Response to We Always Treat Women Too Well

Similar to what Anatasia had mentioned, there were points in this story story at which I had the creeping suspicion that it was written by somebody with split personality disorder. Much of the story is filled with intricate phrasing and creative descriptions that seem to simultaneously contort and clarify the meaning of the what was being conveyed, and at the same time there were many sections that were composed of short, powerful prose. For instance, Queneau spent about a page and a half just conveying the fact that Callinan had decided to screw Gertie, whereas he dedicated proportionally less time to other similarly meaningful events such as the death of the postmaster. So in this sense Queneau's style can be described as being polymorphic and not entirely unified throughout. However, this strategy seemed to break up the story in a way that made it a very interesting read. Perhaps the fact that he was writing this story under a woman's name somehow subconsciously (or consciously) changed the way he went about writing the story.

The way Queneau wrote this creates a lot of confusion. As I just mentioned, it is simultaneously a very busy piece of writing as well as a minimalist work. Aside from this though, the way he phrases things just causes a bit of confusion. For example, the last paragraph on pg. 45 where the narrator is using a series of synonymous translations of words from various languages to describe the actions taken by Caffrey and how his "intuition" led him to these actions causes the reader to do a double take.

The purposeful and “tricky” wording, however, adds a lot of depth to the writing. It makes the reader realize that there is more than one way to go about saying something and that no one way is really ideal. This idea can be related to the topic of this story, which is revolution. A revolution is not like any other type of war in that it is more random and less planned out than a “classic” war, but at the same time more passion goes into fighting it because its soldiers must have deep passion for it to exist in the first place. This randomness and disorder presents a great variety of options for the revolutionaries to take. This is much the same as how an author of an interesting work of literature has many options when describing events and ideas.

As Jazmyn pointed out, even the conflicts in this story seem to be split into two opposing factions, and the soldiers' need to be correct in the context of a rebellious desire is a great example. This represents the characters' attempts to make order out of the disorder that lies before them. The style in which this story was written brings up very similar dilemmas.

One of my favorite passages in this story was “During the whole of this time she had been thinking of nothing. Absolutely nothing. Next she reflected, in fragmentary fashion, on what was going to happen. She was at a loss for elements to nourish her fear. Therefore what she was experiencing wasn't exactly fear. Not precisely fear. She was aware that the near future would go far beyond her imagination.” To me this is the perfect description of the shock that accompanies impending doom. This is so true - when a person knows that something terrible is about to happen the first reaction is that everything goes blank and there is no way to even feel a fear response. However, this passage is also an example of the minimalist writing that Queneau did in this story. Nonetheless, it accomplishes the goal of description quite well. If it was more complex it would not convey the raw emotion that was felt as well, as this raw emotion itself was quite minimalist by nature.

Fittingly when Queneau is describing a more complex emotion such as lust, he switches to his abstract and ultra-descriptive style of writing. “As for Callinan, who was a bachelor, he knew little of the blandishments preliminary to the radical act, never having hunted anything other than fubsy totties, or slatterns harvested on piles of hay or tavern tables still greasy with everything. He found his caress hard to bear, therefore, and began to forsee that this series of gestures would lead to a quite different conclusion than from that of an honest refusal. But where would this conclusion take place? - that was what he was asking himself, now that he had found himself in extremis. He still had one penultimate scruple: the social level of his Iphigenia, and then one ultimate one: the girl's virginity.” Looking back at the scene with Callinan and Gertie it is clear that Queneau uses his varying styles with some purpose and this last passage was a great example. It was written with a much deeper level of language and emotion because it was needed to describe a situation that was inherently more complex than something such as the emotions that Gertie felt when she realized she had been discovered. Queaneau's style is not entirely as random and disordered as it may seem, and this is a large part of what made We Always Treat Women Too Well such an interesting read.

One last (semi-unrelated) thing I'd like to bring up is that I looked up the phrase "finnegan's wake." After a quick googling I found that it was a humorous literary work that was known for having a very enigmatic style - a characteristic that I think led to it being chosen as the catchphrase for the Irish Revolutionaries in this story. Does anyone know if this was an actual slogan that was used by the IRA or if it was something that Queneau made up? It wouldn't surprise me if it was made up as it lends itself well to Queneau's own style.