The Shape Of A City

Julien Gracq

ISBN 10: 1885586396 / ISBN 13: 9781885586391

Published by Turtle Point Press, US, 2005

About this Item

The most original book of Julien Gracq's later output is about Nantes. It begins with a quotation from Beaudelaire that is repeated and distorted. Nantes, still haunted by Andrİ Breton, Jacques Vache and Rimbaud behind them is reconstructed from a remembered image in which the lycİe Clİmenceau occupies the centre. Pathos filtered through humour guides the author as he writes of a child's experience of the hierarchy of urban spaces. This is a beautiful work, provocative and powerfully set amid verifiable and equally moving land- and cityscapes.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781885586391

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Shape Of A City
• Publisher: Turtle Point Press, US
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1885586396
• ISBN 13: 9781885586391
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 240 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Julien Gracq, the most important writer in France, is also the only living writer whose complete works appear in a volume of the prestigious Pleiades editions. The most original of his later works is this book about Nantes, which is Gracq’s personal and profound response to Proust’s synthesis of memory, reverie, and realism.

The work begins with a quote from Baudelaire: “The shape of a city, as we all know, changes more quickly than the mortal heart.” The author writes of a child’s experience of the hierarchy of urban spaces: the radial avenues walked during school recreation periods, the districts between the axes, and the relationship to Nantes of those who lived there, including Breton and Rimbaud.

About the Author

Julien Gracq (1910-2007), born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, was one of the greatest French writers of the twentieth century. His work included essays, criticism, fiction and journalism. He won but refused the Prix Goncourt in 1951 for his novel Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore). This retiring and misunderstood figure said he wrote "to settle a score with expression itself, to give form, stability, precision to things that are vague in the mind."