Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
well, superficially, it's a pun : "i wonder why so many café waiters are called "descartes" ?" Descartes = des cartes (playing cards, which you ask the waiter for to play cards in the café). on a meta level, Queneau was quite interested in Descartes (the philosopher) and studied him quite extensively, and this was his subversive way of slipping an overt reference via a thoroughly un-intellectual joke into a novel which he intended as a litterary illustration of Descartes "Discours de la méthode". so you can add a tacit second-degree "wink wink, nudge nudge" to the (superfically rather terrible) joke.
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You see, when you explain jokes, they just stop being funny...
