“Exercises in Style” by Raymond Queneau is an example of algorithmic prose that tells a three-part story in 99 different ways. An algorithm is a step-by-step process. Queneau takes the same process and reimagines it using literary elements, grammatical terms and reconfigurations of the same text.

Our review shows you how to analyze his prose and understand the terms he uses. Because this book is unique, he decided to focus purely on analysis instead of our usual quality evaluation.

Ultimately this book is for people who enjoy analyzing prose. Anyone else will not enjoy it.

A High-Level View of Queneau’s Algorithm, Categories and Terms

There are three parts to the algorithmic prose:

1. The first part of the algorithmic prose is about a man who is seen being jostled.
2. The second part occurs when the man observing finds a seat.
3. The third part is when the man who takes the seat is told he needs a new button for his coat.

Barbara Wright translated the text from French into English and found seven categories to place each piece of the prose into:

1. different types of speech
2. different types of written prose
3. five poetry styles
4. eight character sketches
5. different grammar/rhetoric
6. Jargon
7. unclassified

10 personal ways to categorize the text include:

1. encrypted language
2. literary device exploration
3. grammatical term expression
4. semiotic execution
5. Plug-it-in (word bank)
6. point of view
7. punctuation
8. translation
9. form
10. metaphor

Exercises in Style is separated into 99 prose pieces that communicate the algorithm in different ways; each section comes with a title followed by the prose for each section.

Prose titles include:

• More or Less
• Negativities
• Parts of Speech
• Logical Analysis
• Word Game
• Animism (the attribution of soul to non-sentient living organisms, objects and natural phenomena)
• Exclamations
• Feminine
• Haiku
• Gastronomical

Here’s a breakdown of how he pairs the categorizations and prose titles:

• Encrypted Language is used in his prose titled More or less
• Literary devices are in his prose titled Negativities
• Grammatical terms are in Parts of Speech
• Semiotics is relevant in Logical analysis
• Plug-it-in is told using a word bank in Word Game
• Point of view is in Animism Story told from perspective of the man’s hat check
• Punctuation is present in Exclamations
• Femininity is Translation in Feminine, Form in Haiku, Metaphor in Gastronomical

Encryption

Encrypted Language is language that is coded. It is when a writer has their own rules around what shapes meaning. This style can involve making words up, replacing parts of a word with another word, or replacing words with other words that form a new meaning. Queneau’s encryption is based on a pattern for the reader to figure out. If you don’t like figuring things out, you probably wouldn’t like his prose when he plays with meaning.

Encrypted language is different from plug-it-in. Plug-it-in is when you replace words with another set of words, but the original algorithm is not lost. You are not creating a new algorithm; you are simply re-writing the algorithm that is already there.

“Exercises in Style” comes from the Oulipo movement in France formed by mathematicians. If you’ve ever done math with functions, plug-it-in is relevant to Queneau’s wordplay in this regard.

Semiotics Definition

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. Semiotic-inspired writing can play with word order and contextual meaning. While semiotics tends to deal with how writing is received, it can also inspire how writing is created. Above each prose is an image that relates to the text. The image/text framework also plays with semiotics too.

Translation Definition

Translation is about interpreting based on extracting from reality. If you want to translate athleticism , you might use language that conveys body-care or motion-metrics or coaching. You might write about water on the tongue or the numbers of steps you walk in a day or asking someone to do something.

While Queneau has less traditional forms of style, he also uses familiar ones like form. We know what a sonnet is. We know what a haiku is. We know what point of view is. These are all standard grammatical and literary terms that Queneau uses. Queneau innovates and invents, plays and behaves, depicts and violates logic.

More on Encryption: A Challenge to Analyze

When you read Exercises in Style, you will know what I mean by encrypted language. Nothing about it makes sense unless you compare it to the algorithm and even then it might not make sense. “More or Less” is prose with the book that is unintelligible. Maybe you can find some pattern in it that makes sense or find some revelation if you have experience speaking in tongues. I do not like encrypted language, but find it necessary in English for someone to find their interest. Just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s not significant, especially for an audience that likes to figure out language that is coded.

I cannot figure out what More or Less is about and I don’t care to, but I am grateful for it being printed because everyone needs to experience things they don’t like. It’s how a human is sifted into whom they are and whom they want to become. As readers, we need to experience as many iterations of textual possibility to provoke within us, our desires and needs in prose. Queneau covers many bases, in this case through essayic resistance, for the verbally rebellious and verbally ambitious.

The word “Naughtiest” in this prose sticks out to me the most since being jostled is not ideal and the term evokes an undesired circumstance. It encourages the reader to look for gems to find the treasure. Beneath these random words is a message, channeled from God knows where. Once you start with one word, perhaps you can pick other words to find the original algorithm that must be there for the book to be successful. Otherwise the author lied.

