Images of the Capital

Carlos Larronde's stunning modernist portrait of Paris comes alive in this illustrated edition featuring the first English translation by D.J. Pigott and synthetic cubist artwork by Ann Poole. Originally published in Nicolas Beauduin's influential literary journal La Vie des Lettres in April 1914 – alongside works by Karel Čapek and André Gide – Larronde's kaleidoscopic vision captures the metropolis at the height of urban transformation. Across nineteen impressionistic vignettes, the text reveals a city simultaneously monstrous and magnificent, observed from multiple perspectives – the aerial city with its "propellers tracing boulevards," the underground "grotto of indefinite proportions," and the surface where "machines gesticulate as far as the eye can see." Poole's cubist illustrations create a visual dialogue with Larronde's fragmented perspectives, offering a perfect counterpart to his verbal architecture. Together, they capture the overwhelming sensory experience of modernity – the crowd that "becomes thunderous with enthusiasm," construction sites where "cranes blow the blue of the sky that the teeth of the roofs nibble," and cafés where "intelligence is reduced in proportion to the number of voices." Pigott's meticulous translation preserves both the precision and the poetry of Larronde's prose. His rendering maintains the text's distinctive rhythm while creating natural English expressions that convey the author's ambivalence toward urban life – a fascination with the city's energy coupled with dismay at its dehumanizing aspects. This chimeric edition creates a new artistic dialogue between text and image, offering contemporary readers a multisensory experience of the modern city as it emerged at the cusp of World War I. The text culminates in a moment of reconciliation, as the narrator gazes at the city from across the river: "City, you are the pathetic monument of lust and strength." Yet despite this understanding, the final lines urge us away from urban confines: "Let us go and see how the vineyard is ordered and how the forest prays."