Comfort rereading that has turned into new pleasure

It is hayfever season. Mother nature loves me not. The blanket of pollen intermingles with the heat haze and filters the sun on what is the third hot day of summer in a broken week of weather. And me, (ah, me, says the navel-gazer) I reside in rooms with the drapes still pulled, athwart a pile of books: an anonymous blue inhaler by my side.

And first of these books athwart which I'm sitting is Raymond Queneau's 'Zazie in the Metro'.



Now, if like me you read it as a teenager, it has pleasures anew from an adult perspective. Barbara Wright's translation is probably required for native English speakers: I'm pretty certain the colloquial and slang Parisian French of the late fifties is well beyond my ken. But I'd recommend it as a short read, without hesitation.