By RAYMOND ROUSSEL (New Directions; 1914/2017)

You whippersnappers don’t know how lucky you are, as Rupert Copeland Cunningham’s translation of LOCUS SOLUS, arguably the masterpiece of France’s Raymond Roussel (1877-1933), is now readily available. Speaking as one who spent much of the nineties trying to track down the long out-of-print first edition, I can attest that this wasn’t always so.

TRIBUTE TO RAYMOND ROUSSEL, Music by Debussy, Clair de lune

Roussel’s previous novel IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA remains one of the most astonishing displays of unfettered imagination I’ve ever experienced, and LOCUS SOLUS, his second and final novel, offers up an even greater quotient of sheer invention.  It details a walk by several folk through Locus Solus, the highly expansive estate of Martial Canterel, a scientist who’s packed the grounds with a wealth of incredible displays and performances.  Yes, that’s really all there is to this book plot-wise, but it turns out to be more than enough, as upon finishing LOCUS SOLUS I felt as if I’d speed read WAR AND PEACE.

The marvels displayed in Locus Solus include a tool with a mechanical hand that, inspired by fluctuations in the weather, creates a vast mosaic of human teeth; an aquarium filled with breathable water wherein seahorses representing famous figures drop to the bottom and rise to the surface, and a woman with musical hair frolics alongside the decomposing head of Danton, which is inspired by a skinned cat with a bullhorn to recite famous speeches; a giant glass cage housing several corpses under the influence of a drug that allows them to relive important episodes from their lives; and a chicken with a growth in its throat causing it to spit blood in the form of words.

As in IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA, Roussel describes these marvels and then provides lengthier passages detailing their back stories, which are often more outlandish than the resulting exhibits. Unlike IMPRESSIONS, which grouped the explanations for its wondrous events into a lengthy mid-book passage, LOCUS SOLUS offers up its backstories in a periodic need-to-know manner, which has the effect of honing an unwieldy narrative.

The disarmingly detached, controlled prose was based on eccentric principles of composition (outlined in Roussell’s nonfiction volume HOW I WROTE CERTAIN OF MY BOOKS) that don’t register in the English translation (strong though it is). Luckily the subject matter, particularly in the section with the reanimated corpses, holds the reader’s attention.

I think it’s safe to say that nobody has ever written anything remotely like this delirious celebration of irrationality and imagination. LOCUS SOLUS remains one of the few books that are truly indispensable, whether you know about it or not—and now, at least, it’s easily findable.

See Also: IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA