The Last Days

Parisian student life in the 1920s and Queneau's own intellectual maturation (he was a founding member of Oulipo) inspired this tale of three adults facing old age, three students doomed to military service and one philosopher/waiter central to their six destinies. PW called this ``beguiling. . . . Queneau's literary infractions . . . are not for the sake of novelty but for the sake of the novel.'' (Aug.)