Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious - a godsend for anyone who likes words & writing
Review: I borrowed this book from an English-major friend of mine shortly after college and was hooked almost instantly. Although I read only the English translation (I don't speak French), Barbara Wright must have done a great job, because the book is hilarious and, I imagine, captures the giddy essence of Queneau's humor.Anyone expecting a collection of stories with plots, or a straightforward how-to guide to writing, will either be disappointed or perplexed by this book, as will anyone who just plain doesn't like to read. But if you like to read *and* laugh (including sometimes at stuff that's in questionable taste), this is manna from heaven.
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Summary: Great and if you liked this. . .
Review: I encountered "these exercises" for the first time 25 years ago. After a long trip we arrived at a friend abroad. Since alcohol had an all but positive effect on a couple of visiting family members, the theatrically very gifted host decided to pull a translation of Queneau's work off the shelve and to control the unruly crowd by reading/performing this entire work. It was a blast! After coming across an essay mentioning that Queneau's encounter with Bach's art of the fugue prompted these linguistic style exercises, I picked up an original copy while visiting the city of light and have had many joyful reencounters since. Together with Perec' "e-less" la Disparation, Queneau's "Exercises" remains the most popular Oulipo work. While I think that Queneau's influence on literature can be best compared to Schoenberg's invention of serialism in music, his exercises have the quick wit of a jolly Mozart. The work is light-hearted and entertaining, yet of significant substance. While Witgenstein's "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus" remains a hallmark in the analysis of the possibilities and limitations of language, it is dry and requires a significant investment of time and effort. The opposite is true for this book: even those not interested in the finer points of composition, grammar and syntax can still enjoy this virtuosic delight. Previous reviewers have already mentioned that this book should be read aloud. Having had a "performance introduction" to the work, I fully agree. Thanks to Queneau's talent and wit, even upon repeated reading the text only gets funnier and funnier.
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Summary: It is hard to render ANYONE's wit into another language.
Review: I have already written a review of this book. Nevertheless, I would like to come back to the subject in order to make my opinion clearer. As George Steiner often said (see for instance "Errata," 1997): "each human language is different from the others; this is the charm of languages." And this is also why I find it hard to believe to someone who claims that Barbara Wright has EXACTLY rendered Queneau's wit into English. I still have not read Wright's translation. Yet I know that humour has many cultural connotations, which are difficult to render in another language. Luckily, both the idea and the structure of "Exercises in style" relieve translators of the need of "staying true" to the original version. I mean that when you translate "Exercises in style" there is some room for your invention. A translator may also enjoy adding new variations on the main theme. The most brilliant example of variations I know is that by the Italian scholar Umberto Eco; but I am sure that other excellent examples are possible. In conclusion, the more you can learn new languages, the more you can read (and translate!) "Exercises in style" in new versions; and the more you can read (and translate) "Exercises in style" in new versions, the more you can enjoy yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Great and if you liked this. . .
Review: I have always found this book to be fascinating and the perfect case for the argument of style/versus content. My classes have ended up screaming at each other in lively discussion of which of the two elements is more important and this book always provides a great catalyst for that discussion. I have, however, had students complain that this book is a little dry so if you are looking for another great book that accomplishes a very similar argument but seems to hold my class's interest better, try The Author by Hillary DePiano. I haven't seen it on Amazon yet but I know it is available here: http://www.lulu.com/content/15149
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Summary: It is hard to render Queneau's wit into another language.
Review: I have not yet read the English translation Barbara Wright made of "Exercices de style". Someone else said that she "stayed true" to the original version, but I find it hard to believe that she could exactly render Queneau's wit into English. Instead, I exhort anyone who is learning French to read the original version; it is a remarkable opportunity to learn the structure of a foreign language, and to laugh at the same time. Or, if you know Italian a little, try to read the translation by Umberto Eco; as both a semiologist and a writer, he skilfully added new amusing variations on the main theme.
