The Shape Of A City

The most original book of Julien Gracqs later output is about Nantes. It begins with a quotation from Baudelaire that Gracq repeats and distorts: The shape of a city as we all know changes more quickly than the mortal heart. Nantes still haunted by Andre Breton Jacques Vache and Rimbaud behind them is reconstructed from a remembered image in which the Lycee Clemenceau occupies the center. Pathos filtered through humor guides the author as he writes of a childs experience of the hierarchy of urban spaces: the radial avenues walked during school recreation periods the districts between these axes the waterways and the relationship of Nantes to the hinterlands that surround it.