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Teenage girl Zazie comes to Paris for the first time to stay with her Uncle Gabriel, a dancer in a drag act, for a few days. Her ambition is to go on the Metro but it has been closed by a strike. She embarks upon a picaresque among the ordinary folk of the city.
The novel is distinguished by a remarkable vocabulary. I was reading in translation so I don't exactly know what Queneau was doing but the translator twists the language used. For example, the novel's first word is "Howcanaystinksotho" which I translated as 'How can they stink so though?' as Gabriel protects himself from the collective odour of his fellow Parisians using a handkerchief drenched in perfume. From this moment on we embark upon a voyage through a neologistic paradise. Added to this bizarre word-play is a set of descriptions which give a freshness to concepts. For example, a wife's husband is described as "the one legally entitled to mount her" (Ch 1). All this adds up to a story told in hugely original prose. But you have to concentrate and that can be quite exhausting.
Other neologisms too many to list but including eg):
- boko = nose
- tsgo = let's go; there's a lot of this sort of thing, such as "Ida know" for 'I don't know'.
- Exetra = etc
- orama = view (as in panorama)
- hormosessual = homosexual
- “Superb skyscrapers four or five storeys high lined a sumptuous avenue on the pavement of which verminous street-stalls were jostling one another.” (Ch 4)
- “They fitted like a cross between a glove and a dream.” (Ch 6)
- “I wonder why people think of the city of Paris as a woman. With a thing ike that. Before they put it up, perhaps.” (Ch 8): They’re looking at the Eiffel Tower
- “Open wide your peepers, clots and clottesses.” (Ch 9)
- “One is wont to drink soft drinks of strong colour and strong drinks of pale colour.” (Ch 12)
- “The two fops lapsed into collapse.” (Ch 17)
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