Dec 24, 2009

The Bark Tree | The Bark Tree

At a glance:

Author: Raymond Queneau
First Published: 1933
Type of Work: Antistory
Time of Work: The early twentieth century
Setting: The outskirts of Paris
Principal Characters: Mme Cloche, Bebe Toutout, Old Taupe, Ernestine, Etienne Marcel, Theo, Pierre Le Grand, Narcense, Saturnin Belhotel
Genres: Long fiction, Antistory
Subjects: Twentieth century, Alienation, Paris, Violence, War, Death or dying, Adventure, Gossip
Locales: Paris, France

The Novel

Raymond Queneau’s The Bark Tree is among the first antinovels and,as such, neither attempts to tell a carefully plotted story with beginning,middle, and end, nor strives to be coherent. In addition, it does not include well-developed characters or offer readers any moral or philosophical conclusion about life. The Bark Tree should be considered as an energetic, vibrant assault on convention, in which people are either things or real human beings. In many ways, the novel is a sustained joke about the random, precarious lives people lead and the...

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The Bark Tree | The Bark Tree

At a glance:

The Novel

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