Miles Kington: There is more than one way to tell a simple story
16th Nov 2006, 13:24 GMT
In 1947 the French novelist Raymond Queneau did something that no other writer has ever done, I think. He wrote a theme and variations. Ninety-nine variations, to be precise. The book was called Exercices de Style. The theme was a scrap of story about a man getting on a bus and arguing with a fellow passenger, then reappearing an hour later in another part of Paris discussing a missing button on his overcoat. That's it. Twenty lines at most. And Queneau then retells the story 99 different ways.
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