Description:
Raymond Roussel, one of the most outlandishly compelling literary figures of modern times, died in mysterious circumstances at the age of fifty-six in 1933. The story Mark Ford tells about Roussel's life and work is at once captivating, heartbreaking...
Brief description: Mark Ford's poetry has been praised by Helen Vendler and John Bayley, among others, and by leading poets in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. Ford is a Lecturer in English Literature at University College London. John Ashbery's books of poetry have won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Review Quotes:
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.... Through Ford's focused interpretations, the reader may appreciate the vivacity of Roussel's grotesque verbal sculptures, which contain a seemingly infinite proliferation of potential meanings.
-- "Publishers Weekly"