Although it is not directly derivative, Cette Voix bears the stamp of much that was creative in experimental, surrealist writing of the twenties. Pinget's prose abounds in hilarious malapropisms, expresses a delightful taste for the incongruous and the unexpected, and unfolds through a process of automatic writing, disciplined and focused by exhaustive reworking. There is no plot in the novel. Nor are there well-defined characters. Rather a voice or a series of voices rambles on about a variety of subjects with no apparent orderly progression. As in the theories of transformational grammarians, a small number of generative sentences evolve into an ever-changing verbal flow that follows rhythms and patterns of its own…. What could have been a dry, stylistic exercise is brought to life by weaving in strands of speech patterns and observations of small town life picked up "sur le vif." (pp. 641-42)

The goal of Cette...