Impressions of Africa
Raymond Roussel
Dalkey Archive Press
<P>In a mythical African land, some shipwrecked and uniquely talented passengers stage a grand gala to entertain themselves and their captor, the great chieftain Talou. In performance after bizarre performance--starring, among others, a zither-playing worm, a marksman who can peel an egg at fifty yards, a railway car that rolls on calves' lungs, and fabulous machines that paint, weave, and compose music--Raymond Roussel demonstrates why it is that André Breton termed him "the greatest mesmerizer of modern times." But even more remarkable than the mind-bending events Roussel details--as well as their outlandish, touching, or tawdry backstories--is the principle behind the novel's genesis, a complex system of puns and double-entendres that anticipated (and helped inspire) such movements as Surrealism and Oulipo. Newly translated and with an introduction by Mark Polizzotti, this edition of  <i>Impressions of Africa</i> vividly restores the humor, linguistic legerdemain, and conceptual wonder of Raymond Roussel's magnum opus.</P>