Locus Solus - Softcover

Roussel, Raymond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081122645X ISBN 13: 9780811226455

Publisher: New Directions, 2017

Synopsis

An intoxicating sui generis novel by “the greatest mesmerist of modern times” (André Breton)

The wealthy scientist Martial Canterel guides a group of visitors through his expansive estate, Locus Solus, where he displays his various deranged inventions, each more spectacular than the last. First, he introduces a machine propelled by the weather, which constructs a mosaic out of varying hues of human teeth, then shows a hairless cat charged with a powerful electric battery, and next a bizarre theater in which corpses are reanimated with a special serum to enact the most important movements of their past lives. Wondrously imaginative and narrated with Roussel’s deadpan wit,Locus Solusis unlike anything else ever written.

About this title

About the Author:

Raymond Roussel was born into a wealthy Parisian family in 1877 and died in a hotel room in Palermo in 1933. His works have influenced such artists and writers as Marcel Duchamp (“Roussel showed me the way”), Alberto Giacometti, Kenneth Koch, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Leonardo Sciascia, Paul Auster, Georges Perec, and Jim Jarmusch.

Language Notes:

Text: English, French (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 081122645X
• ISBN 13: 9780811226455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256