The form of this prose adds to the confusion because some prose within the book moves the three parts in different order. Sometimes the button is requested before the jostling and seat taking. It depends on which prose you start with to experience the configuration of parts. The ultimate word on this prose, “on”, could me sewing a button on. We do not know.

“More or Less”, the title, could be a clue, but I still don’t know what this means. We need writing that makes no sense to appreciate when things make sense. We need images we don’t desire to enjoy pictures we cherish enough to hold onto. Could the title imply less “sense” or more words. We do not know.

Why is there a mathematical pi symbol? It cannot mean three buttons since only one was asked for. Queneau leaves so many questions. Numbers are used elsewhere in the book to describe many things. It could be the size of the bus, the height of the man, or the length of the road. It could even be a mental thought that not even Queneau could decipher. Or maybe it is a foreshadowing to the play of numbers elsewhere in the book.

There are two separate texts in More or Less that imply one paragraph is about being jostled and getting a seat, while the other section is about getting more buttons. This is only deduced when referencing other texts within the book that follow that pattern. Other texts with two paragraphs have those three phenomena. The question is if this message translates an experience which is more of a derivative of a thought than submissive to the original experience? Or is it a representation of the actual occurrence, faithful to the intention? I assume the former, but you can decide.

Queneau gives clues more than answers in this text and one might spend a lifetime deciphering this. Whenever I have written in encrypted ways, thoughts would come to me and I would transcribe the thoughts that arrived. It was as if they were from elsewhere as opposed to myself. Maybe this was Queneau process. I do not know.

Plug-It-In

Word Game begins with seven words: Dowry, bayonet, enemy, chapel, atmosphere, Bastille, and correspondence. These words are inserted into the text in ways that re-shape the context of the text while maintaining the original algorithm. “Dowry” is used to connect a daughter who’s father has leadership over the bus company. “Bayonet” is inserted from mention of a man who does not own a bayonet who later attacks his “enemy.” “Chapel” is mentioned to elicit poor behavior on the bus compared to behavior expected in a chapel, also used to describe the “atmosphere,” that was disturbed. He meets a man near “Bastille” who could have told him about the button on his shirt in alternative “correspondence.”

While the words plugged-in add context not present in other prose of this book, the main three-part structure is conserved. Plug-it-in is like a salad. Each added ingredient adds context to the salad while not changing the fact that it is a salad. When one thinks of English, we find that our language is not like water. If you drop a new flavor into water, each droplet would transform the water into a new drink; perhaps this happens with Mandarin. English is left-to-right, not within a container like Mandarin. Insights like these excite understanding of constraints and power within a language. With English, as the eye moves from left-to-right, each word is like a gift. You open each moment one at a time, from the peeling of the wrapper to the experience of its contents.

Word Game tells about powerful people in Paris, danger implying war, and appropriate decorum per circumstance. These contexts are not present in other prose Queneau expresses. Queneau paints layers with each prose piece to the three-part phenomena, which give more detail in a different way towards what is happening with the observer who watched a man who was jostled. Each detail is a ripple in a wave of circumstances which add to the story. Exercises in Style allows the reader to find various ways to tell a story; Queneau gives 99 alternatives, all with micro-details surpassing the 99.

Encrypted language forced the reader to dive into the details to figure the story out. Plug-It-In gives details that the reader doesn’t have to search for and decode to understand the story. Coded language forces the reader to investigate; decoded language allows the reader to examine. Coded language needs the reader to take time to sit with the message. Decoded language needs the reader to take time to comprehend the message.

A major layer of this prose is class. Class is addressed when the dowry and the powerful figure over Paris’ transport system, Monsieur Mariage, are mentioned. The way atmosphere and chapel are invoked references decorum and what is expected on the setting of a bus. “Correspondence” deals with how media should be chosen when given certain messages. In reference to contemporary times, it could have been more appropriate to text, but the expected correspondence of the time this book was in 1947 would probably be different.

Raymond Queneau allows the reader to see how adding words changes the meaning of a story. He maintains the orginal algorithm, while adding detail through a few words. This shows the reader how adding one word can change the meaning of their writing. This exercise can be used to help writers who have writer’s block or writers who simply want a fun exercise to practice their writing for fun. Languages come with constraints and power, pros and cons, uses and limitations. Word Game examines those features.

Logical Analysis

Logical Analysis uses one or a collection of words (no more than nine) to signify the three-part algorithm. It is not encrypted because the narrative can be comprehended, and it is not plug-it-in because there is no word bank. The time of day and the occurrences are addressed in the sentence fragments. Even the people involved were addressed. The signification used to paint the story makes semiotics relevant.

