New Impressions of Africa (Atlas Anti-Classics 13)

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New Impressions of Africa (Atlas Anti-Classics 13)

by Raymond Roussel, H.-A.. Zo (Illustrator), Ian Monk (Translator, Introduction), Harry Mathews (Assistance)

4.79 of 5 stars 4.79 · rating details · 28 ratings · 7 reviews

Poet, novelist, playwright, and chess enthusiast, Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) was one of the French belle époque's most compelling literary figures. During his lifetime, Roussel's work was vociferously championed by the surrealists, but never achieved the widespread acclaim for which he yearned. New Impressions of Africa is undoubtedly Roussel's most extraordinary work. Si

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Paperback, Limited to 1000 slipcased copies, 255 pages

Published January 1st 2004 by Atlas Press (GB) (first published 1927)

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Nov 09, 2009 tENTATIVELY, cONVENIENCE rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

Do I have a favorite poet? No. Do I really enjoy reading poetry that much? No. Do I think Raymond Roussel is a great poet? YES. I might not've answered YES before reading this bk.. but now I'm convinced. I'd previously been very impressed by his "The View" for reasons that're typical of me: THE IDEA OF IT: the idea of writing a long poem based on describing what the author can see reflected in the convex surface of a paperweight. This attn to detail, this amazing focus, this novel formal restric...more

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Mar 26, 2011 Tosh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First of all anyone who is interested in 20th century literature should have a copy of this book. Number two, beyond the hype or stories how this book affected the 20th Century and beyond - this is pretty damn great book. Raymond Roussel was one of those guys who had it. And yes extremely wealthy and extremely neurotic - but nevertheless a superb genius.

So what we have is a poetry book that is also probably the most clever "literary" puzzle ever. The translator Mark Ford, who is also the Englis...more

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May 02, 2011 Eddie Watkins rated it 5 of 5 stars

Reading this book soothes me in a very weird way.

* * * * * * * * *

Now here's a book that should have distinct entries here on GR for its two current translations into English - Ian Monk's and Mark Ford's.

Why the more recent Mark Ford version sports blurbs to the effect that his translation is the first is beyond me, though I'm beginnning to suspect some minor conspiracy initiated by distributors of foreign books and their campaign to limit the availability, and perhaps even deny the existence, o...more

Reading this book soothes me in a very weird way.

* * * * * * * * *

Now here's a book that should have distinct entries here on GR for its two current translations into English - Ian Monk's and Mark Ford's.

Why the more recent Mark Ford version sports blurbs to the effect that his translation is the first is beyond me, though I'm beginnning to suspect some minor conspiracy initiated by distributors of foreign books and their campaign to limit the availability, and perhaps even deny the existence, of Atlas Press editions.

I read Monk's version a couple years ago and it was a revelation that soothed me in a very weird way (see above), and I was content to reread his translation for the remainder of my days. But then out of the blue comes Mark Ford's translation in a conventional looking hardback designed for mass transmission (Monk's version is more of a precious object of publisher's art), and my initial impression was of slackness and dilation as compared to Monk's edgy terseness. This comparatively poor impression was intensified when I actually read the poem's first canto and was continually interrupted in my reading by end notes of often unnecessary explication (I much preferred the purer presentation of Monk's version, being as it is much closer to Roussel's original version, with the onus of understanding placed entirely upon the reader). But then when I read Ford's version of the first canto twice and went back and read Monk's version once, I began to see the benefits of having two very different translations, and presentations, of this great poem; though I was still on the fence about the benefits of Ford's version in isolation.

Ford goes to great lengths to make the poem's syntax and meaning as clear as possible, at the expense of rendering it in any stanzaic uniformity, as Monk does by translating Roussel's rhyming alexandrines as rhyming iambic pentameter.

In my back to back readings of the first cantos of each translation I noticed that Ford's is much more explicit in its expression of Roussel's apparent fecal (or generally excremental, whether solid liquid or gas) preoccupation; a preoccupation I did not even notice until I read Ford's translation.

