A lost work by Raymond Roussel

Raymond Roussel had confidence. From David Wallace’s review of Roussel’s The Alley of Fireflies, a long-lost unfinished novel, now available in English, translated by Mark Ford:

Suddenly, he was overcome by a realization that he was a great genius. “I was the equal of Dante and Shakespeare,” he told his psychologist. “I felt glory.”

I’ve begun reading The Alley of Fireflies and just hit the little statue filled with frozen wine. What the review doesn’t mention is that the mold for the statue is three centimeters tall and takes the form of Voltaire’s Pangloss dressed as Ceres.