Exercises in Style (), written by Raymond Queneau, is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. In each, the narrator gets on the "S" bus (now no. 84), witnesses an altercation between a man (a zazou) with a long neck and funny hat and another passenger, and then sees the same person two hours later at the Gare St-Lazare getting advice on adding a button to his overcoat. The literary variations recall the famous 33rd chapter of the 1512 rhetorical guide by Desiderius Erasmus, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style.
Translations
The book has been translated into the following languages: English by Barbara Wright (1958); reprinted with 28 additional exercises (by Queneau) translated by Chris Clarke and 10 new exercises written in homage (New Directions, 2013) Serbian by Danilo Kiš (1964) German by Ludwig Harig and Eugen Helmlé (1974) and by Frank Heibert and Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel (2016) Dutch by Rudy Kousbroek (1978) Italian by Umberto Eco (1983) Greek by Achilleas Kyriakides (1984) Czech by Patrik Ouředník (1985) Esperanto by István Ertl (1986) Swedish by Lars Hagström (1987) Hungarian by Róbert Bognár (1988) Catalan by Annie Bats and Ramon Lladó (1989) Finnish by Pentti Salmenranta (1991) Danish by Otto Jul Pedersen (1994) Slovene by Aleš Berger (1994) Brazilian Portuguese by Luiz Resende (1995) Galician by Henrique Harguindey Banet and Xosé Manuel Pazos Varela (1995) Japanese by Asahina Koji (1996) Norwegian by Ragnar Hovland (1996) Spanish by Antonio Fernández Ferrer (1996) Russian by V. A. Petrov ed. (1998) European Portuguese by Helena Agarez Medeiros ed. (2000) Turkish by Armağan Ekici (2003) Zurich German by Felix E.Wyss (2004) Macedonian by Elizabeta Trpkovska (2005) Polish by Jan Gondowicz (2005) Basque by Xabier Olarra (2006) Romanian by Romulus Bucur ed. (2006) Ukrainian by Yaroslav Koval' and Yuriy Lisenko (the poems by Yurka Pozayaka) (2006) Bulgarian by Vasil Sotirov and Elena Tomalevska (2007) Estonian by Triinu Tamm and Jana Porila (2007) Croatian by Vladimir Gerić (2008) Traditional Chinese by Tan-Ying Chou (2016) Hebrew by Rotem Atar (2016) Lithuanian by Akvilė Melkūnaitė (2016) Korean by Jae-Ryong Cho (2020) Because, by their nature, the various retellings of the story employ fine subtleties of the French language, translations into these other languages are adaptations as well as being translations.
Styles employed
The English translation by Barbara Wright (reprinted in paperback in 1981) consists of the tale retold in the following 'styles', where the original has been adapted (rather than translated) the original title is given in italics following :-