Elementary Morality

by Raymond Queneau, Philip Terry (Translator)

This post–Second World War collection forms a bridge between the irrational world of Breton and the surrealist movement and the philosophical "absurd" of existentialism. Ranging widely in theme, these poems are concerned with the elements, moral fables, and theatre. Featuring unique reflections on writing and aesthetics, this compendium is Queneau's final poetic testament.

244 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Novelist, poet, and critic Raymond Queneau, was born in Le Havre in 1903, and went to Paris when he was 17. For some time he joined André Breton's Surrealist group, but after only a brief stint he dissociated himself. Now, seeing Queneau's work in retrospect, it seems inevitable. The Surrealists tried to achieve a sort of pure expression from the unconscious, without mediation of the author's self-aware "persona." Queneau's texts, on the contrary, are quite deliberate products of the author's conscious mind, of his memory, and his intentionality.

Although Queneau's novels give an impression of enormous spontaneity, they were in fact painstakingly conceived in every small detail. He even once remarked that he simply could not leave to hazard the task of determining the number of chapters of a book. Talking about his first novel, Le Chiendent (usually translated as The Bark Tree), he pointed out that it had 91 sections, because 91 was the sum of the first 13 numbers, and also the product of two numbers he was particularly fond of: 7 and 13.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the beginning of the year I was visiting friends in SF and I had a glass of wine with lunch one afternoon. I almost never have wine with lunch. We walked into City Lights afterward and - the damn wine gone to my head - I ended up plopping down $95 for four books. I just don't buy books anymore - I read them from the library. Two I am very happy I bought (Bern Porter's "Found Poems" and Mandelstam's "Stolen Air"). This one I don't need, and is overpriced at $30. But, ahem, the writing, the writing is separate from the economics of the book, and the writing is separate from the quotidian lurch. Is it not? Ahem.

It's Queneau's last book, in three parts, and he developed a strange form for the first part. There are some nice wordings (though some of these I made up, riffing on what he wrote, not sure which is which, I just wrote in the back of the book):

breast islands foaming
mortal friendship
sifted dream/ friendship love/ potential antagonism
intelligent dust - the skin of the smart.
vegetable sun

It's all based on I Ching something or other and if I never come across another artwork based on the I Ching, I'll be pleasantly surprised. I've read a lot of Oulipean stuff and maybe it's taken me 14 years, but I'm just now realizing that if you consider yourself a writer and you require some extraneous source for your structure and motivation to write, ugh, why bother. Sure, you can generate some reasonably interesting things to say or think about, but I'm skeptical of why the need to even bother if it's that hard to think of things on your own.

The third part of the book is based even more directly on the I Ching, but if you read the paragraphs without the crutch of knowing which hexagram they refer to, they are quite surprising and dense. It's disappointing that Queneau couldn't come up with that kind of variety on his own, but still a decent read. Here's three good ones:


The grinding of the centuries creates a sort of powder which is very effective against doctrines. The centuries are left as unchangeable as before, while the doctrines are quickly dispersed into lagoons. Whoever goes for a walk around the lagoons will notice bloodstains fermented by marked exam papers, errata, repentances, insertions, marked doublets, delators, while orators hold forth, all ears closed. Further off, a vessel glides on the high seas. On the other side a cart goes by, slowly. In the sky, clouds pass like empires. Some clouds burst into a thousand raindrops lashing against the still surface of the water; others begin to fray at the edges: a masterpiece of baroque art, the experts say. And yet, this all fades, and centuries and centuries remain embedded somewhere in a grain of sand.

The woodcutter weighs oaks, the calendar years, the tract hatred, the boxer teeth, the locksmith bolts, the confectioner sweets that melt in the mouth, the jeweler chalcedony, the circus-trainer elephants, the hairdresser combs, the hatter turbans, the tambourine maker freaks, the riding master white stallions, the juggler solid balls, the fortune teller empty balls. The weight of things demands attention, even if one cares little about the alleged law of falling bodies, for in the end everything comes to link up again: the years in the annual rings of the oak, the expression of hatred in the teeth, sweets that melt in the mouth in keyholes, precious stones in the costumes of elephants, combs behind ribbons, freaks on galloping horses, and balls as planets in topological bouquets. Now everything is clear.

The water he is watching refuses to boil. Not even a single bubble detaches itself from the bottom of the pan to rise to the surface and burst. At most, you could say that the waters are stirring, but it does;t develop into a storm. With an abrupt turn the impatient man hurries into the sitting room to look at the time. When he comes back, the water is dancing happily with huge bubbles, all steaming with joy, bursting with goodness. Now he only has to use it. It is best not to try this with milk; it has no conception of the static ballet, it knows only how to run off in vast waves, leaving nothing behind but a yellowish silt. If you carry on regardless, all turns black with rage. the law is tough, but it's the law; if you change it you might right an injustice, but you usher in disorder.


Here's one that that to me is just calmly hyper, failed non sequiturs, with the air of someone writing for the sake of writing and that gets boring:
Everyone thinks himself invisible, but thats just foolishness. Nothing should stop the eye from picking out the traces of vanished footprints, the outline of a posture, or a slowing down or quickening of the step. Who would think twice about the twitching of a little finger or the piece of peel that a more or less skilled foot has kicked aside? And yet, behind carelessly cleaned windows or indecent moucharabies, they are itemizing the mannerisms, the winks, the stifled sneezes. All of these things might form the basis of an instructive discipline. Only emperors can take the air without annotation. The wind gently caresses the vegetable hair and the animal foliage. Then he takes the air in perfect peace of mind and one observes a body stripped of all irregular jolts and improbably twitchings. The picture departs a little from the idea of the project, but the intention remains clear and distinct, confident in its discrete obliquity.

[Deepak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the very best Queneauvian work. The poems in the first part (the elementary moralities, now also called quennet) are exceptional. Queneau's form lends itself to object lessons, and somber reflections. The translation is perhaps less difficult than other Oulipo translations in terms of constrains, but Terry's translation is still a fantastic one, and feels almost invisible.

The prose poems in the second half are also quite precisely constructed, and have been a delight to read.