (and his translators are very intent on bringing that out in the translations) that even one pace removed from him I feel his message coming through loud and clear. "Howcanaystinksotho, wondered Gabriel" is how the novel opens. The colloquialisms and text written to mirror dialect, slang and speech as written word is fascinating to read. Exercises in Style is delving directly into this process over and over and over again. Zazie wades Queneau's toes into the water while dunking us in upside down. It's that dunking that makes Zazie enjoyable. Unfortunately, I found the story lacking.

I read somewhere on GoodReads somebody who has similar books read as I do reviewed either The Blue Flowers or We Always Treat Women Too Well as something that needn't have been translated to English. He waxed poetic about Zazie, but said one of the aforementioned titles was a lackluster work not worthy of translation to English by an otherwise fantastic author. I wholeheartedly disagree - but, I titled this blog post as Zazie In The Metro - First Reading as the First Reading for a reason...

Reading any kind of Queneau the first time demands a second reading. Zazie on the Metro is no exception. There's a whole lot in this book to unpack. At the end of the day though, if you asked me what this book has done to me, I would say, that it has aged me.

We Always Treat Women Too Well

I really enjoy Raymond Queneau and We Always Treat Women Too Well is no exception. I gave it four stars on GoodReads, noting, "Not my favorite Queneau book; but, it has all the familiar trappings of his work. I love his style and the way he plays with words. The humor and absurdity is good and his pace is astounding to behold. As I said before, it's not my favorite one of his so far (The Flight of Icarus), but it's still an enjoyable read".

It's such a farce of a pulp novel that if you had never read Queneua you might've never known that it was satirizing the genre, while celebrating it. It's basically a play on Stockholm Syndrome where the captured woman turns the tables on her captors (the IRA). Sex plays a big part in the book and there are some disturbing imagery. But, much of it is done in the shroud of absurd humor. I like the absurdity and I find it fascinating to read. I think Queneau's pace is really good to read and in this one, like in The Flight of Icarus and The Blue Flowers all the weirdness gets wrapped up rather quickly into a neat little, albeit confusing, ending. Zazie In The Metro, one of Queneau's more celebrated novels doesn't wrap up as well as the other three mentioned in this post. It's probably why I didn't rate it as highly as his others.

Goodreads Review of We Always Treat Women Too Well

Goodreads review:

Not my favorite Queneau book; but, it has all the familiar trappings of his work. I love his style and the way he plays with words. The humor and absurdity is good and his pace is astounding to behold. As I said before, it's not my favorite one of his so far (The Flight of Icarus); but, it's still an enjoyable read.

Notes on Breakfast of Champions

I just finished Breakfast of Champions today and what a fantastic book. Y-O-U have got to read it. Seriously though, it is truly fantastic for numerous reasons. Firstly, it skewers us as humans and us especially as Americans in a delightfully painful way. I'm not advocating masochistic pleasure-seeking when I recommend this book, but if you want to have your patriotic thought processes unnerved a bit (which you should so you don't end up goose-stepping your way through life) this is a great book to achieve that. Secondly, it's a brilliant description of life. I have been working to make myself a good storyteller recently. In fact, that's what this whole blog is essentially about - it's a repository of all my previous notes and current thoughts in the hopes that my future self will be able to easily look back at categorized notes in order to pull something worthy of putting into a story. Vonnegut hates storytellers. He blames storytelling on all the ills that America faces and his argument is pretty sound. Nonetheless, Vonnegut wrote one hell of a story. Thirdly, I love the meta-narrative he does of inserting himself into the story and explaining why he writes the way he does and so on and so forth. It's a fascinating literary device and has instructional value for me as an aspiring writer.

There could be a lot of metaphorical ink wasted if I were to point out every little jib and jab of this book that I particularly enjoyed so I will save the metaphorical carbon black by highlighting only a few of my favorites. In the introduction his discussion of Armistice Day and how the soldiers heard God was great.

"When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering each one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind" (Vonnegut, 6).

This little blurb sums up for me what Vonnegut does in this book. First, he successfully makes himself a part of the story, which I like. Second, he touches on a brutal subject (WWI) with levity and jokes (stopped butchering one another) without being mean. It's dark, but not mean. Third, his wit and dark humor is amplified through dissonant sarcasm - the Voice of God is silence.

In a little jab at men and women and their roles with each other he writes "'I don't wonder you're tired and nervous,' Francine went on. 'If I was a man, I'd be tired and nervous, too. I guess God made women so men could relax and be treated like little babies from time to time.' She was more than satisfied with this arrangement." (Vonnegut, 154). That's just funny.

His shot at how wealth is accumulated is funny too. "With the passage of time, his shares had become one hundred times as valuable, simply lying in the total darkness and silence of a safe-deposit box. There was a lot of money magic like that going on. It was almost as though some blue fairy were flitting about that part of the dying planet, waving her magic wand over certain deeds and bonds and stock certificates" (Vonnegut, 161).

