The Flight of Icarus: Novel
Raymond Queneau's novel is written as seventy-four short theatrical scenes. A novelist realizes that his protagonist, Icarus, has walked out of the manuscript and into 1890s Paris, prompting a small epidemic of fictional characters who refuse to stay on the page. The scenes are brief enough to read like vaudeville turns, each one undercutting the novelist's claim to be in charge. Queneau parodies Pirandello and the nouveau roman without committing to either, keeping the metafiction brisk, comic, and slightly cruel.New Directions' edition suits the book's playful, genre-resistant spirit. It is a novel about the unreliability of authors, the stubbornness of characters, and the ease with which paper people become more vivid than their makers. For readers who have suspected that fictional people sometimes know themselves better than their authors do.