In the end, or rather in the beginning of the end, as I continue to read this masterpiece in these two versions, I suspect that I will read Ford's much more immediately accessible version as a way to enhance my reading of Monk's denser, prettier, and more mysterious version.
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Sep 22, 2009 Anthony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: french-literature

My new favorite Roussel

A poem comprised of four long sentences, each extended, broken apart and complicated by a series of parenthetical statements, which have, in turn their own parentheses, and parentheses within parentheses within parentheses, etc. ((((((for example, 6th level parentheses are designated as such)))))) the sentences are also interrupted by various footnotes (all rhymed, reminding us of their unusual place as both part of the poem and also outside the poem-- sometimes the footn...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Jim Elkins rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: french

What does it mean, exactly, to read this book? [return][return]First, I think it must mean that you have already read 'How I Wrote Certain of My Books,' 'Locus Solus,' and 'Impressions of Africa': that is, you are thoroughly immersed, hypnotized, pithed by Roussel's absolutely unimpeachable, unapproachable weirdness. Then, I think it should mean you have read something about Roussel: Foucault's very literary book, or possibly Mark Ford's very sober appreciation.[return][return]But then what can...more What does it mean, exactly, to read this book? [return][return]First, I think it must mean that you have already read 'How I Wrote Certain of My Books,' 'Locus Solus,' and 'Impressions of Africa': that is, you are thoroughly immersed, hypnotized, pithed by Roussel's absolutely unimpeachable, unapproachable weirdness. Then, I think it should mean you have read something about Roussel: Foucault's very literary book, or possibly Mark Ford's very sober appreciation.[return][return]But then what can it possibly mean to read a book that keeps opening parentheses (like this ((and then parentheses within those, like this (((or this))) apparently endlessly (((and not at all always rationally ((((or so it seems)))) )))) )) ), playing arcane word games, making unconsciously ridiculous similes, proposing utterly opaque allusions, proposing the reader stop to cut the intentionally uncut octavo pages, and posing book-length puzzles that can never be solved because they aren't even (proper) puzzles. Even that sentence is easiest to read by plowing straight through. If I try to read it according to the order of the parentheses, I need to parse it carefully, and that is at once tedious and unrewarding.[return][return]Here are the two most obvious ways that 'New Impressions of Africa' proposes that it be read:[return][return]1. Read straight through, including footnotes whenever they appear.[return][return]2. Read the way the surrealist's machine for turning the pages of the book supposedly worked: i.e., read to the opening of the first parentheses, find the place where that parenthesis closes, read from there to the end of the canto, return to the opening of the parenthesis, read (skipping interpolated parentheses), etc. -- until you have read the very last quintuple-nested parenthesis.[return][return]The first kind of reading cannot yield the sense of any canto, because the logic, the argument -- whatever it should be called -- will be impossible to follow. The second raises two further possibilities:[return][return]2a. Read mechanically, assiduously, skipping nothing, but reading in the moment, taking in each new stanza or couplet or page as it presents itself.[return][return]2b. Read as you would read a piece of argumentative non-fiction, or a detective story: that is, try to keep the argument, or logic, or story, or grammar in mind as you go.[return][return]I propose this last is the real challenge of the book, and I see almost no evidence that critics have tried it: and yet I think the logic and structure of the book itself makes such a reading just barely possible, and therefore necessary. [return][return]I claim to have read Canto 2, 'The Battlefield of the Pyramids,' in this way, keeping the logic of the entire canto in mind as I read. It opens with three nested arguments in the space of half a page: a description of a coat (then a parenthesis opens, and inside it begins a description of a scarecrow, as an allegory of faith ((then a double parenthesis opens, and inside it a meditation on the cross apprently begins)) ); the first two argments end where the parentheses close, on the last page of the canto. It was possible for me, one afternoon, to keep the entire top-heavy, preposterously artificial, tottering, twisted, perverse, inhuman argument in mind at once. At that moment -- which is now long gone -- I felt I had expended the effort Roussel demanded, and found my way to a new kind of rigor. A useless rigor, of course, but that is entirely the point.(less)

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Dec 20, 2009 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably not the best place to start with Roussel, this is my favorite of his books. The translation is a tour-de-force.

Wash your hands before reading --the cream paper retains smudges.

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Dec 10, 2007 Ian marked it as to-read

recommended by judd

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