Locus Solus

Based, like the earlier Impressions of Africa, on uniquely eccentric principles of composition, this book invites the reader to enter a world which in its innocence and extravagance is unlike anything in the literature of the twentieth century.

Cantarel, a scholarly scientist, whose enormous wealth imposes no limits upon his prolific ingenuity, is taking a group of visitors on a tour of "Locus Solus", his secluded estate near Paris. One by one he introduces, demonstrates and expounds the discoveries and inventions of his fertile, encyclopaedic mind. An African mud-sculpture representing a naked child; a road-mender's tool which, when activated by the weather, creates a mosaic of human teeth; a vast aquarium in which humans can breathe and in which a depilated cat is seen stimulating the partially decomposed head of Danton to fresh flights of oratory. By each item in Cantarel's exhibition there hangs a tale - a tale such as only that esteemed genius Roussel could tell. As the inventions become more elaborate, the richness and brilliance of the author's stories grow to match them; the flow of his imagination becomes a flood and the reader is swept along in a torrent of wonder and hilarity.

Bazata, ca si Impresiile anterioare ale Africii, pe principii excentrice de compozitie, aceasta carte invita cititorul sa intre intr-o lume care, prin inocenta si extravaganta sa, este diferita de orice in literatura secolului al XX-lea. Cantarel, un om de stiinta savant, al carui enorm bogatia nu impune limite ingeniozitatii sale prolifice, duce un grup de vizitatori la un tur al „Locus Solus”, mosia sa retrasa de langa Paris.