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Summary: Queneau's Stunning Challenge to Realism
Review: In the 1930s, Raymond Queneau attended a performance of Bach's "The Art of Fugue." Queneau was struck by the fact that Bach's piece, though simple in theme, gave rise to an infinite number of musical variations. This perception became the basis for "Exercises in Style", a literary experiment which stunningly challenges the notion of realism. Queneau was a polymath, with interests and accomplishments as a novelist, poet, linguist and mathematician. Briefly a member of Andre Breton's Surrealist group, Queneau subsequently joined the "College of Pataphysics" in 1950. Pataphysics was the science of imagainary solutions, a science which originated with the poet and playwrite Alfred Jarry. The Pataphysicians were a tongue-in-cheek group of French intellectuals who didn't take themselves too seriously. At the same time, Queneau was exploring the Pataphysical, however, he was also serving as Director of the prestigious "Encyclopedie de la Pleiade", thus combining the whimsical with the serious. A decade later, Queneau was a founder of "OuLiPo" (an acronym for "Ouvroir de Litterature Poetentielle" or "Workshop for Potential Literature"). In contrast to the Dadaist and Surrealist movements, which gave free reign to chance and the unmediated workings of the unconscious, OuLiPo emphasized the systematic and deliberate generation of texts. "Exercises in Style" is based upon an uninteresting and simple story, a story without any plot, a story that in itself is pointless and boring. Queneau tells this story ninety-nine times, each time using a different variation in the telling. Barbara Wright, the translator of the English edition, notes in her introduction that the variations fall into roughly seven categories. These categories include different types of speech, different types of written prose, different poetic styles, and different grammatical and rhetorical forms. Another category are variations which are told in the form of character sketches through language (e.g., reactionary, biased, abusive, etc.). Queneau, in this fashion, demonstrates the fluidity of language, the variability in the ways that language can describe reality. As one critic succinctly and correctly stated, "Exercises in Style" demonstrates "the impossibility of realism in any unitary sense." Queneau wanted "Exercises in Style" translated into English and, unike most literary texts, this particular text loses little in translation. While Barbara Wright's translation is outstanding, she also rightly notes that "the story as such doesn't matter, [nor] does the particular language [in which] it is written." What matters, and what "Exercises in Style" brilliantly illustrates, is that a simple story can be expressed in an infinite variety of literary and linguistic styles, that the transformation of reality into language is susceptible of manifold permutations. This is the genius of Queneau's text, a genius which makes this book a minor classic of modern literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Revolution as fun.
Review: Queneau said he wanted to do for literature what Bach did for music in the Art of fugue. He also wanted to simultaneously clean up the French language, remove its archaic, stuffy conventions, while affirming its elasticity, its variety, its refusal to be contained in anything so deadening as an 'official' language. Certainly, having read 99 variations on a simple story, all unique, all demonstrating language's protean invention, the traditional one-voice, one tone novel will seem unsatisfactory and lazy. I know 'Exercises in style' does lots of interesting philosophical and scientific things that are more important than Derrida etc. etc. I like the way a mode of language, simply by functioning, can completely altar a story told in another mode. if you read a story with metaphors, say, you translate the metaphors to see what the writer is 'really' saying. Because you know the story in 'Exercises', you can read the metaphors literally, and another story emerges, hilariously and subversively different from the 'original'. 'Exercises' does this throughout, with slang, poetry, rhetoric, narrative, word games, different voices etc., showing how 99 scientific classifications actually function in declassifying and decentring. Barbara Wright, along with Scott Moncrieff, was the great translator of the 20th century, and her transposing, rather than translating, of Queneau's work from the French language into an English primer is a miracle. It is a little known fact that 'Exercises' is a detective story, with the solution fittingly revealed in the 99th chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Revolution as fun.
Review: Queneau said he wanted to do for literature what Bach did for music in the Art of fugue. He also wanted to simultaneously clean up the French language, remove its archaic, stuffy conventions, while affirming its elasticity, its variety, its refusal to be contained in anything so deadening as an 'official' language. Certainly, having read 99 variations on a simple story, all unique, all demonstrating language's protean invention, the traditional one-voice, one tone novel will seem unsatisfactory and lazy. I know 'Exercises in style' does lots of interesting philosophical and scientific things that are more important than Derrida etc. etc. I like the way a mode of language, simply by functioning, can completely altar a story told in another mode. if you read a story with metaphors, say, you translate the metaphors to see what the writer is 'really' saying. Because you know the story in 'Exercises', you can read the metaphors literally, and another story emerges, hilariously and subversively different from the 'original'. 'Exercises' does this throughout, with slang, poetry, rhetoric, narrative, word games, different voices etc., showing how 99 scientific classifications actually function in declassifying and decentring. Barbara Wright, along with Scott Moncrieff, was the great translator of the 20th century, and her transposing, rather than translating, of Queneau's work from the French language into an English primer is a miracle. It is a little known fact that 'Exercises' is a detective story, with the solution fittingly revealed in the 99th chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like this, really I did
Review: Some of the variations were pretty amusing. Some, such as the juxtapositions of letters and words according to mathematical formulae, were just tedious and added nothing. The ultimate joke was a bit of a letdown.
This book is easily read and easily forgotten.
Rating: 
Summary: A joke more than a book
Review: The basic idea is charming, but as I suspected beforehand, it doesn't translate very well into a reading experience. To put it simply, Queneau was wrong when he assumed 99 versions to be "the classic ideal" or something like that. Most of these passages are unreadable, at least all the grammatical exercises. Having said that, I must admit two things. First, since I don't know French, I had to read a Finnish translation. It's quite clear to me that some of the details must disappear in translation, especially as the Finnish language is not even related to French. (On the other hand, some passages generated specially for the Finnish edition were quite hilarious.) A more important point is that Queneau can definitely demonstrate the infinite variations in language and storytelling. How many viewpoints can you take on a simple story! The varying description of details was pretty amusing. In the end, this book is just a joke, even though a clever one. I don't think it has much to do with fictional prose.
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