In contemplating the meaning of life as he is slowly starting to lose his grip on his sanity, Dwayne tells Francine about his visit to the Pontiac factory and the impact that the destruction tests had on him. He recalls seeing (and Vonnegut so kindly drew for us a rendition of it) a door labeled "Destructive Testing" where all the torture of the cars took place. "'I saw that sign,' said Dwayne, 'and I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for - to find out how much a man could take without breaking'" (Vonnegut, 166).

Again in pondering the meaning of life, Vonnegut inserted a story about a greyhound. Forgive me, this is a lengthy quotation but it's funny and can't really be pared down well and retain its hilarity. "The girl with the greyhound was an assistant lighting director for a musical comedy about American history, and she kept her poor greyhound, who was named Lancer, in a one-room apartment fourteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long, and six flights of stairs above street level. His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place. There were two proper places to put it: in the gutter outside the door seventy-two steps below, with the traffic whizzing by, or in a roasting pan his mistress kept in front of the Westinghouse refrigerator. Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time, just as Wayne Hoobler did, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made" (Vonnegut, 198).

In discussing truth a Novelist (Beatrice) and a painter (Karabekian) a sad conclusion about truth is raised. Karabekian had just sold a minimalist painting entitled The Temptation of St. Anthony for an exorbitant price and Beatrice admitted to Karabekian that she had no idea who St. Anthony was. Karabekian responded, "'I don't know, and I would hate to find out,' said Karabekian. 'You have no use for truth?' said Beatrice. 'You know what truth is?' said Karabekian. 'It's some crazy thing my neighbor believes. If I want to make friends with him, I ask him what he believes. He tells me, and I say, Yeah, yeah - ain't it the truth?'" (Vonnegut, 209). Funny. But sad.

Vonnegut places the blame of what makes America a dangerous and unhappy place squarely on the shoulders of the story tellers. The government treated Americans as disposable (a war reference) because authors treated their bit-part players like that. The reason why some details in life are important and others are trivial and the reason why some people in life are important and others are trivial is because authors makes some details important and others trivial and some people important and others trivial in their stories. Vonnegut swore off storytelling. Instead he chose to write about life. "I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out" (Vonnegut, 210). That's why Vonnegut stories have so many seemingly unimportant side passages.

"Milo now used a line from a television show which had been popular a few years back. The show wasn't on air anymore, but most people still remembered the line. Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both present and past" (Vonnegut, 230). That's funny because it's true.

"I gazed at the Keedsler mansion, never dreaming that a volcanic dog was about to erupt behind me" (Vonnegut, 287). That's funny because of the wording.

As a hopeful writer, as a hopeful storyteller, I find I've often inserted myself into a story or two. But, I've not found a way to do it later in the story. Either I'm in it from the beginning or I'm not it at all. Vonnegut is present from the beginning in this book in theory, but really jumps into the story when Dwayne, Wayne and Kilgore Trout are all in or around the Holiday Inn in Midland City. His entrance is flawless and I read and reread it about fifteen times. "'Give me a Black and White and water,' he heard the waitress say, and Wayne should have pricked up his ears at that. That particular drink wasn't for any ordinary person. That drink was for the person who had created all Wayne's misery to date, who could kill him or make him a millionaire or send him back to prison or do whatever he damn pleased with Wayne. That drink was for me" (Vonnegut, 192). From this point on, Vonnegut is a character with a major role to play in the conclusion of the story - which I won't reveal in case you haven't read it.

Maybe it's the sheer weirdness of Vonnegut's stories. Maybe it's his literary style. Maybe it's the fact that he's a Hoosier. Maybe its a je ne sais quoi amalgamation of all three and other unknown factors, but I'm really starting to see Vonnegut as among my favorite writers. Currently, I find myself enjoying and thus, emulating, however poorly, four writers more than anyone else: Voltaire, Douglas Adams, Raymond Queneau and Vonnegut. Voltaire has long been among my favorites, so he holds a sentimental place in my heart. But, between the other three I can't decide who I like the most.

Exercises in Style

Raymond Queneau is fast becoming a favorite author of mine. Exercises in Style is one of those books that made me laugh to myself with noone around. If a book can produce any kind of emotion to me, whether crying or laughing, I laud it as a seminal work of art because I'm truly an unfeeling person.

I'll admit though, Exercises in Style took me a bit longer to read because there are some tedious parts. It is the same story, over and over again and that gets a bit boring, but some of the exercises are so profoundly hilarious that it resonates beyond belief. Of course, I read the translated version because my French is non-existent at this point, but I hope to some day read it in the original language to a satisfactory understanding. That said, the monumental effort to translate it impressed me almost as much as Queneau's work itself.

