Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams [Hardcover]

Mark Ford (Author), John Ashbery (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2000

Raymond Roussel's poetry, novels and plays have had a significant influence on the work of many of the 20th century's writers. This account of Roussel's life and oeuvre traces the evolution of his bizarre compositional methods, and shows the idiosyncracies of his structured life.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

All but the most widely read students of the linguistic experiments of the past century will probably encounter Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) for the first time in poet Ford's (Landlocked) new biography. Ford's central proposition in this economical study is simply that his subject's writing is worth discovering. Roussel's success even in France has been minimal, though the list of highly acclaimed artists on both sides of the Atlantic who cherish his esoteric concoctions is impressive, including surrealists such as Andr? Breton and Salvador Dal!, along with Jean Cocteau and Alain Robbe-Grilletand, Manhattan School poets John Ashbery (who writes the preface to this volume) and Kenneth Koch. Roussel's compositional technique, which he dubbed his proc?d?, generated a structure for the plots and images of his writing in much the same way that meter and rhyme control the arrangement of words in a sonnet. The author's goal was to create art that retained utterly no relation to the physical world. By exploiting the double meanings and shifting associations inherent in language, his proc?d? defined the laws of an insular universe. Ford neatly exposes the hidden machinations that produced Roussel's jumbled texts, while credibly linking his literary seclusion with the social isolation that his excessive wealth, clandestine homosexuality and delusional ambitions engendered. Roussel believed from his youth that he was destined for immediate and widespread recognition, a conviction that eroded in the face of his numerous and spectacular failures. However, through Ford's focused interpretation, the reader may appreciate the vivacity of Roussel's grotesque verbal sculptures, which contain a seemingly infinite proliferation of potential meanings.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (November 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801438640
• ISBN-13: 978-0801438646
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #661,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No one's reviewed this?, October 6, 2005

By 

D. B. Visel (Queens, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams (Hardcover)

Just a quick note to say that this is a lovely & well written biography of Raymond Roussel in English which neatly complements the one by François Caradec, which is also well worth getting. Ford's includes information on texts discovered since Caradec's biography was written; it's slightly more text-based than Roussel's more biographical study. But anything on Roussel in English makes me deliriously happy . . .