The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir

by Edel, Leon

• ISBN13: 9780824824310
• ISBN10: 0824824318
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr

Summary

The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir is a fascinating account of the late Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer's experience as a member of a psychological warfare unit during the liberation of France. Arriving in Normandy a month after D-Day, Edel was part of the De Gaulle force that entered Paris, the scene of his own student days during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

In his Foreword, Edel describes his method as "trying to let one kind of story beget another; one moment of experience summon a series of past moments". The Visitable Past is therefore not only an account of France recovering from its years of occupation, but also a memoir of Edel's earlier Parisian days as a young man of letters. Wartime encounters with Sylvia Beach and Morton Fullerton lead to recollections of James Joyce, Edith Wharton, and Edel's own early work on Henry James.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
PART ONE: TRANSFORMATIONS
I Am Drafted	3	(8)
Fort Eustis: Soldiering	11	(3)
Camp Ritchie: Military Intelligence	14	(8)
Camp Sharpe: Psychological Warfare	22	(7)
PART TWO: NORMADY
Convoy and Landfall	29	(5)
Omacha Beach and an Orchard	34	(4)
A Month in the Country	38	(12)
Liberating Brittany	50	(11)
PART THREE: ENTERING PARIS
A Hermitage at Montigny	61	(9)
A Pause at Rambouillet	70	(5)
A Night in the Prefecture	75	(6)
The Hotel Scribe	81	(5)
De Gaulle Triumphant	86	(8)
Musings and Memories	94	(4)
Carnival Without Masks	98	(3)
Captain Miller and the Place de la Bourse	101	(7)
Liane and Her Companions	108	(15)
PART FOUR: BOULEVARD WINTER
In the rue d'Aguesseau	123	(3)
Behind the Lines	126	(3)
Searching for Sylvia Beach	129	(9)
Edith's Lover in Old Age: Encounters with W. Morton Fullerton	138	(8)
Interiors	146	(8)
From My Notebook	154	(4)
A Parachutist's Story	158	(2)
The Performing Arts	160	(3)
Hospitals	163	(2)
Romances and Show Biz	165	(4)
Reveillon 1944	169	(8)
PART FIVE: STRASBOURG
A Sudden Panic	177	(4)
Farewells	181	(4)
A Winter Journey	185	(3)
Strasbourg Besieged	188	(2)
Street of the Blue Sky	190	(2)
Briefings	192	(4)
Story of Claude	196	(4)
Siege Notes	200	(7)
Cannonade	207	(4)
A Didactic Moment	211	(4)
PART SIX: INFORMAL FURLOUGH
Return from the Front	215	(3)
The Avenue Rapp	218	(2)
Plans and Proposals	220	(3)
An Informal Furlough	223	(6)
A Soldier's Tale	229	(2)
Miss Nausicaa	231	(6)
Reverie in the Avenue Montaigne	237	(3)
Terminations	240