The story itself is innocuous and insignificant, but through his styles it becomes incredible. Sometimes the long-necked man is the villain; sometimes he is sympathetic. That alone should show the incredible skill of Queneau in the work, but I pinched my bottom and forced myself to read on and deeper. I will say, the probability, the haiku and the philosophic were some of my favorites. Some of the jumbled writing I didn't fully understand, but through effort and having read the story a hundred times or more it made sense. Some of the exercises written by other authors read like college assignments and others read like full blown doctoral theses. It's probably not going to be everybody's cup of tea, but it's worth a read. I enjoyed it immensely.

Twain - The Stolen White Elephant

I'm enjoying my Mark Twain short stories. I still feel that Journalism in Tennessee is my favorite thus far, but in reading Twain's The Stolen White Elephant I'm realizing that I like detective stories. Now, that said, I haven't read a Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie or any other "serious" detective fiction. But, I've loved Law & Order since at least high school; I think I liked it earlier, especially the crossover episodes with the Baltimore based Homicide: Life on the Street. I know I liked those when I was young and before I moved out of the area. But, it also made me never want to enter the city...

But, earlier on this blog and in one of my nascent stories I've mentioned the similarities between Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently and Raymond Queneau's Morcol in The Flight of Icarus and now having read Twain's short story The Stolen White Elephant, I'm finding that I really enjoy farcical detective stories. I'm also noticing a trend about such characters. They are, simultaneously, bungling and cunning. They have the great balance of bafoonery and intellect that allows them the expertise of the  charlatan. Money moves them. I guess that's a well-worn thought because even in serious journalism we question the ethics of the police. Maybe we should simply make them well paid and then they wouldn't have to worry about bribes. That however would be a socialist notion and thus, completely unacceptable in America. We can't stand an ounce of socialism. On a side note, I'm very concerned that I'm not going to get my social security in forty years or so when I'm eligible. These aren't related thoughts, but my mind is always doubled over in multiple trajectories.

As for Twain's short story, it's great. It is silly and full of sharp language. That makes it easy to read and easy to pause and reread a fantastic passage or sentence. With Twain, it's often the sentence that you reread because of it's incredible sarcasm within its brevity. "Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest detail. It even had additions, consisting of Detective this, Detective that, and Detective the other's 'theory' as to how the robbery was done" (Twain, 28). Beautiful. Concise. Caustic.

The thing that I like so much about this story is that it incorporates an odd structure using the "telegraph" as a medium. I had this idea for a short story (which is still peculating within me) that makes use of a similar medium. Interwoven in the story will be some background narrative, but the story will be moved forward by a different medium - comments posted on Internet "journalism". I thought it would be a new novel and innovative technique. Twain wrote The Stolen White Elephant 101 years before I was born. What did Solomon say???

Pedro Paramo

I read Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo for the first time last night. I kept starting and stopping as I needed to go to bed. But, in the end I wound up staying up til 3 am to finish it. I have to read it again, and soon.

It is a crazy book. The surrealist aspects are grotesque, but not in the way that Bataille's The Story of the Eye is grotesque. Rulfo focuses on death in this book, not unseemly sexual encounters involving copious amounts of piss.

Juan Preciado is instructed by his dying mother to return to her hometown and take some sort of revenge on his father. The town of Comala is a ghost town in a more literal sense of the word. It is a quasi-purgatory where the disembodied souls of the townsfolk live in shame and fear of the dead Pedro Paramo. As I said earlier I have to read it again to grasp the fullness (or lack thereof) of the book. But, a couple things really struck me on this initial reading.

First, when Juan dies, or when he realizes he is dead - I am not sure if he was ever alive in the story or not, he is buried into a grave with Dorotea and the two begin to speak. That first encounter was fascinating. Dorotea takes over the narrative from this point, but her description of her death was truly incredible. She talks about her soul demanding that her body continue working, but the body is speaking to Juan inside their shared grave. The body tells him that she simply opened up her mouth and released the soul.

Second, when Juan encounters the burro driver you have no idea he's dead. Then he doesn't play much of a part for the whole book except to bring about what ever semblance of conclusion you can get. That was interesting too.

Third, and this might have been my favorite story arch within this multi-tiered story is that of Father Renteria. Father Renteria is a priest (whom we find out was killed by one of Pedro's many sons) that has been condemned to purgatory for putting up with Pedro and his horrible ways. Father Renteria even goes over into another town and finds another priest who refuses him absolution. It is a very intriguing story.

I'm finding that I enjoy some of the surrealist stories much better than others. I loved Queneau's Flight of Icarus and Rulfo's Pedro Paramo. I liked Nadja by Andre Breton. I hated The Story of the Eye. I don't think I can say that enough. I guess it's the same with all genres, but while Nadja and Icarus eventually wrapped up somewhat, Pedro and The Story of the Eye really offered no real ending per se. Yet of the four I would (at this moment) rank them my top and bottom of surrealist literature read so far. I guess the surrealist must have been on to something as style tends to outweigh substance in their genre.

