Completists' Club discussion

I will indeed read all of Queneau's works, yessir. Who's with me, or ahead of me? I will attempt to compile a bibliography, and would like aid in doing so, and plow through the bastards. Though it just occurred to me that "Cent mille milliards de poemes" throws a monkey wrench into my plans.

Works in English:

Fiction
-Witch Grass; also trans. as The Bark-Tree
-The Last Days
-Odile
-Children of Clay
-A Hard Winter
-Pierrot Mon Ami
-The Skin of Dreams
-We Always Treat Women Too Well
-Exercises in Style
-Saint-Glinglin
-The Sunday of Life
-Zazie in the Metro
-The Blue Flowers
-The Flight of Icarus
-Stories and Remarks

Poetry
-EyeSeas
-Pounding the Pavements, Beating the Bushes, and other Pataphysical Poems
-Elementary Morality
-Hundred Thousand Billion Poems

Other
-Letters, Numbers, Forms: Essays 1928-70
-Review of Contemporary Fiction Fall 1997

Please add anything I may have missed...

I feel I've read enough of Queneau, but I am close to completing the canon. I haven't read The Skin of Dreams (out of print) or Stories & Remarks (expensive). I've read a finite portion of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems but not the other poetry. Letters, Numbers, Forms: Essays 1928-70 is also out of print, or very expensive. Some hurdles for finishing all his work . . .

While "Hundred Thousand Billion Poems" would be a literal translation of the original title [on this side of the pond; not in the UK], the actual title of the English translation is A Hundred Million Million Poems.

Yes but billion sounds more impressive. ;)

I'd like to read all of Queneau too. I've read 4 or 5 of his novels. The only one I didn't like too much was Odile. The others I loved. I too have read a finite portion of his Gazillion Poems, and all of EyeSeas (which I thought was just ok).

I thought Odile was charming, if a bit slight. There was a really beautiful kind of nostalgic post-war sadness thing going on that I found warming. Plus all the send-ups of the surrealists. It is a quite autobiographical work for Queneau. I just started reading Queneau this year but fell for him hard and quick. I've read 6 of his novels and the Review of Contemporary Fiction dedicated to him, which included a few interviews and essays by him. I adore this man. Children of Clay is up next for me.

MJ wrote: "Yes but billion sounds more impressive. ;)"

However, it means different things in the US and in the UK. Further complicating things is the fact that a US Billion equates to the French Milliards while a UK billion equates to a billion in French. I suspect that the publishers of the translation [kicksaw, I believe; I'm too lazy to go upstairs and look] felt that the "Million Million" was the only way to avoid confusion on both sides of the pond.

I came across this interesting little film the other day, directed by Alain Resnais (very recently deceased) on commission - he made these arty documentaries before he got into feature films. The reason I'm posting it here is that the text is by Queneau, with a translation I found online attached below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdQYMs...

“O time, suspend your bowl, O plastic
Where are you from? Who are you? And what explains
Your rare qualities? So what are you doing?
Where are you from? Starting from an object
Find his ancestors! To reverse occurs
His exemplary history. Here first the mold.
Including the matrix, be mysterious,
It generates the bowl or whatever you want.
But the mold is itself included in a press
Which injects the dough and line the room,
It therefore has the great advantage
To have the finished object without further processing.
The mold is expensive! this is a drawback.
But it can be reused on other continents.
Vacuum forming is another way
To obtain objects by simple aspiration.
At the earlier stage, skillfully arranged,
The material is warmed extruded plate.
To enter the nozzle it was the piston
And heating mantle - or heating mantle
Which were provided - What? Polystyrene
Vivace and turbulent hurrying and crumbles.
And granulated swarm on the vibrating screen
Swarmed all happy a beautiful color.
Before granule had been rush
Bands of all colors, tints, shades, tones.
These rods were, following a die
A pudding that endless screw agglomerates.
And what gave rise to the agglutination?
Colorful beads anyway.
Colorful and how? There is homogeneous
The pigment is mixed with polystyrene.
But before he took the product would dry
And rotationally, Product stumbled.
That’s when our polystyrene born.
Polymer product easier styrene.
Polymerization: this word, as everyone knows,
Means the achievement of a high complex
Molecular weight. And a otoclave,
Elementary to think concave machine
The molecules thus clinging and binding
Beads were formed. Yes, but - before?
Styrene was a colorless liquid
Somewhat explosive, not odorless.
And look good! this is the only opportunity
For you to see the liquid in question.
Styrene is produced in large quantities
From ethylbenzene overheated.
Be a catalyst as it is called
Oxide or zinc or magnesium.
The styrene was extracted once benzoin
From the styrax, shrub Indonesia.
Pipe pipe and we go,
Through the desert pipes,
To the first products to abstract material
Circulating endless and effective secret.
Washed and distilled and then redistilled
And there are not exercises in style:
Ethylbenzene can - and should break even
If the temperature reaches some degree.
We must now ask from which
These essential products: ethylene and benzene.
They extract oil, a magical liquid
Found Bordeaux to the heart of Africa.
They also extract oil and coal
To each other and each one and the other are good.
Turning coal into gas is combusted
And then gives birth to these hydrocarbons.
We could start on the new tracks
And find out why the other one and there.
Oil come from masses of fish?
We do not really know or where the coal is.
Oil come from plankton in labor?
Controversial issue … obscure origins …
And petroleum and coal were going up in smoke
When the chemist came who had the happy idea
Make these solid clouds and make
Countless objects utilitarian purpose.
New materials in these dark residue
Are transformed. It is unknown
Still awaiting a similar work
To make other documentaries about”

The Song of Styrene! It really is so great.

Fiction
-Witch Grass; also trans. as The Bark-Tree
-The Last Days
-Odile
-Children of Clay
-A Hard Winter
-Pierrot Mon Ami
-The Skin of Dreams
-We Always Treat Women Too Well
-Exercises in Style (x2 w/new edition)
-Saint-Glinglin
-The Sunday of Life
-Zazie in the Metro
-The Blue Flowers
-The Flight of Icarus
-Stories and Remarks

Poetry
-EyeSeas
-Pounding the Pavements, Beating the Bushes, and other Pataphysical Poems
-Elementary Morality
-Hundred Thousand Billion Poems

Other
-Letters, Numbers, Forms: Essays 1928-70
-Review of Contemporary Fiction Fall 1997

still got some work to do...