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The Impersonal Adventure
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
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ISBN13: 9781939663726
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: Nov 15 2022
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.62
Height: 0.40 Width: 4.50 Depth: 7.00
Language: English
A disorienting, de Chirico-esque detective tale of curio shops and eerie antiquities, penned in France's postwar trauma
A traveling businessman decides to tarry in an unnamed city, dons a new name and profession on a whim, and rents a room in a hotel on an island at the city's edge. As he wanders through the streets of unvisited storefronts and offices, he encounters a strange constellation of characters: a sinister night watchman; his spiritual half-brother, the professor; and a mute beauty who quickly obsesses him. They in turn lead the narrator into labyrinths of crowded curio shops and secondhand furnishers where the secrets of the island lie buried behind armoires and delirium. As the narrator pieces together the drama at the heart of the abandoned quarter, he discovers missing elements to his own biography and the role he is to play as witness to tragedy.
Marcel Béalu (1908-93) was a French poet and novelist who drew inspiration from German Romanticism and French Surrealism, but avoided schools of thought and autobiography. His work was distinct for its dreamlike qualities and has established him as a master of the French fantastique. He made his living as a hat maker (when he first met the poet Max Jacob, who took him under his wing), an antiques dealer, and then as a bookseller.
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