Raymond Queneau's- Story As you Like It

The author, Raymond Queneau develops an interesting rubric in telling his story that I have not seen in any of the literature that I have read in the past. His style used in this story was confusing at first, because I did not understand his method and/or reasoning for structuring his story the way he did. However, Queneau’s story is a funny and interesting one as he uses vegetation that possess human feelings and concerns as his main characters to portray his message. Thus, as I read each of the three scenarios/options between the three alert peas, the three big skinny beanpoles and the three middling mediocre bushes, I could not help but make a correlation to the current situation that I am faced with as I approach college graduation. We are given a choice after each line in the story to either continue with the current view or to switch paths and read the same story but with a different result and point of view of another group of characters. As in life many of the choices we make have different outcomes and provide different futures and circumstances, some as consequences (negative) and others as fortunes (positive). The author provides us with options in reading the story. It is solely our decision on how we as people want to deal with different situations and how to live our lives. As if I am on the eve of graduation, I am constantly trying to determine which path I want to proceed with as I scrutinize each scenario and determine which path if chosen will possibly lead me to where I ultimately want to be in my life. Of course it is impossible to tell the future ten years from now, but to provide myself with a plan and to have the control and leniency to make my own choices to provide myself with the opportunity to be successful in ten years is the ultimate goal.

I enjoyed the story outright as I enjoy reading stories that have an underlying message and force me to think etc. I hope to not seem to farfetched in my reasoning for my correlation, but we control our destiny and we have choices to make that shape our future, not just a year from now, but our future a minute from now, an hour, a day, a week, a month, etc. Life changes with our choices as the story did. When we made the choice to read about the three middling mediocre bushes a different outcome resulted and gave us a different story than the other two paths.

I came to this correlation, because I feel that this course encourages us to think and develop a sense of direction as most of us as seniors prepare to disembark from college and begin the next stage of our lives. Hence, this reading seems very appropriate as it accords with this goal and current situation in our lives as Binghamton University seniors.