Les Derniers jours: Roman (The Last Days: Novel)

Raymond Queneau’s introspective novel The Last Days puts Paris’s 1920s cafe culture under the microscope. With his usual semi-autobiographical style, Queneau’s story follows an aimless philosophy student and a cafe waiter who can seemingly predict the future.

Queneau was inspired by mathematics and logic (as seen in his novel Odile, which Mary Reynolds also rebound), and fictionalized himself into characters with the obsessive desire to solve pressing questions. The student and the oracle waiter characters in The Last Days act as projections of Queneau’s own inner conflicts.

The binding’s cover is made of dense black calfskin leather accented with bands down the spine. The title and author are stamped in gold between the bands, and the publication year is included at the very bottom of the spine, giving the book a traditional appearance. Once opened, however, the reader is greeted with vibrant blue endpapers that resemble microorganisms that can only be seen with a microscope.