
The Ruins of Paris
Jacques Reda(Author)
Reaktion Books (Publisher)
Published on 1. September 1996
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-0-948462-93-1 (ISBN)
Description
Translated by Mark Treharne
From Belleville to Passy, from Montmartre to La-Butte-aux-Cailles, from Antony to Saint-Ouen - Jacques Reda is a traveller in his own city of Paris. In the tradition of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, he is a nervous, rather unleisurely flaneur, unsettling and subverting preconceived ideas about travel and home.
The Ruins of Paris echoes with the footsteps and the words of a wanderer by turns gloomy, curious, troubled, elated, angry, tender and confused (and sometimes all these things at once). We are led through the arrondissements and suburbs of Paris and beyond in a journey that moves to the rhythm of walking, of trains, to the hopeful tempo of upbeat jazz.
Reda the wanderer is forever on the move: he constantly sets off, stops, begins afresh, treasuring movement itself while journeying from place to place. Journeys that are at once exhilarating and familiar, journeys that mirror life itself and a world that ceaselessly rises anew from its own ruins. Jacques Reda's book is both a poetic meditation on Paris and a haunting companion to its views and moods.
From Belleville to Passy, from Montmartre to La-Butte-aux-Cailles, from Antony to Saint-Ouen - Jacques Reda is a traveller in his own city of Paris. In the tradition of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, he is a nervous, rather unleisurely flaneur, unsettling and subverting preconceived ideas about travel and home.
The Ruins of Paris echoes with the footsteps and the words of a wanderer by turns gloomy, curious, troubled, elated, angry, tender and confused (and sometimes all these things at once). We are led through the arrondissements and suburbs of Paris and beyond in a journey that moves to the rhythm of walking, of trains, to the hopeful tempo of upbeat jazz.
Reda the wanderer is forever on the move: he constantly sets off, stops, begins afresh, treasuring movement itself while journeying from place to place. Journeys that are at once exhilarating and familiar, journeys that mirror life itself and a world that ceaselessly rises anew from its own ruins. Jacques Reda's book is both a poetic meditation on Paris and a haunting companion to its views and moods.
Reviews / Votes
In France, Jacques Rédas prose writings are passed back and forth between friends with the enthusiastic secret-sharing that one associates with fan clubs. Membership requirements include a taste for precise, tenderly ironic prose, polished to a delicacy of finish rarely attained by contemporary French writers. * John Taylor, <i>The Times Literary Supplement</i> *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-948462-93-1 (9780948462931)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jacques Reda is the author of several collections of poetry including Recitatif (1970) and La Tourne (1975). Les Ruines de Paris was his first book of prose and is published here in English for the first time.