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.
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