Encrypted language needs to be solved. Logical Analysis is written in a way where you know what is being stated even though every word is not mentioned. This structure is relevant to how much context is needed in a language for the thoughts to make sense. Perhaps I would not have understood this prose if it were the first piece in the book; however, it is understandable as long as you know the three-part algorithm. “Exercises In Style” involves how context is addressed to create meaning.

Plug-It-In is different from semiotic-relevant text because words are not added or removed to create meaning in Logical Analysis. Instead parts of the text are extracted for the reader to piece the story together. In fact, Logical Analysis does not add or take away detail from the algorithm. It is more faithful towards the original three-part steps of the original phenomena of a man being jostled and a man being asked to add a button to his coat.

Imagine an image where you could extract portions of pixels to create a new image, or a puzzle with missing pieces; this is what Logical Analysis does. The reader knows what’s happening and can interact with the text in a clear way. Everything does not need to be stated for you to know the message. Style is about how the writer creates context. Signification in writing is an approach towards doing that. It’s about how much you need to tell to get your story across. It’s about the choice to be concise or ornate in a justified manner. Each prose piece shows a different approach towards doing that. Many lines of the prose are sentence fragments. They are etchings on a canvas.

Semiotics deals with logic. It is about how we make sense of the world. Queneau shows that fewer words can allow one to do that. Each prose piece offers an approach that the reader can choose to use in their writing. No approach is better than another. Instead, writing is about which approach is most appropriate. Fewer words were used in a way that allowed logic to hold together the focus.

Logical Analysis is more on the decoded end than the coded end because the details are there; you just have to get the context. Coded language does not have the scraps of the story. Coded language is own a different fabric of paper. Decoded language uses the same paper grade, the same algorithm, the same structure; the reader simply needs to hold onto the context to ride the wave of the original story.

For the reader, this prose shows how less can be enough. For a writer, this prose shows that you need attention to detail without adding every detail. For language, it shows how you can tell a whole story without every word. Queneau helps us to understand that sentence can be a fragment, yet still be complete. A photographer snaps an angle the way a writer can. Logical Analysis offers evidence to prove this fact—each word its own camera, each comprehensive collection of words its own point of view.

Translation Analysis: Differentiating It

Translation is extracting a part of reality to paint and image. It is about infusing a narrative with another image. Feminine embodies heteronormatively feminine expression to convey the algorithm. It is different from encryption because the message is not coded; instead it pulls from the code of an idea — in this regard, femininity. It is different from plug-it-in because it does not copy-paste word portions into the text. Instead, it pulls from an idea and wraps the text with the concept as opposed to picking words and dropping them into the prose. It is not a semiotic analysis since it deals more with an archetype than it deals with a symbol.

Encryption is coding. Translation is extraction and infusion. Encryption needs to be figured out. Translation tells you what something means. Encryption hides. Translation confesses. Feminine elaborates on the algorithm. Encryption can tell only the three-part detail, but this prose expands. There is no way to know if encryption elaborates, unless you decide its message.

Plug-It-In adds keywords. Translation includes keywords, but the focus is the archetype. Femininity is the archetype in this case. Plug-It-In changes the narrative with its words. Femininity adds to the narrative with its concept. Translation is a point of view. Plug-It-In reimagines the point of view.

Semiotics depends on signs and symbols. Translation includes the main signs from the algorithm to not break from the process, but the translated idea is the focus. Semiotics is stripped to the keywords. Translation fuses the keywords into the archetype. Translation makes the archetype the focus. Semiotics makes the signifiers the focus.

Translation uses the orginal narrative as a frame of reference, not the focus. The frame of reference is the algorithm. The archetype is woven around the frame of reference. Giving up a seat is a gentleman move. The algorithm has taking a seat included in it. Heteronormative cleanliness on a hot day references the “mid-day” of other prose within Exercises in Style. Ungrateful sweat is referenced using time of day. Observations of men in a text focused on observers is invoked in this translation.

Semiotics would have signified male versus female as opposed to telling a story. Plug-It-In would have had a gender word bank instead of having a singular focus. Encrypted language would have needed deciphering instead of being so direct. Semiotics would have revealed definitions of a man. Plug-It-In would have been written with a dictionary as opposed through being written through a narrative. Encrypted language would be illegible on the surface.

Feminine doesn’t make femininity a mystery. It doesn’t make femininity a study. It doesn’t make feminity a symbol. Queneau makes the story too humane to be a signifier. Queneau makes the story too direct to be misunderstood. Queneau makes the story flow too well, without breaks in the passage, to have a word bank.

Feminine explore how writers can be inspired through extracting from reality. We can pull from identity. We can pull from smells. We can pull gentility to inspire our writing. The world is a source of many archetypes and imagery that can inspire the style of our prose. Identity can be negotiation between hard and soft—evoked through language use or phenomena. Smells can reveal setting—environments and contexts. Gentility can inspire softness—in word choice and cadence.

