Le topos urbain fantasmé de Guy Vaes et Julien Gracq : entre spécularité et simulacre
The imagined Urban Topos of Guy Vaes and Julien Gracq: between Specularity and Simulacrum

Summary/Abstract: The city, as it is present in the writings of Guy Vaes and Julien Gracq, is a misleading construction perceived in a mirror that attenuates or enlarges the primary image: Singapore as a specular image of London at Vaes, London as a city-sketch incessantly refined by a Per-fectionist Creator, the Gracquian Nantes reflected by the river... Added to it are the imagi-nary cities Orsenna and Maremma, where the specularity is all the more singular because it brings with it a reality extradiegetic and a play of reflections at the intradiegetic level. In books with autobiographical character, but also through the urban journeys of the fictional characters, the image of a fantasized city is restored, which is only another modality to ac-cess what is hidden and of illustrate the enigmatic and disorganized aspect of urban reality. Reality is imbued with a second space that carries, perhaps better, the colors of life. High-lighted by this game of doubling and repetition, the urban space inscribed in the scriptural space represents the unique geo-poetic visions of these two writers.

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