Notes on The Flight of Icarus

Generally speaking I don't love to read plays. I like to watch plays, but reading them doesn't normally give me the same satisfaction as seeing them or as reading a novel. But, Raymond Queneau's The Flight of Icarus may have shifted that paradigm for me. I loved this book/play.

Morcol's line to Hubert "Die by all means but keep calm. My intellectual powers have caused me to change my mind" (Queneua, 33) is absolutely a double whammy. What a wonderful way of saying I was wrong without saying I was wrong.

The part about dicknapping on pages 39-40 made me laugh out loud and wake up my wife.

"Doctor: As we say in French: voila le hic.

Sir: Not the hic, the dick."

...

"Morcol: For some reasons of which I am unaware, no doubt because you considered that the work he has undertaken is injurious to his health, to prevent him from continuing it you have dicknapped the principal character of his novel.

Doctor: (stupefied by this neologism) Dicknapped?"

...

"Doctor: Since you don't want any bicarbonate of soda, lie down on that couch and tell me everything that comes into your head; it'll do you good.

Morcol: And will that help me find my Dick?"

Oh my gosh, the sophomoric humor is too much!

It has just dawned on me though that the Doctor unsuccessfully tries to get nearly every character to do the laying down on his couch thing and tell him what pops into their head unsuccessfully. The Surrealists loved psychoanalysis and since Queneau broke from them this might be a jab of repudiation at them.

"The place where the most famous adulteries are consummated and consumed" (Queneau, 53). What a wonderful pun. There are a lot of puns in here, most of which are intended I think, to make the reader groan. This one got a good groan from me.

Scene 34 where Hubert's rivals and friends kidnap the returned Icarus to interrogate him is hysterical. While they are busy pontificating Icarus sneaks out the bathroom window and into the wide world yet again.

Morcol is scouring the Bois de Boulogne in search of Icarus when he is nearly run over by Icarus on the bicycle. "Morcol: Clumsy oaf! I was in a very dangerous situation, there. I'm quite upset. I can't even remember why I'm in the Bois de Boulogne. Let me think... Ah yes. Well, even so, there's not much point in trying to run after him" (Queneau, 122). This was another line that had me laughing and disturbing my wife's slumber.

Morcol reminds me a little bit of Dirk Gently in methodology. Dirk solves the whole crime and the whole person through the interconnectedness of everything. "Morcol: The Bois de Boulogne. Everything leads back there. Reason, flair, intuition, not to mention my method of free association - everything sends me in that direction. Unfortunately the Bois de Boulogne is vast; what's more, it's dangerous. You keep nearly getting run over" (Queneau, 125). Just like Dirk, Morcol is fated to go where it won't end well for him because their methodologies, however odd, are correct.

"I'm giving up, Monsieur Surget. I'm giving up. No more shadowing. And above all, no more shadowing of shadows - meaning insubstantial images of authors' imaginations" (Queneau, 140). A little self-deprecation never hurt anyone.

"Surget: You have no pity.

Morcol: I have some for myself" (Queneau, 140). Man that was another good zinger.

"Well well! so that's where we've got with popular medicine and the pharmaceutical advertisements which are displayed not insidiously but in abundance in the daily and even weekly papers. So that's where we've got: the patient wants to heal himself! Any minute now he'll be wanting to write out his own prescription!" (Queneau, 141). Apparently Queneau and Dr. Lajoie could see the state of 21st century medicine and the advent of WebMD.

"Doctor: It's the paying that counts; you'll see how much good it'll do you" (Queneau, 160). Not much explanation needed there.

Two things that sort of sum up the best part of this story, the characters knowing they are characters, the fiction within the fiction, the surrealism, the meta...

"Icarus: Oh, I'm more read about than a reader" (Queneau, 164). Very good.
"Icarus: How do we know? It may all come to the same thing. They may be the characters of some other sort of author" (Queneau, 166-167)

The part where Icarus is offered Balbine by Monsieur Berrrier as a wife is great.

"Icarus: The thing is, I'm already engaged.
Balbine: Oh God! (she faints in her father's arms)
Icarus: Only I don't particularly want to marry my fiancée, alas.
Balbine (coming out of her coma). Heaven be praised.
Icarus: But I've got what they call a mistress.
Monsieur Berrrier: A liaison. They're made to be broken.
Icarus: And there's a society lady chasing me.
Balbine: Monsieur is very much in demand" (Queneau, 170).

Another thing I just noticed is Monsieur Berrrier's name. In reading it I had not noticed the triple R. It's weird that the mind only sees what it is accustomed to seeing.