French Laughter

Literary Humour from Diderot to Tournier

Walter Redfern author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:21st Feb '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

French Laughter cover

The culmination of a lifetime's fascination with humour in all its forms, this book is the first in any language to embrace such an impressive span of authors and such a broad range of topics in French literary humour. In nine wide-ranging chapters Walter Redfern considers diverse writers and topics, including: Diderot, viewed as a laughing philosopher, mainly through his fiction (Les Bijoux indiscrets, Le Neeu de Rameau, and Jacques le fataliste); humourlessness, corraling Rousseau, Sade, the Christian God, and Jean-Pierre Brisset; the aesthete Huysmans, in both his avatars, Symbolist and Naturalist (A Rebours, Sac au dos, and other texts); the dramatic use of parrots by Flaubert, Queneau, and Beckett; Vallès and la blague; exaggeration in Vallès and Céline (Mort à credit and L'Enfant); the fiction, plays, and autobiography of Sartre; bad jokes in Beckett; wordplay in Tournier's fiction (especially Roi des aulnes and Les Météores). Five interleaved 'riffs' on laughter, dreams, black humour, politics, and taste, carry the enquiry into questions of humour outside of the purely French context, enhancing a book that impresses as much with its vivacity of style as with the breadth and depth of its scholarship.

French Laughter romps through four centuries of literary humour with much wit and word-play along the way... this [is an] impressive and adventurous book. * Forum for Modern Language Studies *
Some excellent insights. * David Coward, TLS *
Redfern's book yomps joyously through many kinds of comedy...Un Drole de livre, in all the best senses. * Steven Poole. The Guardian *
an idiosyncratic but wise excursion into the delightful topic of humour in French writing. * Simon Davies, MLR *
this is a splendidly refreshing and iconoclastic book, which deserves to be prescribed as frequently as the famous 'pilules Pink, pour personnes pâles'. * Toby Garfitt, Modern & Contemporary France *
[an] insightful analysis of the use of humour by various luminaries of the French literary world, including Diderot, Flaubert and Rousseau, offers a highly thought-provoking study that many will find fascinating. * French Magazine *
few academics these days are equipped to embellish their work with the erudition, verve, and irreverence that are his hallmarks * David Platten, French Studies *
a welcome companion
An excellent jaunt. * Christie Davis. Times Higher Education *

ISBN: 9780199237579

Dimensions: 223mm x 146mm x 19mm

Weight: 443g

256 pages