Raymond Roussel

Locus Solus

Canterel, a scholarly scientist whose enormous wealth imposes no limits upon his prolific ingenuity, is showing a group of visitors round Locus Solus, his secluded estate near Paris. One by one he introduces, demonstrates and expounds the discoveries and inventions of his fertile, encyclopaedic mind. An African mud-sculpture representing a naked child, a road-mender's tool which, activated by the weather, creates a mosaic of human teeth, a vast aquarium in which human beings can breathe and in which a depilated cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Danton to fresh flights of oratory - by each item in Canterel's exhibition there hangs a tale, a tale such as only that amazing genius Roussel, one of the founding fathers of the modern novel, could tell. As Canterel's devices become more and more elaborate, the richness and brilliance of Roussel's stories grow to match them; the flow of his imagination becomes a flood, until the reader finds himself swept along in a torrent of mingled wonder and hilarity. Locus Solus, first published in 1914, is perhaps Roussel's most perfect masterpiece. Based, like the earlier Impressions of Africa, on uniquely eccentric principles of composition (which the interested reader will find outlined in Rayner Heppenstall's Raymond Roussel), this book invites the reader to enter a very special world of the imagination, a hauntingly unforgettable world which in its innocence, extravagance and deep reasonableness is unlike anything in the literature of the twentieth century.

Impressions of Africa (French Surrealism)

Based on uniquely eccentric principles of composition, this book invites the reader to enter a world which, in its innocence and extravagance, is unlike anything in the literature of the 20th century Cantarel, a scholarly scientist, whose enormous wealth imposes no limits upon his prolific ingenuity, is taking a group of visitors on a tour of "Locus Solus," his secluded estate near Paris. One by one he introduces, demonstrates, and expounds the discoveries and inventions of his fertile, encyclopedic mind. An African mud sculpture representing a naked child; a road-mender's tool which, when activated by the weather, creates a mosaic of human teeth; a vast aquarium in which humans can breathe and in which a hairless cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Georges Danton to fresh flights of oratory. By each item in Cantarel's exhibition there hangs a tale—a tale only Roussel could tell. As the inventions become more elaborate, the richness and brilliance of the author's stories grow to match them; the flow of his imagination becomes a flood and the reader is swept along in a torrent of wonder and hilarity.

La vista

Rupert Copeland Cuningham

Based on uniquely eccentric principles of composition, this book invites the reader to enter a world which, in its innocence and extravagance, is unlike anything in the literature of the twentieth century Cantarel, a scholarly scientist, whose enormous wealth imposes no limits upon his prolific ingenuity, is taking a group of visitors on a tour of "Locus Solus," his secluded estate near Paris. One by one he introduces, demonstrates, and expounds the discoveries and inventions of his fertile, encyclopedic mind. An African mud-sculpture representing a naked child; a road-mender's tool which, when activated by the weather, creates a mosaic of human teeth; a vast aquarium in which humans can breathe and in which a hairless cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Georges Danton to fresh flights of oratory. By each item in Cantarel's exhibition there hangs a tale—a tale only Roussel could tell. As the inventions become more elaborate, the richness and brilliance of the author's stories grow to match them; the flow of his imagination becomes a flood and the reader is swept along in a torrent of wonder and hilarity.

The first of Roussel's two major prose works, Impressions of Africa is not, as the title may suggest, a conventional travel account, but an adventure story put together in a highly individual fashion and with an unusual time sequence, whereby the reader is even made to choose whether to begin with the first or the tenth chapter. A veritable literary melting pot, Roussel's groundbreaking text makes ample use of wordplay and the surrealist techniques of automatic writing and private allusion.

Impressions of Africa

Impresiones de África

Locus Solus (grands caractères)

LIFE, DEATH & WORKS ATLAS ANTHOLOGY FOUR A collection of essays on the life and works of Roussel with contributions by Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Michel Leiris, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Leonardo Sciascia, and many others.

Life, Death, and Works : Essays and Stories

Locus solus

Oeuvres complètes Tome 4

Fiction. Short Stories. Translated from the French by Mark Ford. Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) is one of the most distinctive and compelling French writers of the twentieth century, yet many aspects of Roussel's life remain shrouded in mystery. An extremely wealthy and always exquisitely dressed homosexual dandy, Roussel was also a compulsive writer. Despite the strangeness of his work, he was convinced that it would make him as popular as Victor Hugo or Shakespeare. His suicide at the age of 56 was in part prompted by the continual disappointment of his hopes for fame. The full extent of Roussel's writing only became clear in 1989 when a trunk was unearthed in a furniture warehouse containing a vast trove of his manuscripts. The most exciting discoveries were the full draft of Locus Solus (over twice as long as the published version) and the typescript of what would have been his third novel, THE ALLEY OF FIREFLIES, which is translated here for the first time into English by the leading Roussel scholar, Mark Ford. Ford has also translated two haunting extracts from the drafts of Locus Solus, and versions of two of the young Roussel's most intriguing short stories, Chiquenaude and AMONG THE BLACKS. Roussel's work was vociferously championed by Surrealist writers and painters such as André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalì, and later proved a significant influence on Oulipians (particularly Georges Perec), on nouveaux romanciers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, as well as on John Ashbery and Harry Mathews, who named their pioneering magazine of the 1960s Locus Solus, after Roussel's second novel.

The Alley of Fireflies and Other Stories

Patrick Besnier

João Fernandes

Impressões de Raymond Roussel

Isabel Soto López

Xavier Senín

Ligaran,

Extrait : "Ce jeudi de commençant avril, mon savant ami le maître Martial Canterel m'avait convié, avec quelques autres de ses intimes, à visiter l'immense parc environnant sa belle villa de Montmorency."

Raymond Roussel

About

Books

Join the club