Saint Glinglin
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Overview
The first paperback edition of the last of Queneau's novels to be translated into English. Saint Glinglin is a tragicomic masterpiece, a novel that critic Vivian Mercier said "can be mentioned without incongruity in the company" of Mann's Magic Mountain and Joyce's Ulysses. "By turns strange, beautiful, ludicrous, and intellectually stimulating" (as Mercier goes on to say), Saint Glinglin retells the primal Freudian myth of sons killing the father in an array of styles ranging from direct narrative, soliloquy, and interior monologue to quasi-biblical verse. In this strange tale of a land where it never rains, where a bizarre festival is held every Saint Glinglin's Day, Queneau deploys fractured syntax, hidden structures, self-imposed constraints (no words with the letter x until the final word of the novel), playful allusions, and puns and neologisms to explore the most basic concepts of culture. In the process, Queneau satirizes anthropology, folklore, philosophy, and epistemology, all the while spinning a story as appealing as a fairy tale.Synopsis
The first paperback edition of the last of Queneau's novels to be translated into English. Saint Glinglin is a tragicomic masterpiece, a novel that critic Vivian Mercier said "can be mentioned without incongruity in the company" of Mann's Magic Mountain and Joyce's Ulysses. "By turns strange, beautiful, ludicrous, and intellectually stimulating" (as Mercier goes on to say), Saint Glinglin retells the primal Freudian myth of sons killing the father in an array of styles ranging from direct narrative, soliloquy, and interior monologue to quasi-biblical verse. In this strange tale of a land where it never rains, where a bizarre festival is held every Saint Glinglin's Day, Queneau deploys fractured syntax, hidden structures, self-imposed constraints (no words with the letter x until the final word of the novel), playful allusions, and puns and neologisms to explore the most basic concepts of culture. In the process, Queneau satirizes anthropology, folklore, philosophy, and epistemology, all the while spinning a story as appealing as a fairy tale.
Boston Phoenix
Raymond Queneau, that most erudite and light-hearted of experimental writers, plays his narrative games with vaudevillian humor as well as nihilistic abandon. . . . Queneau's vision in the wondrous Saint Glinglin, as in most of his fiction, is surrealism gone sane.
Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix, 7/93
Editorials
Los Angeles Times
A fable whose extravagant plot is told with Queneau's odd-matter-of-factness, and whose exhilaration comes in the small upsets. . . . A beguiling wackiness laced with mysteries . . . St. Experys Little Prince could be recounting Finnegans Wake.Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times, 7/1/93
Austin Chronicle
Consider what you get here: references to and satires of mythology and Freudian psychology. Varied narrative styles, including soliloquy, interior monologue, verse, and third person. A lot of laughs. Discussions of serious philosophical issues which are thought-provoking even when hilarious. All in one slim volume.Harvey Pekar, Austin Chronicle, 9/24/93
Boston Phoenix
Raymond Queneau, that most erudite and light-hearted of experimental writers, plays his narrative games with vaudevillian humor as well as nihilistic abandon. . . . Queneau's vision in the wondrous Saint Glinglin, as in most of his fiction, is surrealism gone sane.Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix, 7/93
New Yorker
Like all his fiction, it is so blissfully fizzy that the reader may scarcely notice its complexity.New Yorker, 7/2/93
Washington Post
He is one of those writers, like his antic compeers G. K. Chesterton, Flann O'Brien and Lewis Carroll, who inspire newsletters, fan clubs, passionate exegeses and scholarly conferences. . . . An amalgam of the anthropological and the archetypal, leavened with sex, slapstick, wordplay and philosophical investigations. . . . This novel will certainly repay readerly efforts . . . but none is required to enjoy its bizarre humor.Michael Dirda, Washington Post, 7/22/93