Portrait Of The Artist As A Derelict Morphinomane

INSEL

By Mina Loy, edited by Elizabeth Arnold, foreword by Roger Conover

1991

First edition review copy of the poet's only novel, an intermittently autobiographical narrative examination of the cosmically irritating Insel, a parasitical painter based loosely on the German surrealist Richard Oelze.

Fine.

Price: $350.00

INSEL

"No," said Insel, "none of the surrealists will have anything to do with me. They know only too well, if they did, I should try to borrow money."

Denied publication in the author's lifetime by an uncharacteristically short-sighted publisher who "questioned whether it was really a novel" (Conover), INSEL is in fact a novel by Randall Jarrell's definition, the only one that matters ("The novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.") Episodic, obsessional, philosophical, and full of better jokes than its reputation for difficulty would suggest, INSEL is very like a Surrealist screwball comedy – specifically, like a Surrealist MY MAN GODFREY, the film the narrator watches with her threatening but toothless "ethereal bum" (Arnold) just to underline the parallel. Uncommon.

The Object

First printing. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1991. 9'' x 6''. Original yellow cloth spine with paper-covered boards. In original publisher's acetate dust jacket. 196, [4] pages. Edition of 250 hardcover trade copies. Original publisher's review slip laid in. Minor edgewear. Light rubbing to jacket.

The Fine Print

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