Going, going...

Patrick Modiano on the fading city:

"In Baudelaire's time the whole Carrousel area was destroyed. He wrote a poem about it ... nowadays Paris is rather aseptic and everything has become more uniform, yet there is still something strange and mysterious about certain quartiers ... I often have a sense of Paris being covered by a layer of cellophane and I feel as though my own memories have become almost imaginary. It's rather like a favourite pet – a dog or a cat – that has been stuffed and sent to the taxidermist. You recognise it, but it's no longer alive."