Book excerpt: Seventeen years after the publication of the first volume of Jacques Roubaud's epic and moving "The Great Fire of London," Dalkey Archive Press is proud to publish the first English translation of The Loop, the second novel in Roubaud's Proustian series, which has in its capacity to astonish been compared to the compositions of Messiaen and the buildings of Antonio Gaudi. Devastated after the death of his young wife, Alix, the author conceives of a project that will allow him not only to continue writing, but continue living--writing a book that leads him to confront his terrible loss as well as examine the lonely world in which he now seems, more and more, to exist: that of Memory. The Loop finds Roubaud returning to his earliest recollections, as well as considering the nature of memory itself, and the process--both merciful and terrible--of forgetting. Neither memoir nor novel, by turns playful and despairing, The Loop is a masterpiece of contemporary prose.