The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir

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.

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

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The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir

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