The choose your own adventure feel of Queneau's piece is definitely something unique; however, while the piece does act to represent this in a basal nature, there is far more at play here than first meets the eyes. Queneau deconstructs this idea, and in doing so, puts the reader at the foreground of the story. In essence, he provides an opportunity for one to see that the reader always stands paramount. Without the reader, there is no story, no book, for there is no one to interpret it; it merely remains a tome, the writings of a madman who no one will take the time to read.
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I read Raymond Queneau’s A Story as You Like It, at first I as a tad bit confused. But as I read it I found it amusing and it made me think of how people really think. It was like selective listening, or I guess in this case selective reading. I don’t mean to assume, but I feel like the author, Queneau was making a commentary on people and how they read/take in stories. It’s like as humans we read what we want to read, and we pay attention to what we want to attention to. Readers and people who listen to the stories are what make the stories come alive. Without an audience or reader(s) the story does not get passed along or down, but also it will not get changed. Reading the story, there were some options that allowed you to change to change various details in the stories, and then there were other parts that stayed the same. It reminded me of the game telephone, where things evolve as you pass it on. But I’m not sure; I may be a little of and on a tangent. But I did enjoy the story, I giggled a bit.
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