Locus Solus: Raymond Roussel - Softcover

Roussel, Raymond

 
9780714544564: Locus Solus: Raymond Roussel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0714544566 ISBN 13: 9780714544564
Publisher: Calder Publications, 2017

Synopsis

Based, 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 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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Raymond Roussel (Paris, January 20, 1877 - Palermo, July 14, 1933) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, chess enthusiast, neurasthenic, and drug addict. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th-century French literature, including the Surrealists, Oulipo, and the authors of the nouveau roman.

From the Back Cover

Based, 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 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.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Calder Publications
Publication date
2017
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0714544566
ISBN 13 
9780714544564
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
224

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780714507347: Locus Solus

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0714507342 ISBN 13:  9780714507347
Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd, 1983
Softcover