Description
Book SynopsisBased, like the earlier Impressions of Africa, 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, encyclopaedic 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 depilated cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Danton to fresh flights of oratory. By each item in Cantarel''s exhibition there hangs a tale - a tale such as only that esteemed genius Roussel could tell. As the inventions
Trade ReviewAn experience unique in literature -- John Ashbery An imagination which joins the mathematician's delirium to the poet's logic - this, among other marvels, is what one discovers in the novels of Raymond Roussel. -- Raymond Queneau Genius in its pure state. -- Jean Cocteau My fame will outshine that of Victor Hugo or Napoleon. -- Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel belongs to the most important French literature of the beginning of the century. -- Alain Robbe-Grillet The greatest mesmerist of modern times -- Andre Breton Things, words, vision and death, the sun and language make a unique form ... Roussel in some way has defined its geometry -- Michel Foucault
