Homage to place

During my Zhivago festival of 2020, I read somewhere that 'Dr Zhivago' can be read as a homage to the vanishing Moscow of Pasternak's youth. And I dare say that someone has written that 'Ulysses' can be read as a homage to the vanishing Dublin of Joyce's youth. While I say that Maigret can be read as a homage to the vanishing Paris of Simenon's youth, or at least young manhood, Paris not being his natal city at all. Which perhaps makes him, as a convert, more Catholic than the Pope (a phrase which one does not seem to come across very much these days).

Reading the Maigret story at reference 3 this morning, I was moved to take a look it up in my Michelin Paris, an AZ for Paris; to check up on the locale. Where I come across a James Joyce garden, middle left in the snap above. Not far from the National Library and, entirely appropriately, not far from Bercy across the river, right in the snap above, once home to the wine warehouses which supplied Paris, complete with attendant drinkers, drunks and tramps. An area which has been redeveloped and gentrified since Simenon first knew it, just like our own Docklands or Kings Cross.

And, as it happens, not far from the Chapel of St. Louis, just inside the Hôpital Universitaire Pitié-Salpêtrière, the French version of Barts. The chapel mentioned at reference 4, although it does not explain that we went to a sort of service there at which the arrival of a large reliquary was celebrated, with a choir and all. I was even invited to help carry the reliquary into the chapel, an honour I thought it best to decline. While outside, large banners had been affixed to the railings explaining that smoking was shortly to be banned.

Maybe if we ever make it back to Paris we will go in for Maigret days, visiting all the places which get into some story or other. Perhaps I will spend happy days beforehand planning it all out.

References

Reference 1: Dr. Zhivago - B. L. Pasternak - 1957.

Reference 2: Ulysses - J. Joyce - 1922.

Reference 3: Maigret et les témoins récalcitrants - G. Simenon - 1958. Rencontre edition, volume XXI.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=chapel+st+louis.