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The first critical study of Roussel in English - designed to accompany the first published translations of Roussel.DARK HORSEY SAYS- A distant, wealthy & very eccentric cousin of Marcel Proust, Roussel 's influence has grown since the spectacular & scandalous failure of his various plays (attended & cheered by the Surrealists - whom he himself never understood) & the failure of ghis novels & poems to sell past double figures. Roussel is a patron saint of the Surrealist movement & of the Ou Li Po & a major influence on major writers - such as Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, John Ashbery, Harry Mathews, Georges Perec. A work of fiction, Roussel believed, should be a pure product of the imagination. Jules Verne was Roussel's own chosen master, but Roussel's methods add extraordinary complexity to the feel of the works & to our experience of them.Roussel came to Melbourne but, as was usual on both his world trips, he hardly left his hotel room. Typically, he liked the idea of a tram trip being able to get him to either Mentone or Scarborough in just a half hour or so (separated as they were in the Old World by the English channel). Roussel was in part looking for a cure for baldness. He invented his own mobile home. He never wore shirts more than twice & always looked a picture. Intrigued? |