Queneau uses tone to convey a heteronormatively feminine perspective. He also uses sensory responses inspired by the phenomena on the bus’ setting. There is no coding to figure out. The keywords of the algorithm are not the main point, which tells about style in relation to the writer’s focus. Signs and symbols are not the focus of the text. The woman illustrates the text.

Point of View and Animism

Animism offers point of view. Point of view is different from translation because the narrator presents the point of view as opposed to translation where the speaker is more of a medium than a perspective. When a painter paints, the colors convey an idea. A medium is the means by which someone communicates. Femininity is used as a brush strokes on a canvas. Point of view is not a brush stroke; it is the painter. This is the difference. Animism uses a hat as the painter. Feminine uses feminine qualities as the brush strokes. Femininity is the colors; the hat is the voice.

Queneau describes the hat to give the speaker identifiable qualities. The reader does knows if the hat has someone wearing it when the prose mentions so. We know that the hat goes through the same three-part journey as the man in other prose. Telling the story from the perspective of the hat could come off as a way that the public is dismissing the man or it could simply be another approach to style.

Animism is not coded because we know the three steps of the algorithm just from a different perspective. The story is revealed to us rather than us having to search for meaning. The only parts that say otherwise are the ellipses at the end. But even that is not coded. Coding is not about omission. Everything is included in the code to be deciphered. Coding is about the reader searching for the answers. In order to search for answers, they must be present. Point of view can omit because not everyone tells. Codes tell; they just don’t explain.

There isn’t signification in this prose because each detail represents what it states. It doesn’t not give a sign that points elsewhere. What it tells, is what it means. The reader does not have to wonder if one thing is said and another thing is implied. Semiotics can have a sign that means something else. Point of view is more of a camera. We see the perspective of the speaker, in this case a hat. Semiotics is more of a symbol. The hat does not represent the man. The hat is on the man. Something being on something is different from something being something else. The prose states that the hat is on the man. It does not state that the hat is the man. Of the hat were the man, it would reference semiotics.

Plug-It-In would include a word bank or some collection of inserted words to move the prose forward. There are no plugged in words. There is only a point of view from the hat. The hat is on a journey with the man, and the story is told through the hat. The hat is more of a focus than the words. This places imagery over words to drive the prose forward, another reason this is not semiotics. The image of the hat tells the story more than the words tell the story.

The hat is referenced to tell the story. The hat is not a symbol, it is a communicator. The hat is not extracted/translated, it is the means of communication. Translation would be telling the story through wearability, such as wearing air or wearing the crowd or wearing advice. This does not happen. Semiotics would be the hat representing the frustration; this does not happen. Encryption would be the hat being a pall that talks to itself in illegible circumstances; this does not happen. Queneau tells the prose of Animism through a hat. The hat is a narrator, not a symbol.

Punctuation

Exclamations focuses on punctuation, specifically exclamatory statements. Some sentences do not have proper capitalization. Nothing is coded about this text. The punctuation with short sentences add excitement and anxiety to each phrase. The reader starts and stops often. The language is direct and doesn’t use signification that points elsewhere. The story is told with its original algorithm and does not translate an image or phenomena.

Queneau tells each aspect using exclamation points which allow focus for each section of the prose. The style this prose is written in allows the reader to focus on each moment. It’s hard to miss details because the flow is broken and amplified. The imagery feels more intense. The actions feel more striking. “time for the bus” invites the reader into the experience. It makes the reader feel like they have a bus to catch. “charge” feels like a command the reader is watching as if the reader is watching a sports event play out. Exclamatory remarks draw the reader in, helps the reader to focus, and charges each word with energy.

Grammatical Terms

Parts of speech pull key words from the prose and is best understood by knowing the context of the prose. It is not plug-it-in because it does not inject a word bank into the prose; instead, it uses words already present in the narrative. It is not coded since it uses original text. It is signified, but not semiotic since it uses original text as opposed to new text that signifies other, different ideas. The punctuation tells the end of each data entry. It is not translation since it does not convey a new idea.

Literary Device

Negativities is closest to plug-it-in but does not have a word bank since only one type of word is plugged in (negation terms—nor, no, neither). It uses the literary device of negation. It does not use text that signifies other terms outside of the original meaning. The prose is direct; it is not coded. Another idea is not translated.

Form

Haiku is a form. Form in poetry is an approach, a literary structure. Haiku has a 5-7-5 syllable format. Queneau does not translate from another idea. He does not code the message, but does use key words. He sticks to the original algorithm. He does not plug-in new words. There is no punctuation. Neither literary devices or grammatical terms are a focus.