Reading Order
Zazie dans le métroZazie dans le métro Reading Order
Zazie dans le métro (Zazie in the Metro, 1959) by Raymond Queneau is the most playful major novel of the twentieth century — the story of eleven-year-old Zazie, who has come from the provinces to spend two days with her uncle Gabriel in Paris with one wish: to ride the Métro, which is closed by a strike. What follows is a carnivalesque tour of Paris — the Eiffel Tower, a café, a police chase, a transvestite bar, a dance hall — in which every convention of the realistic novel is cheerfully subverted: the language shifts between argot, literary French, phonetic transcription, and neologism; the characters change identity without explanation; and Zazie herself is a remarkably foul-mouthed eleven-year-old whose running commentary ('Mon cul,' she responds to almost everything) is the novel's comic motor. Queneau was the founding member of the OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, Workshop of Potential Literature) alongside Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, a group devoted to writing under self-imposed formal constraints. His other major works include Exercices de style (1947), Les Fleurs bleues (1965), and the mathematical poem Cent mille milliards de poèmes (1961).
Where to start
Read Zazie dans le métro in one or two sittings — the carnivalesque pace and the linguistic energy require continuous reading. The Barbara Wright English translation is essential if you read in English. Then read Exercices de style (1947) for the formal experiment; Les Fleurs bleues (1965) for the gentler later novel; and Cent mille milliards de poèmes (1961) for the OuLiPo formal extreme.
Complete Zazie dans le métro Book List
- 1Buy
Zazie dans le métro
Raymond Queneau·1959·Start here — the masterpiece; read in one or two sittings; Zazie and the closed Métro; the carnivalesque Paris; the linguistic energy - 2Buy
Exercices de style
Raymond Queneau·1947·Exercises in Style — 99 retellings of the same trivial incident in 99 different styles; the formal experiment; the clearest demonstration of the OuLiPo program - 3Buy
Les Fleurs bleues
Raymond Queneau·1965·The Blue Flowers — the gentle later novel; two characters from different centuries who meet in each other's dreams; Queneau's most lyrical work - 4Buy
Cent mille milliards de poèmes
Raymond Queneau·1961·A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems — 10 sonnets with interchangeable lines producing 10^14 possible poems; the OuLiPo formal extreme; more object than book - 5Buy
Loin de Rueil
Raymond Queneau·1944·Far from Rueil — the earlier novel of a provincial young man and his film-star fantasy; less celebrated but essential for understanding Queneau's range
Zazie dans le métro — Frequently Asked Questions
What is OuLiPo?
OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, Workshop of Potential Literature) is the literary group founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, devoted to creating literature using self-imposed formal constraints. The name comes from the mathematical term 'potential' — the constraint is a potential that the writer then actualizes. Famous OuLiPo constraints include: writing without the letter 'e' (the lipogram, used by Georges Perec in La Disparition, 1969); writing poetry using combinations of interchangeable lines (Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes, 1961); constructing narratives on the model of mathematical graphs (Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, 1979). Queneau, Perec, Calvino, and Marcel Duchamp were all members.
What makes Zazie dans le métro linguistically radical?
Zazie's language is a systematic disturbance of literary French — it incorporates phonetic transcription of spoken French (doukipudonktan = d'où qu'il pue donc tant?), argot, neologisms, literary parody, and Zazie's own characteristic profanity ('Mon cul') in a deliberate blend that refuses the standard French of the literary novel. The phonetic transcription is particularly important: Queneau is making visible the gap between written and spoken French, which is unusually large (the written language is extremely conservative; the spoken language has changed radically). This language question had preoccupied Queneau from the beginning of his career — he wrote a long poem, Chêne et chien (1937), in the 'neo-French' he was developing, and Zazie is the most successful literary realization of the spoken-French project.
What happened when Louis Malle filmed Zazie dans le métro?
Louis Malle's film of Zazie dans le métro (1960) is one of the most inventive film adaptations of a French novel — Malle used every available technique of film comedy (speeded-up motion, reverse motion, jump cuts, visual gags borrowed from silent comedy) to find cinematic equivalents for Queneau's linguistic playfulness. The film was a critical and commercial success and made the young actress Catherine Demongeot famous as Zazie. It is generally considered the best French film comedy of the period and one of the most successful adaptations of a formally experimental novel. Malle said he was trying to find the film equivalent of what Queneau did with language — to make the medium of film as visible and playful as Queneau had made the French language.
Who is Uncle Gabriel?
Gabriel is Zazie's uncle — a large, good-natured man who works as a dancer in a transvestite bar (though the novel never makes this entirely explicit in the realistic sense — in Queneau's Paris, reality is slippery). He is the center of Zazie's Paris, taking her from one carnival episode to the next. Gabriel is one of Queneau's characteristic characters: the large, gentle, slightly absurd man who moves through a chaotic world with an inexplicable dignity. The relationship between Gabriel and Zazie — the girl who says 'Mon cul' to everything and the uncle who takes everything philosophically — is the emotional center of the novel, despite (or because of) its playfulness.
What are Exercices de style?
Exercices de style (Exercises in Style, 1947) is Queneau's most formally pure work: a trivial incident (a young man with a long neck and a ridiculous hat on a Paris bus, who argues with another passenger, is seen again two hours later at the Saint-Lazare station being advised by a friend to add a button to his coat) is retold in 99 different styles — official letter, sonnet, passive voice, dream, retrograde, onomatopoeia, philosophical, telegraphic, feminine, and 93 others. The work demonstrates that a story is not the content of what is told but the form in which it is told — the 99 versions of the same incident are 99 completely different things. It is both a literary experiment and a writing textbook; it has been translated into numerous languages and performed on stage.
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