Exercises in Style
| Exercises in Style | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Raymond Queneau |
| Original title | Exercices de style |
| Translator | Barbara Wright (English) |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre(s) | Constrained writing, Fiction |
| Publication date | 1947 |
| Published in English | 1958 |
| Media type | |
Exercises in Style (French: Exercices de 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 (now no. 84), witnesses an altercation between a man (a zazou) with a long neck and funny hat and another passenger, and then sees the same person two hours later at the Gare St-Lazare getting advice on adding a button to his overcoat. The literary variations recall the famous 33rd chapter of the 1512 rhetorical guide by Desiderius Erasmus, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style.
Contents |
Translations [edit]
The book has been translated into the following languages :
- English by Barbara Wright (1958)
- Dutch by Rudy Kousbroek (1978)
- Italian by Umberto Eco (1983)[1]
- Greek by Achilleas Kyriakides (1984)
- Czech by Patrik Ouředník (1985)
- Serbian by Danilo Kiš (1986)
- Esperanto by István Ertl (1986)
- Norwegian by Ragnar Hovland (1996)
- Finnish by Pentti Salmenranta (1991)
- German by Ludwig Harig and Eugen Helmlé
- Bulgarian by Vasil Sotirov and Elena Tomalevska
- Turkish by Armağan Ekici (2003)
- Pashtu language by Victor Monchego, Jr (2009 in progress)
- Polish by Jan Gondowicz
- Macedonian by Elizabeta Trpkovska (2005)
- Basque by Xabier Olarra (2006)
- Estonian by Triinu Tamm and Jana Porila (2007)
- Swedish by Lars Hagström
- Danish by Otto Jul Pedersen (1994)
- Russian by V.A.Petrov ed. (1998)
- Slovene by Aleš Berger (1994)
- Romanian by Călin Vlasie ed. (2006)
- Galician by H.H. Banet and X.M.P.Varela (1995)
- Portuguese by H.A. Medeiros et al. (2000)
- Japanese by Koji Asahina.
- Spanish by Antonio Fernández Ferrer.
- Catalan by A.Bats and R.Lladó (1989)
- Brazilian Portuguese (1995)
- Hungarian by R.Bognár (1988)
- Züritüütsch by Felix E.Wyss
- Ukrainian by Yaroslav Koval' and Yuriy Lisenko (the poems by Yurka Pozayaka)
Because, by their nature, the various retellings of the story employ fine subtleties of the French language, translations into these other languages are adaptations as well as being translations.
Styles employed [edit]
The English translation by Barbara Wright (reprinted in paperback in 1981) consists of the tale retold in the following 'styles', where the original has been adapted (rather than translated) the original title is given in italics following :-
Other adaptations [edit]
- A short story, An Exercise in Style, written in 2008 by popular blogger Obi Okorougo was inspired and dedicated to Raymond Queneau.
- An homage in graphic novel form, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden, was published in 2005.
- A typographic interpretation of the German version of Exercices de Style, "Stilübungen – visuelle Interpretationen" by the graphic designer Marcus Kraft, was published in 2006.
- Exercises in Style on Scribd.com
- In Croatia (when it was part of SFR Yugoslavia), Tonko Maroević and Tomislav Radić adapted Exercices de Style (transferring the plot from the 1940s Paris to modern Zagreb) into a stage play for two actors, which has been played by Pero Kvrgić and Lela Margitić since 1968.
- Following the formal example of Queneau, Paul Hoover of the United States published Sonnet 56 (2009), which consists of 56 stylistic versions of Shakespeare's sonnet 56, including "Villanelle," "Qasida," "Course Description," and "Ballad."
References [edit]
- ^ Peter E. Bondanella, Andrea Ciccarelli The Cambridge companion to the Italian novel p.169
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