Elementary Morality
"Elementary Morality", Raymond Queneau's last book, is in many ways his most momentous. Here he distils the work of a lifetime: as Surrealist, flaneur, mathematician, poet, student of Eastern philosophy, experimental novelist and co-founder of OuLiPo, the "workshop for potential literature". Its 131 texts in the form of quennets – an invented form – and prose poems generated by the hexagrams of the I Ching, are a remarkable meditation on landscape, death, war, Surrealism, and memory, at once playful, mysterious and illuminating. David Bellos contributes an authoritative introduction to this first complete English translation of the work.
About the Author
Raymond Queneau was born in Normandy in 1903 and studied at the Sorbonne before military service and a career working for the Gallimard publishing house. A novelist, philosopher, poet, mathematician and translator, he was a leading figure in twentieth-century French literary life, a prolific writer whose work touches on many of the major cultural movements of his time, from Surrealism to the experimental writing of the "nouveau roman". In 1959 he published his best-known work, the novel "Zazie dans le metro", which was a popular success both as a book and in the film adaptation by Louis Malle. In 1960 Queneau co-founded the "Workshop for Potential Literature" or OuLiPo, a group of writers and scientists exploring the interactions between mathematics and literary forms.The group has included among its members Italo Calvino, Georges Perec and Harry Mathews, and still thrives today. Queneau died in 1976.
Reviews
"Philip Terry has done noble service in providing us with his expert rendition of Raymond Queneau's ultimate and enthralling book. English-readers can now revel in its exploration like travellers discovering an unimaginable land of uncanny wonders, its mystery and poetry lastingly intact" – Harry Mathews
